Having faced concerns from a prestigious South Australian small wine company Rosemount has now released the first wines from its new and somewhat controversially named Mudgee range of table wines, christened Hill of Gold after the company’s 27 year-old vineyard in the region. Under previous ownership this vineyard produced wines under this name in the 1970s and early 1980s. Since its purchase of the property in 1996 Rosemount has increased the vineyard’s size from 100 to 350 acres and with the massive Cumbandry vineyard development nearby, will shortly have unprecedented access to premium Mudgee fruit. There are three wines in the new range, each retailing around $20, namely a Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. What they share is a level of ripe fruit intensity only rarely encountered in their price bracket, chardonnay and shiraz especially. The Chardonnay 1999 is a clean, tangy and minerally wine with distinctive floral and sherbet aromas, bright melon and citrus fruit and cashew/hazelnut complexity. I rate it as 17.4 (drink 2001-2004). The Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 (16.6, drink 2006-2010) is a massively powerful and robust wine pushing the limits of alcohol strengths in this variety. Its deep dark heady cassis and plum aromas have a note of bay leaf about them and the wine does lack complexity, if not intensity. The Shiraz 1998 (17.4, drink 2006-2010) is a classy, fruit-driven wine whose long, penetrative and fine-grained palate is highlighted by lingering, sour-edged musky ripe cassis and plums and savoury, chocolate/mocha oak.
