Stunning new Yarra Yering release

Try as I might, I simply cannot convince Yarra Yering’s Dr Bailey Carrodus to submit me samples of his wine. I’ve tested him on every trick in my persuasive book, but he remains steadfastly resilient to each and every one of my advances. So in recent years my relationship with Dr Carrodus has been something of a stalemate – he refuses to let me taste his wine so I refuse to write about it – but such is my level of interest in what he makes that I’ve decided to relent. So yesterday I popped up to his open day at the winery to taste with the assembled public, all crowded into a tiny room, the 2001 Yarra Yering releases.

The first thing I noticed was that they’d bought some new tasting glasses since I had last been there. I had half expected to be served from the tiny port glasses habitually presented at Yarra Yering, but in these post-Riedel days of outsized fishbowls for wine drinking, ISOs were actually provided. That meant the one I had brought with me just in case could remain stuffed in my coat pocket.

Since it had been several years since I had tasted young Yarra Yering wines, I didn’t know what to expect. I needn’t have worried. The wines were blinding.

The Chardonnay 16.8, drink 2003-2006+, A$55 was typically tight and steely, perhaps a shade out of balance and lacking fruit depth, but the varnishy and oxidative characters so obvious in the wines of the mid to late 1990s were noticeable for their absence. The Viognier 18.7, drink 2003-2006, A$110 is an absolute joy. Perfumed with honeysuckle and apricot blossom, finishing clear and mineral, it’s long and seamless with perfectly accentuated fruit accompanied by a minimum of winemaking interference. In short, it’s pure viognier. The Pinot Noir 18.9, drink 2006-2009, A$55 is as perfumed as a rose garden. Its sappy, sumptuous and concentrated presentation of pristine red cherry and berry fruit is perfectly offset by fine, velvet tannins and dusty cedar oak. It will surely develop beautifully. The Young Vines No. 3 red blend 16.6, drink 2003-2006, A$30 offers lively, spicy raspberry and strawberry fruit with fine tannins and herbal complexity, while the Young Vines Cabernet Sauvignon 17.4, drink 2006-2009, A$30 is a more complete and structured wine scented with cassis and dusty violets and offering a smooth, cedary palate. The Underhill Shiraz 18.6, drink 2009-2013, A$55 is warm, sumptuous and smooth, with beautifully bright flavours of mulberries, cherries and cassis offset by dark chocolate oak and soft tannins. The Dry Red No.2 shiraz blend 19.2, drink 2009-2013+, A$55 has more depth and power, but a remarkable scent of viognier-driven spicy apricot blossom that works deftly with the deep shiraz perfume of blackcurrants and mulberries. It’s polished and silky, wonderfully supple and tight-knit. Of similar quality is the Dry Red No. 1 cabernet blend 19.0, drink 2013-2021, A$55. Alluring in its slowly unfolding aromas of violets, cassis, chocolates and cedar, it presents almost a searing intensity of black fruit flavours, especially given the satiny elegance of its palate. The Merlot 18.3, drink 2011-2025, A$110 is perhaps the hardest to evaluate, since it’s extremely concentrated cropped around half a tonne per acre, it’s slightly raw understandably and perhaps does reveal slightly sappy under-ripe influences as well as possibly over-ripe cooked fruit undertones. In future, I might have cause to rate it more highly.

Aside from the fact that this release clearly includes several world-class wines, it’s also apparent to me that things have moved at Yarra Yering. It would appear that the winemaking has stepped up a notch or two in recent years, for the wines are substantially better presented and in better condition that any release I can remember for some years. Similarly, the fruit has reached a superior level of physiological ripeness than any vintage I can remember since the early 1990s, and perhaps even better than that.

I’m genuinely delighted by these wines, and without taking more space to comment on the price of two in particular, believe that Yarra Yering has somewhat reclaimed its birthright. Incidentally, the prices quoted are ex-cellar, and the Dry Red No. 2 was sold out in two hours. Expect considerably higher prices through the trade. Please login to post comment