Oliver nearly comes unstuck over terrific young pinot

Oh, dear. I have to confess I nearly made a howler of a mistake. I was about to write a brief piece bagging a new wine – a wine that tasted yesterday just like many another skinny, under-fruited Victorian pinot noir. I was going right out of my way to do this – since such phenomena are a dime a dozen when you live in Melbourne – because of the text on the label, which reads:

‘Forget the hoo-ha about what side of the hill it’s grown on, who the cooper is, whether it’s filtered or fined, fermented by pagans or pigeaged by virgins, if it’s the floppy clone or the gumboot clone. It’s simple!does it taste like Pinot?’

And then it goes on:

‘Cherries, red currants, ceps, morelles, week old pheasant, decaying autumn leaves. A plethora of flavours on the borders of perception – all competing for attention. Essentially intense, persistent and balanced. Texture – slippery, silky, sensual, supple!and it tastes great too!’

Having read this egoistic and snobbish piece of self-service, I naturally expected something pretty special. But the wine was green and skinny, dilute and dried out. One of Australia’s leading pinot noir makers, who happened to be around while I was tasting it, thought I was actually being generous with a score of 13.5. And so I thought I’d let rip.

That was yesterday, but today is today. Just to be sure, and showing some of the experience that inevitably comes with writing about wine for 21 years, I thought I’d taste the wine again before slamming it in print. Good career move, that.

It was nothing like the wine I tasted before. Even the same winemaker who had tasted it with me yesterday agreed. He picked it as Burgundy, and had I not known what it was, I would have thought so as well. It’s fine, supple and silky, bursting with delicate but pristine and expressive flavours of red cherries and berries, backed by herbal and slightly meaty hints of stalkiness. It’s fragrant and ethereal, with the fresh, rose petal and caramel-like influences you’d expect from a village Aloxe-Corton. I like the wine immensely, and now score it at 17.3.

This, as you might imagine, is a scary experience for a wine writer. I came within a hair’s breadth of dismissing this terrific young wine right out of hand, since especially with my take on the text on the label, I was in no mood to take prisoners. So, as it turns out, the wine is darned good. And I can’t blame cork for the change in its presentation over 24 hours, since it was sealed with a screwcap.

If there’s a message here, that message is that while wine writers like me can do our darndest to try and make every evaluation and rating we do as objective as possible, some things are beyond the control of those of us who need to taste a lot of wine. Just as it’s not possible for me to taste two bottles of every wine as a check against cork taint or random oxidation, it’s not feasible to taste every wine again the following day. I have neither the space nor the time. This is one of the main reasons why I occasionally re-rate wines early in their life, since it’s often about as clear as mud that the bottle I might initially have tasted and rated has some seal-related issue or defect, especially in the case of random oxidation.

But back to the pinot in question. It’s a new label from Bruce Dowding, the guy who planted the Rochford vineyard in the Macedon Ranges and, I assume, who either wrote or at least approved the copy on the label. That, however, is hardly the fault of the wine, which is Discovery Road Pinot Noir 2004, made from fruit grown in Gippsland and I believe near Whitfield in alpine Victoria. It was made at Kooyong by Sandro Mosele.

A truly exceptional thing about this wine is its retail price of $19. And that is NOT a misprint. I have already ordered a case and it will be my quaffing pinot this summer. I can’t wrap it up any more highly than that.

In fact, you could actually say with some conviction that the Discovery Road Pinot Noir 2004 is a genuine oenological oxymoron – a bloody good pinot noir for less than $20.

Given its limited availability, try contacting Cloudwine, Auscellardoor, Gertrude Street Enoteca, or either of the Prince Wine Stores.

PS As a postscript to this story, I’d recommend that if you buy this wine, then take out a glass, reseal the bottle and drink it the following day. Please login to post comment