A Hunter's Dinner

Even though New South Wales isn’t too far from here, we just don’t see many of the wines from there.  SWMBO and I visited a few years back and The Chairman took us all around.  We came, we saw, we dined and drank, and took some bottles back with us.  The Chairman visits regularly, and usually brings a gift of bubbles, but this time, he brought some of his local wines.  We’d normally have to hunt around to find such or similar gems, but here they were, delivered into our laps.  It was time to bring out our bottles, and we put together a little taste of New South Wales, with the Hunter, Mudgee and beyond to taste over dinner.

Two whites to start the proceedings, beginning with a 2010 Scarborough Hunter Valley Semillon, quite shy at first, but slowing revealing its herb, grassy and waxy, lanolin character.  No shortage of unctuous textures, but also lots of acid liveliness.  We decided we bad broached it far too early.  And it could have been a wine to last another decade.  This was definitely more in the classical and elegant style.  When we visited The Chairman three years ago, he put on a newly made 2011 Miners’ Folly Hunter Valley Chardonnay, which we didn’t appreciate well, considering it was just grapes on the vine about three months earlier.  Now, with another three years in bottle, it showed Chardonnay as we knew it.  But remarkably elegant, with fresh stonefruits and subtle wood input.  The fruit extract and smooth texture hinting at old vines, and detailed complexities emerging every minute in the glass.  Maybe we could come back to it in another three years?

Onto the reds with a hearty meal of lamb.  A 2011 Scarborough Hunter Valley Shiraz bowled us over with its bright, sweet, lifted berry fruit aromas and flavours.  Soft red fruits, jam and florals, and some fruit bon bons, and a supple tannin core.  The sweetness gave this a soft finish, but I could see this living years.  There a resemblance to Pinot Noir here.  No wonder they called Shiraz ‘Hunter River Burgundy’ in the past.  This followed by a 2006 Lowe ‘Reserve’ Mudgee Shiraz.  A big wine, quite traditional with big robust bold savoury fruit, a little secondary, undergrowth complexity, and a grunty structure, tannin extract and grip to match.  A little more than traditional, and a touch of muddiness?  Afterall, that’s what Mudgee suggests.  A strong wine with a future ahead, and powerful for its old-fashionness

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The last wine to cap off a great night, a 1994 de Bortoli ‘Noble One’, botrytised Semillon.  Dark mahogany colour gave us the creeps, but brassy, crystallised fruits, wood and honey, still sweet, lush and decadent.  Maybe a little hard?  Maybe a touch dried-out.  But still all there and delicious raisins, wild honey and burnt marmalade.  This of course is from the Riverina, within the N.S.W. border.