The wine I name as my Wine of the Year is the finest of the current-release Australian wines I have encountered throughout my year’s tasting program. This is the sixteenth time it has been awarded, which happens after a tasting of typically around 20 wines which determine the identity of the finalists, then of the winner itself. It’s a process of elimination – which sounds easy enough – but on this occasion it was anything but simple. Frankly, it was a brilliant tasting which could have been won by any of three wines. But as it usually does, one wine in particular then makes a case.
2nd Place Mount Mary Quintet 2013 (98)
Mount Mary is experiencing a stellar series of recent vintages, especially with its signature wine, the Quintet. Despite the warmer 2013 season, Sam Middleton and his team have crafted a wine of purity and elegance, perhaps with a fraction more flesh than the wines of yesteryear, but with fastidious regard and respect to the style established by Dr John Middleton. Each of the varieties are individually made and matured in oak before blending, resulting in a wine of exceptional harmony and longevity. It continues to open up and evolve for hours after uncorking (yes, you read correctly!).
3rd Place Penfolds Grange 2010 (98)
Another wine that could justifiably been given this award, this is an outstanding expression of what Grange is all about. A deeply ripened and fuller vintage, it’s still rather submerged by new American oak but has the balance, structure and impenetrable depth of flavour to do exactly what Grange aspires to – which is to reward anyone with the patience to wait for around four decades. That said, it should have settled down sufficiently within 10-15 years to look pretty special by then. It’s a very worthy successor to the 2004 vintage, which took this award.
4th Place Thomas Braemore Semillon 2014 (97)
It has been mentioned elsewhere in this edition that the 2014 vintage produced something truly special from the Hunter Valley, and to this point in time this is the finest example I have encountered. It’s almost Cru Chablis-like for perfume and intensity, yet it has the characteristic balance, length and mineral texture that should see it age for many a year. Part of the Hunter Valley’s magic is how it can imbue such depth of fruit at such low levels of alcohol; so don’t be surprised if you taste this wine while it’s still young. The real joy of this wine, however, should come in about ten to fifteen years from now.
5th Place Paradise IV Shiraz 2014 (97)
The best wine yet from this extraordinary site along the Moorabool Valley near Geelong reveals such a thoroughly Old Worldly perfume, depth of flavour, dusty texture and savoury, charcuterie-like qualities that I could forgive anyone for not picking it as Australian. As I suggested it would several years ago, this label is becoming the most influential shiraz in modern Australian wine despite the minute scale of its production. Made and nurtured in a tiny gravity-fed winery, the wine is hardly moved until it’s bottled. Hard as it is to imagine, winemaker Doug Neal is convinced that the 2015 vintage is another step up in quality.
6th Place Hardys Thomas Hardy Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 (97)
The Hardys red wine team, which includes some pretty serious talent in Paul Lapsley and Ross Pamment, have blended together cabernet from some very mature vineyards art Willyabrup with fruit sourced from a 30 year-old Coonawarra site on excellent terra rossa to create this exceptionally elegant reserve grade red. Based around Coonawarra fruit, the Thomas Hardy red can incorporate material from Frankland River, McLaren Vale, Coonawarra, Margaret River and Frankland River. It is matured in 25-33% new Bordelais oak and is only released when its makers are entirely satisfied with its quality. That’s an approach others could learn from.
7th Place Seppelt Drumborg Vineyard Riesling 2014 (97)
Yet another superlative, truly international riesling from this cool and breezy site in southwestern Victoria. This year there’s a shade less than 8 grams per litre sugar, which is sweet by traditional Australian standards, but the wine has the acidity (pH being less than 3!) and textural minerality to balance it out with ease. Strongly influenced by the regime established by Arthur O’Connor, who was himself inspired by the modern rieslings from Austria, this wine received four weeks of lees contact prior to bottling.
8th Place Cloudburst Malbec 2013 (97)
It has taken me longer than perhaps it has taken others to warm to the concept of straight varietal malbec, a process that has greatly been accelerated within the confines of some exceptional Argentinian restaurants in Hong Kong. There is nothing remotely Argentinian about this wine, however, which captures the essence of young merlot fruit in a thoroughly wild and briary, distinctly edgy, sour-fruited way. It’s underpinned by the finest of mineral tannins, yet has the structure to develop handsomely.
9th Place Cloudburst Chardonnay 2014 (97)
The second wine in this list from a vineyard that makes its debut in this edition is still very elemental and primary. That said, it presents a depth of fruit and sumptuous but elegant and vivacious texture that I have not seen before in Australian chardonnay. It has an emphatic presence of translucently clear fruit whose handsome oak treatment will settle down over the next year. Cloudburst, for its tiny scale and output, has already added another dimension to Australian wine.
10th Place Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz 2014 (97)
Bruce Tyrrell will happily tell you how good this wine is, and he’s right. Perhaps the finest Tyrrell’s red in bottle since the 1965 Dry Red, which I actually remember as if tasted yesterday, it is everything you could imagine the Hunter could imbue into its shiraz, but gives a little bit more – including elegance. It was sourced from the red volcanic strip that runs through the Weinkeller, NVC and Short Flat Vineyards, with a vine age averaging 50 years, before maturation in new large format casks. It’s fragrant, sumptuously flavoured, fine-grained and savoury.
