Hang on to your 1994s. A late, cool, but even season that enabled fruit to ripen with a minimum of disease and a whack of ripe fruit and flavour, 1994 has never really been given its due as one of the signature vintages of the last 30 years. I have constantly rated its wines highly and again last night I had reason to thank my lucky stars I invested in it. I tasted three excellent 1994s around another great dinner at Matteo’s in North Fitzroy, Melbourne. Each appeared to be significantly younger than its nine years of age, and each had a considerable cellaring life ahead. In fact, neither of the wines, being Yalumba’s Signature blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, Jim Barry’s The Armagh Shiraz and Howard Park’s Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot blend were even approaching their peak. Steeped in sweet, succulent dark fruit which it wrapped in creamy vanilla oak, the Yalumba was virtually the most youthful and under-developed. The Armagh is significantly more perfumed and aromatic than most vintages of this label, with a fine, clear palate of silkiness and piercingly clear fruit. The Howard Park is, if anything, undergoing something of a tardy adolescence, having lost much of its intense primary fruit and still awaiting the inevitable development of classic bottle-aged qualities. The real point about the 1994 vintage is that it was made from fruit that was physiologically ripe. Australians had yet to start worrying about shrivel, hang time and Parker points. Nobody was deliberately making red wines with 15% alcohol by volume. In their youth, the 1994 reds were sublimely sweet (with fruit intensity), silky and smooth. They were undemanding and easy to drink. Only a few were aggressively extracted and blocky. Today they are as fine and seamless as ever. The best are surprisingly youthful and will develop for at least another decade. Yet they are packed with fruit and flavour, full in body and firm in backbone. Will we be able to say this sort of thing about the Australian reds from 2000 and 2001 in six or seven years time? I doubt it. Yet today you can still buy 1994s for very good prices at wine auctions. Don’t say you weren’t tipped off!
