TN: Mature Huet, Baumard, Duhart, Raffault, Brezza, Grunhaus and more

WINE TALK
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p.s. I missed the request for more info on Woodlands. Others will know more and hopefully will chime in.

They’ve been around for decades, but for years were regarded as pretty average. Pity poor Dorham Mann, consultant to the winery for years - the owning family then took on direct responsibility and all of a sudden the wines start getting great press. Ouch!

The winery/cellar door is quite small, despite a reasonably wide range. Friendly/relaxed atmosphere at the cellar door.

A large mix in prices, with stunning value at the lower end. The Margaret is potentially the sweet spot for QPR, though the basic Cab-Merlot is wonderful value and did get a big critical boost last time we were there (maybe a decade ago) - we tried that specific wine and difficult to disagree it was wonderful value.

The price does ramp up significantly from the Margeret to the other ‘named’ labels and also the Reserve du Cave, which include a couple of lesser seen (but widespread in a world context) varietal wines. The more expensive wines I’ve tried have all been impressive and interesting, but it’s ever so difficult to look past the value of the Margaret (or for those on a tight budget, the base Cab-merlot).

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Why do you see so many notes on the Quarts de Chaume but so few on the Sainte Catherine?

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I would guess it is because the Catherine is only 1.35 hectares and the Quarts de Chaume is 6 hectares. I drink both with the same frequency, but that is somewhere south of “not often enough”. Since the wines are so interesting to me with lots of bottle age, I err on the side of letting them mature in the cellar.

Cheers,
fred

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What a shame that this wine was not stored properly. I have had a lot of 89s from Grunhaus back to when they were very young and they are really great - unfortunately, mine are now gone. [bleh.gif]

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As I said, the amazing thing is not that it was not in perfect condition but that it was pleasurable and not by any means dead. But, yes, I wish my friend had better storage. :slight_smile:

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As Ian mentioned above Woodlands has been around for decades. The winery was established by David and Heather Watson, they were one of the “original five” to plant vineyards in Margaret River. Their original plantings went in in 1973. Apparently 1978 was their first vintage. David’s son Stuart has been winemaker since 2002 and there’s definitely been a noticeable uptick in quality across the range. David is still involved though and to my knowledge most of the family still lives in Margaret River.

The Cellar Door has been completely rebuilt, maybe in 2013? It’s actually quite nice and spacious now. Historically the Cellar Door was nothing more than a small room that could maybe accommodate 6 tasters.

Their range consists of three tiers, at least in terms of the wines that carry the Woodlands label. The top tier are their Woodlands Vineyard (read original plantings) “named” wines. I suspect these cause much confusion on the outside looking in as each year they change the name of their straight Cab Sauv. Here’s a brief listing from the past few years.

2008 - Shelley Anne
2010 - Heather Jean
2011 - Alex
2012 - Thomas
2013 - Benjamin

Their top tier Chardonnay is called the “Chloe” and is quite good. It definitely needs some time in bottle though to shed its baby fat and allow the oak to integrate. That said they’ve been dialing back the new oak over the past few years, both at Woodlands and the region in general.

Next up in the range is the “Margaret” which you had. It’s a Cab Sauv Merlot Malbec Bordeaux style blend and is made from fruit sourced entirely from the Woodlands Vineyard. In my opinion the Margaret is the sweet spot of their product range. They taste phenomenal on release and improve with age. I reckon it’s the best QPR wine in Margaret River full stop. It appears they also now have an “Emily” Cab Franc blend but I’ve not tasted one of those bottles yet.

Then at the bottom end they have a slew of $20-$30 quaffer wines that are most likely bought fruit and/or young vine. These wines don’t have a named designation and are straight varietal in name, eg Woodlands Cab Sauv Merlot, Chardonnay, Cab Franc Merlot, etc.

And then as Ian also mentioned they also do a few different Reserve de la Cave wines. These are single barrel wines (300 bottles produced per annum) and aren’t blends. I rate the Cab Franc really highly and the Malbec has merit. That said they make a Pinot Noir that’s historically been atrocious. A few years back at their annual wine dinner I tasted Stuart’s Reserve Pinot and it was actually drinkable. It was a first, Margaret River is not a region for Pinot. Most Pinot in Margs that hasn’t been ripped out an replaced is destined for sparkling white.

