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Darlington
Cellar Door Wine tasting - impression by PJ - December 2008
It's all very well to listen to us or someone else bang on
about what
they think of a wine but really you want to know what the vigneron or
winemaker has to say.... I mean they ought to know right? I
have wanted to record a wine tasting for a while so Chelle and
I headed
up the east coast of Tassie to see if we could get someone to have a
chat. Luckily for us Paul Stranan from Darlington vineyard had an
afternoon
free.
The tasting started with the 05 unwooded Chardonnay which is
their
oldest wine on offer. If you don't drink chardonnay because
it's not fashionable then frankly you are not a wine lover, you are a
fashion victim (there
we said it! - Ed). In my humble opinion a well
made Chardonnay is head and shoulders above many other whites in terms
of sophistication and overall balance and as Paul says if you don't try
chardonnay "you miss out on a classic wine". Paul described
this wine as a crisp, fresh wine which
delivers a burst of flavour. Chelle and I agreed and also
enjoyed the
clean finish.
Next
was the 06 Riesling which won a bronze medal at last
year's Tasmanian Wine Show. Paul mentioned that while this
wine had the 'traditional' lemon lime flavour it also possessed a
stronger floral bouquet than previous vintages. He wasn't quite sure
how this wonderful characteristic eventuated but speculated that it
might have been due to the 'leaf pluck' which increased the amount of
sun on those vines.
Paul recommended that the wine be drunk with most light
seafood - particularly oysters - although he thought it may not work
with stronger fish like Atlantic Salmon. We enjoyed
the Riesling so much we bought a bottle.
Next it was on to the 08 Sauvignon Blanc. This is
the most popular Darlington wine and has won a couple of silver medals.
Paul believes it has a similar style to that favoured by New
Zealand
winemakers. He pointed out that it presents really well on
the palate
and compliments spicy Asian style dishes. Given the
popularity of this variety I wondered if it could suffer the same fate
as
Chardonnay and go 'out of fashion'. Although he hoped it
would not happen, Paul
thought that there was a real risk since there is the temptation to
over produce which would be potentially disastrous with wines like
verdhelo and pinot gris already becoming real competitors.
Since we had both liked everything so far and it
looked as though the budget was about to take a pasting it was
with
some trepidation that we moved on to the
gwertztraminer. This was
Paul's first commercial gwertztraminer vintage and, with the vineyard
only producing a "few hundred kilos in a good year", it may
not
be a regular offering. Paul did warn us that the wine had a
"very
distinctive taste that would cut through almost any food" and phew he
was right. I was fascinated by this wine and, thanks to the
power of suggestion, I ended up agreeing with him that it
tasted like banana flavouring (yes,
you read that right - Ed).
Our last white was the 08 TGR Riesling. This is a
sweeter style Riesling that reminded me a little of the Pooley
Late Harvest and if you have read our thoughts on matching
sweet style Riesling with spicy food you would know that we
are big fans of this type of wine. Like all good examples,
this wine had just the right balance of sweetness and acid with a good
clean finish. I know that I said that it's about what the
vigneron thinks, not me, but Paul admitted he wasn't a fan of sweeter
style wines. But he did agree that this wine would go well
"before,
during and after a meal" (that's
a trifecta to put your money on! - Ed) which is probably
why he rated it a "very
versatile wine".
We got to the last wine and as Chelle broke into her
happy dance Paul opened the 06 Pinot Noir.
Paul's
favourite thing about Pinot is the way it improves in a bottle
and
he is very pleased with how the 06 is
aging. He made the point that although he has to taste the
wine prior to and at
bottling, he suggests that 'us punters' should wait at least a year
before drinking
it. Since we couldn't agree on a rating for the pinot this
part of the article kind of splutters to an end. (since
none of us at Winepunters HQ trust PJ's judgement, we turned to Chelle
who assured us that the yes the Darlington Pinot is very very good - Ed).
The best guage of a wine's quality is whether or not you
purchase
it. For the record the budget got the pasting we expected and
we will be buying more once the bank account gets back off the canvas (hmm ... I love the sound of
mangled boxing metaphors in the morning - Ed).
This was great fun for us and we want to do a lot more of
this type of podcast so please let us know what you
think.