The Annual Test

November is the month that I conduct a wine options game for the ‘Beepers’ who mix it with a group who are ‘Simply Gruesome’.  SWMBO is my right-hand person, and we enjoy our annual chance of testing these fine people about wine.  They are special people, as they get into the spirit of things, and everything is so well-organised.  And on top of that, there’s a healthy budget allowing the opportunity of showing some really nice wines.

It’s a confidence thing to serve something easily recognisable to start with, and the first wine was the double gold-medal winning 2012 Starborough ‘Family Estate’ Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  Pretty fleshy and juicy stuff, with mineral, gooseberry and passionfruit flavours plus a marvellous esters-aromatic lift.  An equal blend of Wairau and Awatere fruit, and showing both.  Then onto a 2009 Domaine Servin Chablis.  Unsurprisingly forward and round now, fuller, with softness.  Still the underlying flintiness that makes Chablis what it is, but the acid sear gone.  The weight of this could have made it a premier cru, if I was guessing.  The streamlined flow and fineness pointing to Chablis than the Cote d’Or.  The final white was a 2010 von Kesselstatt Scharzhofberger Riesling Kabinett.  Marred by a little reduction, this had the steely, gooseberry slate characters of Mosel, and this too was a little more weighty and substantial than expected for a wine from this exalted site in the Saar.  A touch of honeysuckle underneath and sugar adding to the mouthfeel, made this a delight, regardless of the sulphide notes.

Onto ‘The Last Man Standing’ to find the best palate in the room.  The wine for this was the 2011 Terrace Edge Waipara Valley Pinot Gris.  We managed to whittle the numbers to a quarter with one question.  And the wine’s not that hard to pick!  Lovely, decadent ripe pears and honied stonefuits.  A touch of spice, and a near unctuousness.  Classic quality Pinot Gris in the modern Alsace style.  Ahh, that’s what they thought it was…

The reds sort out the serious thinkers and drinkers from the light weighters.  Straight into the top-end stuff with a 2010 Te Mata ‘Coleraine’ Hawke’s Bay Cab/Merlot blend.  I haven’t tried this for over 7 months.  I liked it on release then, clearly ahead of its stablemate ‘Awatea’, but felt it showed the cooler, slow-to-ripen vintage.  Boy, has this come together well and put on richness and texture.  It will always be an elegant wine in the scheme of things, but great class now showing.  This was followed by the 2007 Antinori ‘Marchesi’ Chianti Classico Riserva.  Ironic that a 1981 had come our way just last week.  This quite fulsome, soft and matty in texture, maybe a little muddied in outlook, partly from distinct oakiness coming through.  A thoroughly modernist and crowd-pleasing style, and a bit disconcerting if one were a purist.  But from a drinker’s view, very satisfying in a broad way.  The final wine was the 2006 Saltram ‘No. 1’ Barossa Shiraz.  ‘No. 1’ as it’s the best they do.  Ultra-ripe and sweet, with chocolate and liquorice, smooth and lush, but underlined by plenty of fine tannin.  Brilliant ‘out-there; fruit and integrated oaking, and no ‘dead’ dullness at all.  There’s a place for these hedonistic wines.  Maybe not at the dinner table with fine and fancy fare.  But as a wine to sip and admire, while letting a testy world pass by.