TN: Can fine Syrah/Shiraz be made in South Australia?

T

Tim York

Tim York
Oz lovers will regard this as a ridiculous question but, with the exception of some 20+ year Grange met in a vertical, my euro-centric palate has been consistently disappointed. Here is another one which avoids the caricatures but fails to convince.

Adelaide Hills Shiraz 2007 Shaw and Smith Alc.14.5% - (22 EUR). I seem to recall the seller telling me that there was Viognier on the blend but I can find no confirmation of that on the S&S website.

Even before my first sip, I heard Germaine saying “I don’t like this”. I would be less harsh but it still doesn’t convince me that South Australia is the right place for Shiraz/Syrah, even though my least favourite features of many, such as blowsy blueberry, mint, burning alcohol and burgeoning American oak, were mercifully absent.

On the nose there were quite highly scented aromas of soft red fruit (some strawberry), spices and flowers but somehow they did not appeal in the same way as strong cheap perfume fails to appeal. The palate was medium bodied with decent sweetish fruit diminished by the same highly scented aromas, smooth acidity, soft texture, some milk chocolate and a gentle finish without much tannic support. This may appeal to some but I found it lacking in grip, tension and structure which, for me, are essential for a good food wine. We didn’t finish the bottle; 14/20.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Aren't Wendouree and Henschke both South Australia? Nice wines there, even for eurocentrics.
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I don't know Wendouree but Henschke is on my radar screen. I have never had HOG and would love to find someone to offer me a glass or three to further my education and hopefully pleasure. However I have owned several bottles of Mount Edelstone 93 and 95 and had difficulties with them up to the last bottle opened about a year ago.

Here is my TN on that last bottle.

Mount Edelstone Shiraz Vineyard Keyneton 1995 - Henschke Alc.14%.
I did not enjoy younger specimens of this wine and of its 1993 version because of, for me, excessive elements of mint, boiled sweet and wood flavours such as vanilla and toffee. So it is great to find that, after nearly 16 years, it was at last drinking beautifully. The body was quite full, the brambly dark fruit deep and complex with some ripe rose aromas, the tannic structure was ripe, the length decent and the texture velvety with the previous exaggerations of mint and boiled sweet now background elements of greater complexity and with the wood flavours now no more than sweetly polished patina toward the finish containing flecks of coconut a bit like with a good “modern” Rioja of similar age like Contino; 17/20.

Unlike with most of the finest European wines when mature, one would never need to ask oneself whether this wine has seen a lot of new wood. So I can’t help questioning whether the wine would not have been even finer with more terroir character without the still obvious wood presence, however agreeable. But perhaps we have to accept overt wood as an integral part of South Australian Shiraz.
 
Tim,
I feel your pain. We recently toured the Hunter Valley in NSW, primarily for the Semillons produced there, but the Shiraz wines were also a revelation. They were medium bodied, red-fruited and high in acidity. I doubt that many of them get exported to Belgium or France, but Tyrell's and Brokenwood were two producers making very attractive Syrah there.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Tim,
I feel your pain. We recently toured the Hunter Valley in NSW, primarily for the Semillons produced there, but the Shiraz wines were also a revelation. They were medium bodied, red-fruited and high in acidity. I doubt that many of them get exported to Belgium or France, but Tyrell's and Brokenwood were two producers making very attractive Syrah there.

Mark Lipton
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That is very interesting, Mark. AFAIK Hunter Valley is located at a latitude of around 32.5 S and an altitude around 130m. Superficially one would therefore think that the climate would be warmer there than in Adelaide Hills (town latitude around 34.6 S and altitude 380m.). The most southerly vineyard producing decent Syrah near Europe is Alain Graillot's Tandem venture at Benslimane in Morocco (latitude 33.6 N and altitude 230m), which is a bit of freak and a testimony to Graillot's talent. In Europe the most southerly acceptable Syrah which I have had comes from Valle d'Acate in Sicily (latitude 37 N and altitude 200m). Even in Languedoc much further north I feel that many Syrah based wines tend towards vulgarity and lack finesse. The heartland IMO of great Syrah stretches several tens of kilometres north from Tain-l'Hermitage which is located at a comparatively Arctic 45.1 N.

So your experience of lively Syrah from Hunter Valley confounds my prejudice that Syrah loses its freshness, finesse and elegance and becomes soggier and more alcoholic the warmer the climate in which it is produced. I wonder how they do it.

How many people here have read the interesting paper by Geoffrey Kelly which deals with the Syrah ripening curve from a New Zealand perspective http://geoffkellywinereviews.co.nz/index.php?ArticleID=131 ? His observations have been criticised from Oz as being a manifestation of Kiwi v Oz cultural hostility or, at best, special pleading for Kiwi Syrah, but they chime broadly with my own Euro-centric views based, of course, on much more limited experience, particularly of Kiwi Syrah.
 
