TORB, RB & Smithy's 2002 Shiraz Taste Off

Andrew Jordan · Post by **Andrew Jordan** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:12 pm

Not sure if everybody here has read Ric's latest Mini Victorian Tour Diary. If you haven't there is an interesting event that happened on the Tuesday of the trip - tasting 50 of the best 2002 Shiraz's released. The article can be found here.

Very interesting read, and something I am sure we would all like to be involved in. Not sure though if my palate could handle 50 wines in one sitting! :shock:

It is also interesting to see the difference in highest scores awarded to a single wine with Brian being the hardest marker (top score of 18.5 awarded to the Summerfield Reserve Shiraz), then Ric (top score of 18.7 awarded to 2 wines, the E&E Black Pepper and the Brown Brothers Patricia) and then Smithy leap frogging ahead of the pack with a 19.8 being awarded also to the E&E Black Pepper. Not sure what this means but does it suggest wine-makers are more lenient when marking other wine-makers wines ... including their own. :wink:

Biggest surprise for me was 2002 Turkey Flat finishing in the middle of the pack. But good too see the St Hallet Blackwell performed very well, a wine that IMHO consistently beats it more expensive brother in most vintages.

Thanks guys for the hard work :roll:

and making the information public so that we can all enjoy the experience!

Adair · Post by **Adair** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:39 pm

Just a quick note, it was the 2002 Summerfield Reserve Shiraz.

Adair

Andrew Jordan · Post by **Andrew Jordan** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:41 pm

Adair wrote:Just a quick note, it was the 2002 Summerfield Reserve Shiraz.

Adair

Thanks Adair ... has been corrected.

smithy · Post by **smithy** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:03 pm

Actually guys it was a tasting of 02 Shiraz (they were ALL 02)

You might be surprised to see that although I gave top points ie 19.8 for the sensational EE Black Pepper , I also gave bottom points.

ie I love to spread my points as giving everything 15-17.5/20 whereas you are never far wrong...you're not making any statements at all.

Average value was $40 for the 50 wines...so my stuff at $22 and $30 was playing a bit outside its field...but still held its own pretty well...which was the object of the exercise..

cheers
Smithy

Cheers
Smithy

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:11 pm

Ina panel in Oz is it normal to include a winemaker marking his own wines in the final score tally? I know its reasonably common in UK, eg decanter etc.

Andrew Jordan · Post by **Andrew Jordan** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:14 pm

smithy wrote:Average value was $40 for the 50 wines...so my stuff at $22 and $30 was playing a bit outside its field...but still held its own pretty well...which was the object of the exercise.

Smithy,

Were you able to distinguish your 2 wines in the line up prior to them being revealed? The reason I ask is that we did a similiar thing (not 50 wines mind you) with another wine maker and his wine was in the line up and he picked his wine with just smelling the aroma and not even tasting it.

smithy · Post by **smithy** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:23 pm

Andrew

I'm really impressed if a winemaker can pick his own wines in a lineup like that especially just on nose.

My guess on what would have been my wines would have been way wrong. (turned out to be Old Bastard and the Browns).

Whoopsy!

Cheers
Smithy

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:59 pm

I guess I'm a tough scorer, but I rate against the best reds I can remember tasting as 19.8 (I'm sure there are many better than I've tasted), including some Bordeaux 1st Growths from reasonable vintages and some pretty good Grange vintages.

Despite some of these 02 shiraz being pretty good, there was nothing that quite stacked up to those memories.

I'm also quite happy that my distribution of scores is flattened or skewed towards a higher number of bronze/silver medal scores than the others. There are 28 of these wines in my cellar, you'd want to hope I liked those at least as they had already passed my "buy/no buy" test. There were quite a few others I'd like to have in my cellar as well. Maybe I'm a harder marker at the top end and a shiraz-slut in the middle, I liked a lot of these wines.

TORB · Post by **TORB** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:05 pm

Lets face it, this was a bloody strong field. Many of the wines in this line up had been bought by both Brian and I so we must have liked them and thought they were pretty good wines.

Marking them with a spread was very difficult as most of them were so good. That is probably why Brian had a smaller spread than the rest of us. In reality, if these wines were amongst 200 in a full class in a wine show, Brian's scores may have wound up being the closest to the judges in that sort of scenario.

Andrew Jordan · Post by **Andrew Jordan** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:28 pm

Ric/Brian/Smithy,

It would be interesting, but probably not possible, to do the exact line-up again in 5-10 years time and see if the results are similiar once the wines have some age on them. Although possibly having a larger percentage of corked wines :cry:

... you might find the Clarendon Hills Liandra or the Voyager Shiraz being ranked as the No.1 wine! :wink:

(although I don't think so)

Sorry if I sounded like I was attacking your individual scores. That was not my objective. It always amazes me how we all like different styles and tastes when it comes to wine ... even us red bigots!

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:47 pm

Andrew Jordan wrote:Sorry if I sounded like I was attacking your individual scores. That was not my objective. It always amazes me how we all like different styles and tastes when it comes to wine ... even us red bigots!

AJ, I didn't take it that way. The chart of score/medal breakdowns was put in after the initial publication when Glen Green had too much time on his hands and crunched the data. ;-)

FWIW, here are my scores from the Durif tasting in Feb 2005, where almost all readily available Durif were tasted without any "pre-selection", about half of the 38 were given non-medal scores: http://users.tpg.com.au/handreck/warrab ... ing-bh.htm

Yeah, even RB's are a diverse bunch, it's lucky we all don't like exactly the same stuff, it would be pretty boring.

