old vine Aussie Mourvedre

S

Salil Benegal

Salil Benegal
2006 Hewitson Old Garden Mourvedre
$25 from HDH, under screwcap, 14.5% alcohol. From a parcel of old Mourvedre vines in the Barossa Valley that was planted in 1853.
I opened this in the afternoon, threw a third of the bottle into the decanter for a few hours (the rest stayed in the fridge) and had it alongside dinner.

This is a really fantastic wine. Gorgeous aromatics of leather, musk and faint floral notes. The fruit is more forward in the mouth with ripe black cherry and plum flavours up front and a long, savoury earth and herb-laden finish. Everything's in perfect balance with the tannins and acid matched by the richness, and the alcohol hidden throughout. Great accompaniment for my ribs.
 
good call on the ribs. i had a '99 d'arenburg mourvedre (mclaren vale) in sept that was delightful and not at all fruit bomby nor baked. instead it had evolved into an earthy, savory see-thru red quite nicely balanced...lightfooted and elegant, even. not quite as vv as your's though (vines were planted in the '20's).

due to overexposure years ago, i've pretty much sworn off barossa and mclaren vale these days, so i was prepared to diss the wine and was very pleasantly surprised. never say never.
 
Didn't know D'Arenberg makes a Mourvedre. I'll have to keep an eye out for that. I've generally had really good experiences with Aussie Mourvedre in the past - Magpie Estate's Black Sock is another favourite of mine. I just wonder why the hell producers in South Australia can't make a few more wines like those (especially with all the old Mourvedre vines in the region) instead of blending the stuff into shitty GSMs.
 
Salil, the d'Arenburg is called the "28 Rd Mourvedre". As I recall, in it's younger stages, it's more recognizably "d'Arenburg" (for better or worse, depending on one's tastes) but with a decade of age, everything melded together nicely for me.
 
originally posted by Salil Benegal:
Didn't know D'Arenberg makes a Mourvedre. I'll have to keep an eye out for that. I've generally had really good experiences with Aussie Mourvedre in the past - Magpie Estate's Black Sock is another favourite of mine. I just wonder why the hell producers in South Australia can't make a few more wines like those (especially with all the old Mourvedre vines in the region) instead of blending the stuff into shitty GSMs.
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A quick D'Arenberg 28 Step Mourvedre story. I was at a D'Arenberg dinner in Sydney and they did the mandatory Options game. It came down to me and a noted winemaker for the last question and I said Mourvedre and he didn't and I won. My only Options game win.

I have visited the vineyard Dean Hewitson buys his grapes from and it is amazing to look at those old gnarled vines. Grapes hang around a circle on the top of the vine-no trellissing. That said I have put the Old Garden blind into Bandol tastings-mainly Tempier and it always stands out like a sore thumb.
 
originally posted by mark meyer:
I have visited the vineyard Dean Hewitson buys his grapes from and it is amazing to look at those old gnarled vines. Grapes hang around a circle on the top of the vine-no trellissing. That said I have put the Old Garden blind into Bandol tastings-mainly Tempier and it always stands out like a sore thumb.
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It definitely doesn't taste like Tempier, not one of those Aussies that strike you as a dead ringer for something Old World by a long shot. But it's not the reduction-sauce Aussie style either, and I have a few I put away to age. Have to figure something interesting will come out of 150+ year old vines, in due time. Has anyone ever had a vintage of this with some real bottle age?
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by mark meyer: the mandatory Options game..
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What game is this?
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The Options Game - invented by the late great Len Evans. For numerous players.
All in the room stand, after tasting the wine blind. A series of questions are asked by he-who-knows-the-identity, typically with three options. "Is this wine from France, Italy or Spain?" You get it wrong, you sit down. The questions continue, usually becoming more specific. "Is it Medoc, Graves or Rhone?" "Is it St Estephe, St Julien, Paulliac?" Naturally the numbers remaining standing are ever-diminishing... "Is it first, second or third growth?" "Is it post 1989 vintage or pre 1990?" "Is it Latour, Lafite or Mouton?" "Is it 1986, 1982, 1975". With any luck, by this time you will have just one winner standing. The only real rule was that the questions had to be theoretically answerable purely on the basis of tasting the wine in the glass, assuming you had omnipotent knowledge of every wine ever made in the world. No level of detail is exempt.
It can be very serious or very light-hearted, or very competitive. There have been Team Options competitions organised in Australia, much like trivia nights.
It'a also a way to let those with little wine knowledge participate without having to look silly, and even with a chance of winning.
cheers,
Graeme
 
Deans Mataro's are lovely and the Old Garden vineyard is near Rowland Flat in the Barossa and is a beautiful patch of dirt....he makes another one off younger vines called "Baby Bush" also.

Sadly a bit of old vine Mataro was ripped out in the vine-pull scheme in the Barossa many moons ago but there are still patches of old stuff around...Rolf Binder has a patch of 120 year old stuff...I did vintage there in 2005 and was surprised that he blended it away.

There are a few mixed plantings also....I work at a winery in the Barossa and we source our Mataro from an 80 year old vineyard. In the old days the quality control on the cuttings wasn't so crash hot and if you were given an armful of cuttings you couldn't be 100% sure what was in there.

We get our Mataro from one of these "fruit-salad" vineyards out towards Greenock in the Barossa....it's a Grenache vineyard and about every third vine is Mataro/Mourvedre....easy to spot in the vineyard....different colour leaves and Mataro is more upright than the floppy Grenache vines.

Same thing in a old bush vine Grenache vineyard we source fruit from in the Northern Barossa at Ebenezer.....amazing looking old vineyards.
 
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