Some of the NZ Syrahs from the Hawkes Bay area (particularly the Gimblett Gravels) are quite impressive; very floral, peppery and quite elegant. The issue is that the wines there can still very hit or miss. Some are hit with too much oak, others have closure issues - opened an 07 Bilancia Syrah a few nights ago which was lovely on release, and horribly reduced now (under screwcap) to the point of being undrinkable.

I wouldn't write off all South Oz wines, but the cooler subregions there (Eden and Clare Valleys) are where I've found better Shiraz for my tastes. Wendouree and Henschke both make fine wines, though Henschke pricing has gotten to be a joke now and I wonder if anyone actually buys the damn things these days. Torzi Matthews 'Schist Rock' is another nice cheapie to look for.
 
originally posted by Tim York:
originally posted by MLipton:
Tim,
I feel your pain. We recently toured the Hunter Valley in NSW, primarily for the Semillons produced there, but the Shiraz wines were also a revelation. They were medium bodied, red-fruited and high in acidity. I doubt that many of them get exported to Belgium or France, but Tyrell's and Brokenwood were two producers making very attractive Syrah there.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

That is very interesting, Mark. AFAIK Hunter Valley is located at a latitude of around 32.5 S and an altitude around 130m. Superficially one would therefore think that the climate would be warmer there than in Adelaide Hills (town latitude around 34.6 S and altitude 380m.).[...]
So your experience of lively Syrah from Hunter Valley confounds my prejudice that Syrah loses its freshness, finesse and elegance and becomes soggier and more alcoholic the warmer the climate in which it is produced. I wonder how they do it.
Click to expand...

Tim,
Believe me, I was confounded by this as well. You're right that the Hunter is the most tropical growing region in Australia, and it does have the shortest growing season (they were harvesting in January, an antipodean equivalent of July for France!). That is their explanation for how they keep their reds so fresh. For a full report, you can see this post of mine. Add to the confusion that they plant on level ground and in clay. I was certainly left scratching my head.

Also, thanks for that reference.

Mark Lipton
 
Thanks for that explanation with link, Mark. It sounds an interesting trip. For me, South Australia would do well to harvest earlier but they wouldn't win all those prizes then.

I'm also fascinated by all that Sémillon. A lot of people think that it's the best thing that Oz does but we find very little of it over here.
 
originally posted by Tim York:
Thanks for that explanation with link, Mark. It sounds an interesting trip. For me, South Australia would do well to harvest earlier but they wouldn't win all those prizes then.

I'm also fascinated by all that Sémillon. A lot of people think that it's the best thing that Oz does but we find very little of it over here.
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The Semillon is certainly worth the effort to get there. I also must endorse Salil's observations about NZ and Oz. After two months here in NZ, I've had only one Kiwi Syrah of note, the "Bullnose" Syrah of Te Mata in Hawke's Bay, which to my taste still bore more resemblance to a well-made CA Syrah than to anything from the N Rhone.

(It was also interesting to me that in Geoff Kelly's article, he mentions every major N Rhone commune apart from Cornas: why no love for Cornas, I wonder?)

Mark Lipton
 
It's not that easy to find recent evidence in favour of the proposition, I'll admit. Hill of Grace and Mt Edelstone are single vineyards, with all the vintage variability that implies. The whole state has done itself no favours since it began to chase 'more oak, more alcohol' in the nineties. Yes, there's 2000 cases a year of Wendouree, and doubtless a bunch of obscure makers who've never felt obliged to (or capable of) chasing the 'US critics market', but I can sort of understand the question Tim's asking, and the difficulty in finding more than a skerrick of evidence.

Funnily enough, if I had to pick the last 20 vintages of a wine which I think shows SA off to best advantage (with the caveat I haven't recently tasted that many of them personally) I'd probably pick Penfolds St Henri. Rockford's Basket Press is mostly well-regarded too as being more of a traditional style.
Wirra Wirra is another maker that was (haven't tasted much recently) always a good advert for SA shiraz.

cheers,
GG
 
I've generally been disappointed in old Grange of the 20+ years variety. No harmony. I think the reputation is outsized versus the actual wine.
 
Having tasted around SA recently I can say there are a few producers Jumping onto the scene in South Australia utilizing less oak, native yeasts and earlier ripening times.
Jauma Wines from the Adelaide Hills, Sami-Odi Wines and Shobbrook Wines from the Barossa Valley all make a refreshing approach to Syrah. If you want to look at something different (by new world, jammy & oaky standards) see if you can search one out.

The Grange debate lingers in Aus too. It's so ridiculously over priced for what you'r getting.

Mat
 
"The Grange debate lingers in Aus too. It's so ridiculously over priced for what you'r [sic] getting. "

It's the vital ingredient for pre-war DRC.
 
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