Sydney Offline January

[Croquet King]

Thank you for everyone's company and generosity last night. It was my first offline and had a great time. It was great meeting you all.
My passion for wine is something I love to share and there was plenty of it around the table.

Dave - thanks for the lift home. It was much appreciated.


A few notes on the wines from me:

Champagne's
Lenoble & 2008 Franck Bonville Grand Cru
I liked both of these. Some nice yeast with good acid structure. Happy with either but preferred the Lenoble just.

Marsanne - Tahbilk
1989, 1996, 2002
Would not have guessed it from the nose but I thought the 96 was the pick.
Great to see a good value wine evolve.

Rousanne
Well I was sure this was a Hunter Chard. Not bad at all. Excellent choice for a masked wine.
Probably wouldn't buy a dozen but was worth trying.

1998 Seppelts Great Western Reserve Shiraz
Cracker of a wine - especially as I have a half dozen in the cellar. WOTN for me.

1998 Wynns Michael Shiraz
Not as big as I expected and was drinking beautifully. I always associate the Michael and Riddoch as massive wines but this has settled down nicely.
Highly rated.

2008 Wendouree Shiraz
I purchased by first lot of Wendouree this year and the jury is out. It's a well made wine but I'm not sure it was to my taste. I got some slight medicinal characters.

2004 Rockford Rifle Range Cabernet
If tasted blind I would have guessed this was a shiraz. Nice structure drinking well.

1991 Leeuwin Estate Cabernet
I've had a few of these and thought this as a good typical example. Lots of grippy tannins still.

1969 Redman Claret
From the year of my birth. This got me excited, so much so that I posted a picture of it on facebook. (Modern day praise I guess)

[griff]

Sounds like a cracking night gents. Still poorly today so was right to give it a miss. Lemon tea isn't as nice though

[catchnrelease]

Good night, my Hoddles 1er's arrived this morning. One in the decanter now.

Tough for me to pick, I really liked the Kumeu River Chard, but the Seppelts was probably the best wine of the night. Loved the Wendouree, young but lovely. Wynns Michael was no where near as big as I was expecting, nice wine but lacking a bit of oomph. Tahbilks were nice, '96 my pick as well. '69 Redman was showing really well - great to try.

I warned everyone that I had no idea whether the port was gonna be good or not. All I could say was that it was pretty cheap (well, $20 p.b.). Wayyyyyy too alcoholic, some cocoa on the finish but so much heat up front. Maybe time will help? Probably not. Palmed it off to some chicks chatting in their front yard, not worth carrying it home.

[Polymer]

Had a writeup but something went wrong so since I can't be bothered to write it all again...

Just to correct what I told some people at the Offline...after reading Cams info on it, the Seppelt Great Western Reserve Shiraz is a barrel selection. Their top 10 barrels of the Great Western Shiraz (now known as St. Peters) went into the Reserve...and it just so happened those had gone through more new oak (I'm assuming somewhere earlier in the process). Either way, it is some sort of barrel selection and I think they tend to show a bit more oak than the normal Great Westerns...

Surprise of the nights for me were the Redman...It was even better than the one Dave brought a few months ago...and the Roussanne which was very Chardonnay like because of the oak...seemed like it went through some malo too and lees stirring...great acidity though..

Sorry about the lack of mentions the rest..I had comments on them all I just don't want to type it all out again .

Great night overall...Food was good overall and the price was great....I checked out some sites and their BYO is 3/person rather than 10/bottle we thought it might be...I also liked that the food was done over a long period of time which is definitely preferable to getting it all at once...and also not getting kicked out at 10pm is good too...They seemed pretty open to giving us buckets and letting us use decanters...it wasn't too loud...I think that's a good choice for future offlines...

[TiggerK]

yeah fun night, thanks everyone. Really enjoyed Rubyos, love the space, the low noise level, low price point and I wasn't unhappy with any of the dishes. Corkage was $4 per person in the end. Really friendly staff, and as Dave said, they're now starting to 'get us' and our wine obsessed ways. Will def bring my little spittoons next time, much more discreet! We could look at the other menu option next time for a bit of variety, and can always order an extra meat dish at the end to help soak up all the big reds.

My fav's were both the Champagnes, the Marsanne 02, the Seppelt 98 and the Redman 69. Close seconds were the Michael 98 and Leeuwin 91, both of which would have starred in the absence of the Seppelt. Really enjoyed the Marsanne flight, thanks Dave, great to have a vertical with such a wide spacing of age (89, 96 and 02). Something about the 02's mouthfeel just grabbed me, should age well too. And how surprising was that Redman, think it must have been cellared properly to show that well.

Pity the 'golden nectar of the gods' German 76 was corked, I've tried a quite a few dozen aged German Rieslings over the past 5 years, and that's only the second corked one I can remember, so I really wasn't expecting a dud! They are fantastic wines. (Scott, can confirm that RWD will replace it, will PM with details)

Cheers, bring on the next one! Reckon we should do these every 2 or 3 months?
Tim

P.S I took the rest of the Kumeu HH 09 home, it was certainly drinking much better on day 2, had a lovely balance and sense of class.

[Polymer]

More often than every 2-3 months! .

[TiggerK]

Good night, my Hoddles 1er's arrived this morning. One in the decanter now.

So how was it Alex???

[maybs]

Thanks again for taking that wine Tim.

I reckon every 2 months give or take would be great, means if you do miss one the next isn't too far around the corner too.

[catchnrelease]

Good night, my Hoddles 1er's arrived this morning. One in the decanter now.

So how was it Alex???

Very good, but very closed. I'm gonna re try today at work at the shop. If anyone wants to try some HC you know where it'll be!

[Croquet King]

I contacted Lindemans regarding the TCA affected 1990 St George from the tasting.

They asked for the bottle so they could do some analysis. I didn't keep it and said for an expensive bottle I would have but it's odd that they would do so much analysis.
Anyway they offered to add me to their mailing list so I could buy some current releases wines.

Nice and responsive but no offer of a replacement bottle.
They knew that I went to the Penfolds recorking clinic and got some Grange recorked.

Oh well.

[catchnrelease]

Good night, my Hoddles 1er's arrived this morning. One in the decanter now.

So how was it Alex???

Very good, but very closed. I'm gonna re try today at work at the shop. If anyone wants to try some HC you know where it'll be!

TBH better on day one, but it is a bit too warm in the shop to enjoy it properly. Worth 97 points? Not now, maybe in a few years. But still a very good wine now.

[camw]

They asked for the bottle so they could do some analysis. I didn't keep it

Definitely worth holding on to TCA impacted bottles until you have a response. I find TWE excellent to deal with when it comes to faulty bottles but they do usually ask for bottles be returned for testing, which I consider a fair request.

[Diddy]

I find TWE excellent to deal with when it comes to faulty bottles but they do usually ask for bottles be returned for testing, which I consider a fair request.

I've often wondered what their response would be if the bottle came back to negative for TCA and the fault was undetectable? By virtue of the fact that you've gone to the effort of returning a bottle that you believe to be undrinkable, one might expect a replacement nonetheless?