Next time I head over to the states and drop into New York I’ll bring a couple bottles and share them with you if you’re interested. I believe I’ve got bottles of the Margaret going back to either 2007 or 2008. I used to buy a mixed dozen annually consisting of 4 Margarets, 2 top level Cabs, and 3 each of the reserve Cab Franc and Malbec. I’d love to show them to you given the chance.

Finally, Woodlands will always hold a special place in my heart. Their annual wine dinner is where I met my soon to be wife!

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Oh, one more thing. David and Stuart Watson are well known locally for having one of the best wine cellars in Margaret River. They routinely buy, cellar, and taste some of the most highly respected examples of Cab Sauv from around the world. I suspect this “palate calibration” is one of the reasons why they make such a competent Bordeaux blend. They also routinely head up to Perth for tastings to keep their palate in line. In fact years ago when we had that “once in a decade” DRC tasting here in Perth Stuart Watson and I were the only two to buy the backups from the event. Many, even most producers in Margaret River don’t practice this level of collecting and drinking and are more than happy to stick to the region in terms of tasting. That’s not the case with Woodlands.

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Thanks for all the background info, Andrew.

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Andrew/John
I had tasted their cab - top tier - a few times and they were impressive. But the middle tier "Margaret’ is a good choice. Peaks a bit early and not as expensive and easily available

Interestingly I had their middle tier Chardonnay recently and it looked very good. I think it was the 2014. The oak was in the back ground. Nice structure and feel to it. The rep was at the tasting told me that their chardonnays do not undergo 100% malo as some Australian Chardonnays do; 25% (?) was the number quoted. Gives it freshness and vibrancy.

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Nice notes! I’ve got a half case of Herrenberg '83 that I’m about to dip my toe into so good to hear that the Abstberg was on form, even though it had perhaps suffered a bit from storage.

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Brilliant Andrew - many thanks for giving such fine detail - and much more up to date than I could supply.

Yes, it was the old cellar door we went to, IIRC there were three of the family there, so when two of us turned up, it felt about full! The wines certainly justify the new(ish) cellar door.

I agree that it’s often a good sign to see a winemaker / winemaking team tasting widely, and have seen a few instances where as well as the winery’s own wines, the tasting room has wines in a corner, from outside the region, presumably from a bit of palate calibration (or just a piss-up [wink.gif] ) from the night before.

I’m not sure this is as common with tightly defined DOCGs and the like. I suspect many just taste within the region, or have outsiders wines purely for pleasure, but not for learning or calibration.

regards
Ian

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That’s correct regarding the malo Sanjay. Here’s a little rundown from their site for the 2015 specifics.

This wine was hand picked, with half of the fruit destemmed and pressed to tank for debourbage, and the other half whole bunch pressed to barrel. Fermentation proceeded well, with 100% of the wine fermenting without the addition of yeast. Following fermentation the wine remained in barrel with the lees stirred once a month. This wine was bottled in January 2016 after 11 months in barrel. Forty percent of the barrels used on our 2015 Chloe were new.

Beside that they have the following statistics which I assume are averages for the Chloe.

100% wild yeast fermentation
25% new French oak (excluding the 2015 that was 40% new as referenced above)
100% barrel fermentation
25% Malolactic fermentation

I was a bit surprised they’re pressing half the grapes as whole bunch for Chardonnay. Is that a usual practice?

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My pleasure Ian! It’s funny you mention the family being in the old cellar door location, I suspect before they built the new cellar door it was small enough to where they didn’t have to hire staff and instead used family members to handle the work. I can remember visiting once and a younger family member was handling the pouring duties and couldn’t have been more frustrated about it. She was much more interested in talking about travelling to the US and Europe!

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Drinking the 07 Raffault right now, John’s note is spot on. More open than last bottle from over a year ago. Medium weight but very lovely ripe, warm red fruits. A stupid QPR.

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Yup - looking at the bottle, such a shame as this was one of the special single cask auslesen.

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Good point, Jayson. I just corrected my original post to make clear that the Grunhaus was the Auslese 190 bottling.

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And I thought I got a good price at $20!! A really good QPR and ready to drink.

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I forgot to grab that bottle from u!!!
Scheisse!