Bill Moularadellis, winemaker and managing director of Kingston Estate, has left no stone unturned in a bid to ‘enthuse consumers’ by broadening the range of wines his company makes. Aware that Australia appears ‘locked into’ a few core varieties like chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and shiraz, he’s released very worthy wines from petit verdot, viognier, zinfandel and durif, in addition to increasing the spread of his very successful varietal merlot. He’s also developing associations with growers in the Alpine & King Valleys in NE Victoria and on the sales front has also established his own distribution system in the Australian and UK markets. For mine the most convincing of these wines is his most expensive, the Reserve Petit Verdot 1997, a real statement about emergent Riverland quality. It’s deep, dark and tarry, with complex wild flavours of plums and stony berry fruits. Its savoury red and black berry highlights are wound around firm, tight-knit tannins and dusty oak. I rate it at 17.5 and suggest drinking between 2002-2005. This is the second release of this wine (there was a 1995 release but no 1996) and it retails for $33, making it perhaps the most expensive Riverland table wine on the market. Petit verdot is a late-ripening Bordeaux red variety and Moularadellis has high expectations of its future in the Riverland, whose situation and climate could hardly be more different from that of Bordeaux itself. Another wine which caught my eye was the Tessera 1998 (16.7, drink 2000-2003+, $16 retail, approx.), which although showing some cooked and stewy characters, delivered ripe, plump prune/plum fruit in harmony with toasty vanilla and caramel/mocha oak. It’s a blend of 65% Riverland cabernet sauvignon, 15% Alpine & King Valleys cabernet franc, 10% Riverland merlot and 10% Riverland petit verdot. Moularadellis has also caught the viognier virus, releasing his first Kingston Estate Viognier from 1999 for $18 retail. While it captures some of the grape’s fragrant and spicy perfume, musky honeysuckle and stonefruit flavours and its warm, fleshy palate, it’s fractionally too broad and chewy. Nevertheless, a fine start from his region, which rates at 15.6 with my suggestion to drink while very young.