Gary W · Post by **Gary W** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:23 pm

When we talk about Shiraz and the classic regions for it then lets face it...when it comes down to it 2002 was not a great vintage (for Shiraz) in the Barossa...and pretty ordinary in WA and the Hunter. So really you have Victoria left...and then you don't have the top wines like Giaconda and Craiglee and St Peters etc in this tasting but 50 palate shattering high alcohol wines. I am suprised you survived this tasting. Never mind black tongues. Leather tongues!

GW

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:49 pm

Gary W wrote:When we talk about Shiraz and the classic regions for it then lets face it...when it comes down to it 2002 was not a great vintage (for Shiraz) in the Barossa...and pretty ordinary in WA and the Hunter. So really you have Victoria left...and then you don't have the top wines like Giaconda and Craiglee and St Peters etc in this tasting but 50 palate shattering high alcohol wines. I am suprised you survived this tasting. Never mind black tongues. Leather tongues!

GW

RB's are tougher than that, we gargle with vodka before the tasting. ;-)

And single malts or brandy afterwards.

Re vintage, 2002 was better than 2001 and 2003 for shiraz in SA and some other places, so there wasn't much alternative, we wanted to keep it to a single vintage and include about half wines still available at retail. Agree on WA, that is the reason why there were few WA shiraz included and they didn't shine. I hold 2002 for SA Shiraz in slightly higher regard than you do and my cellar stocks are backing this assessment on the usual carefully selected basis.

I do have 2002 Craiglee in my cellar, along with Castagna, Battely, Berrys Bridge, Chateau Leamon, Dalwhinnie, Dominique Portet, Heathcote Estate, Pondalowie, Seppelt St Peters, Yarra Yarra all from Victoria, as well as most of the Victorians that were included.

The subtext of the tasting was to compare the 2 Warrabilla shiraz with peers, so some were deliberately left out, such as Craiglee, as they probably would be swamped by the bigger, richer styles. Some of the others in my list above could have coped, but weren't included.

Gary W · Post by **Gary W** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:55 pm

I see your point.
Now that splendid list of Victorians would make for a most renowned tasting...
GW

mphatic · Post by **mphatic** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:58 pm

Andrew Jordan wrote: Although possibly having a larger percentage of corked wines

AJ, please explain? I dont see the % changing with age, though the ones that are corked may show more extreme TCA characters than some bottles that might have slipped through this time. Given the experience of the tasters though, I doubt it.

Andrew Jordan · Post by **Andrew Jordan** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:09 pm

mphatic wrote:
Andrew Jordan wrote: Although possibly having a larger percentage of corked wines

AJ, please explain? I dont see the % changing with age, though the ones that are corked may show more extreme TCA characters than some bottles that might have slipped through this time. Given the experience of the tasters though, I doubt it.

Mphatic,

Agree with you to a point. Although I do not question the experience of the tasters, some of the just released wines may exhibit increased/additional TCA characterisitics after a few years of bottle age which may not have been picked up on this opening. I will add though that I did make my statement after the word "possibly" as I agree with you, that Ric/Brian and Smithy should be able to pick up even the smallest amounts of TCA if present in the wine.

From the tasting, 3 bottles were detected corked out of 50, making for 6% of the total tainted with TCA. Even Wikipedia states that the range of Cork Taint can be anywhere up to 15%, so there is a chance that it could increase in these 50 wines over time.

TORB · Post by **TORB** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:34 am

AJ,

I think I know what you mean but TCA is either there or it's not and a few more years in the bottle should not maker any difference to its detectability amongst experienced tasters.

I have been doing some tracking over the last few years. Of the 2465 bottles opened, 175 of them, that's 7.1% suffered from cork related failure; that's both TCA and oxidation. A further 51 bottle, or 2.1% suffered from other faults with a further 1% suspected as being marginally faulty.

platinum · Post by **platinum** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 10:51 am

Ric and Brian...The Brown Brothers showed well but did it show well enough to make it into your cellars? What would it be on your rating system Ric?

JamieBahrain · Post by **JamieBahrain** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:28 am

TORB wrote:AJ,

I think I know what you mean but TCA is either there or it's not and a few more years in the bottle should not maker any difference to its detectability amongst experienced tasters.

I have been doing some tracking over the last few years. Of the 2465 bottles opened, 175 of them, that's 7.1% suffered from cork related failure; that's both TCA and oxidation. A further 51 bottle, or 2.1% suffered from other faults with a further 1% suspected as being marginally faulty.

Personally, I have found TCA to be much harder to distinguish in older wines. A wine with bottle age and tertiary development, seems to mask TCA more so than a younger wine with obvious TCA, or even just muted primary fruit.

I think this is why people talk more of bottle variation in very old wines, more so than TCA.

TORB · Post by **TORB** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:44 pm

platinum wrote:Ric and Brian...The Brown Brothers showed well but did it show well enough to make it into your cellars? What would it be on your rating system Ric?

Plati,

This was the first time that I had tried the 02 Patricia and had i tried it earlier, it would have been in my cellar. Both the E & E and Patricia would have scored an Excellent form me.

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:54 pm

platinum wrote:Ric and Brian...The Brown Brothers showed well but did it show well enough to make it into your cellars? What would it be on your rating system Ric?

Don't tell Ric, but I just bought a 6-pack of the Patricia 2002 Shiraz, I'll spring one on him in a few years.

roughred · Post by **roughred** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:03 pm

In one respect perhaps the Morris Shiraz is the greatest revelation of the tasting. A listed price of $18, more often available for $15, and it has absolutely spanked some more fancied opposition.

Was there a general consensus on greatest QPR?

LL

smithy · Post by **smithy** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:08 pm

Lenny,
We did do the QPR thing.
modesty forbids but i agree the Morris looked pretty smart....best Morris shiraz I've seen actually.

Cheers
Smithy

PS Nearly warm enough.

roughred · Post by **roughred** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 3:46 pm

Yeah mate.

Nearly warm enough is like saying your wines are nearly big enough!