Test 2003 marks the sixth naming of The OnWine Wine of the Year. In sequence, the previous winners have been Rosemount Estate’s 1996 Mountain Blue Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon, Cullen’s 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 1998, Hardy’s Eileen Hardy Shiraz 1998 and Mount Mary Quintet 2000. The finalists for this award are the wines highlighted as Wines of the Edition in the OnWine Report throughout the previous year. While the Wine of the Edition does not necessarily represent the best wine I have tasted since the previous issue, quality clearly remains paramount. Significantly, the wine must be commercially available around or shortly after the time of publication and represent some special characteristic of individuality, innovation, maturity or longevity. Wines selected must make a positive statement about style, terroir and winemaking direction. I now introduce the finalists for the 2003 OnWine Wine of the Year, and the winner itself. Wine of the Year: Lake’s Folly Cabernet Blend 2001 (April 2003) Ever since the 1960s, Lake’s Folly has happily confounded wine critics and enthusiasts alike. It flies in the face of conventional wisdom by excelling with the red Bordeaux varieties, which it’s simply just not supposed to do. Comprising 60% cabernet sauvignon, 20% petit verdot and 10% of each of shiraz and merlot, the 2001 vintage is perhaps the estate’s best yet: pristine and translucent, a fine, elegant cabernet blend of exceptional length and fineness. It’s deeply fragrant and perfumed, with a smooth, satiny palate whose bright flavours of black and red berries harmoniously integrate with cedary oak and a frame of silky tannins. An astonishing wine, whose tightness and fineness and whose near-perfect assimilation of the best that petit verdot can contribute add an unexpected dimension to the concept of Hunter Valley red wine. Lake’s Folly Cabernet Blend Ratings Finalists: Cullen Chardonnay 2002 (August 2003) Cullen has steadily emerged as one of the Margaret River’s elite makers of chardonnay. Cropped at an almost impossibly low 0.25 tonnes per acre, the 2002 Chardonnay was harvested batch by batch as the cool season only very gradually and slowly ripened a rather uneven crop. The result is a wine that captures remarkable fruit intensity, which it seamlessly delivers along a superbly long and elegant palate. Its tautness and fineness belie its concentration. Even more remarkably, more than half the fruit for this wine (57%) was harvested from the relatively youthful Ellens Ridge vineyard located around 8 km south of the main Cullen plantings at Cowaramup. Cullen Chardonnay Ratings Houghton Gladstones Shiraz 1999 (December 2002) Houghton has created a stablemate for its highly successful Jack Mann cabernet blend. It has however gone to Frankland River to find the material for its 1999 Gladstones Shiraz, the region I expect to outperform he others as WA’s finest shiraz producer. Named after Dr John Gladstones, the well-known WA research scientist, the wine reveals stature and style. Made from low-yielding 30 year-old vines at the ‘Justin Vineyard’, it was harvested ripe at 14 degrees Baume. Fermented with 5% whole bunches after a week’s cold maceration, it was then allowed to go dry on skins before pressing into 100% new Burgundian barriques, where its secondary fermentation took place. Bottled after eighteen months in oak, it presents all the pepper and spice, power and concentration that the Houghton winemakers associate with this vineyard. Houghton Gladstone’s Shiraz Ratings Orlando Jacaranda Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 (August 2003) A narrow second to the Lake’s Folly, this exceptional Coonawarra cabernet is an incredibly youthful wine that presents the classic 1998 vintage in the best possible light. It’s a sumptuous and powerful wine without any suggestion of the iron fist. Exceptionally dark and youthful, it’s deeply scented with minty, briary berry aromas and exemplary fine-grained oak. Deeply concentrated, its exceptional length of intense primary flavour is tightly framed by gravelly but beautifully integrated tannins. There’s not even a suggestion of the over-ripeness that has marred so many potentially great 1998 wines, but instead a deep, dark core of wonderful intensity and duration. Another reason I enjoy this wine so much is that it represents a significant refinement and development in style since the inaugural 1982 release, which was for some time one of the most highly decorated wines on the Australian show circuit. Orlando Jacaranda Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Ratings Stanton & Killeen Vintage Port 1998 (July 2003) For several years Chris Killeen has been at the forefront of creating Australian vintage ports with a distinctly Portuguese influence. Since 1997 he’s incorporated the Portuguese port varieties Tinta cao and tinta barocca into his wine, to augment the touriga he’s had for several years. He’s working to make his port more drinkable and finely structured than traditional Australian styles, but without sacrificing any intensity of flavour. The 1998 vintage is the best released and most authentic to date. Long and spirity, perfumed and savoury, it’s fine and silky, with an underlying spine of fine, bony tannins. It’s already ready to drink, but will improve for at least a decade. Stanton & Killeen Vintage Port Ratings Yarra Yarra ‘The Yarra Yarra’ Cabernet Blend 2000 (April 2002) With twenty year-old dryland cabernet vines at its disposal, Yarra Yarra is making some of the most sophisticated and seamless wines from red Bordeaux varieties in the region. It enjoyed a signature vintage in 1995 and in 2000 has produced its best vintage since then, especially with its flagship red, ‘The Yarra Yarra’. In weight and structure, this wine lies between Mount Mary Quintet and the Cullen Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot. A little more wild and ‘funky’ than either, there’s a suggestion of wet earth and animal hide behind its deep flavours of dark black and red berries, while the hints of cedar and tobacco reflect classic cool climate cabernet. Its chocolate/vanilla oak is assertive but integrated, and a significant component was clearly new. Long and silky, it’s beautifully ripened, with intense small fruit flavours tightly intermeshed with velvet tannins. Yarra Yarra ‘The Yarra Yarra’ Cabernet Blend Ratings
