2002 Clarendon Hills Syrah Moritz- Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, Clarendon (4/26/2019)
OMG - This wine may be in a perfect place. Pop, decanted and poured. It was very good from the get go but with about 45 minutes of air it exploded with almost perfect fruit flavor. Red berries, blueberries and plums on the nose and throughout the palate. Tannin is gone. Smooth with no rough edges and fully integrated taste throughout. Velvety mouth feel and an extremely long finish that caresses your tongue. After I finished my last glass, I went down to the cellar and got a bottle of a base level cali cab, brought it upstairs, opened and decanted it and picked up my empty glass. The aroma of the Clarendon Hills was still so strong in the glass that I had to blow into the glass to clear it out before I poured in the new wine.
The only thing that keeps this wine from getting into the 95 pts and above territory is that it was all fruit driven so there was no syrah pepper spice or other non-fruit components.
PS - I am coming to really love well-made older Aussie Shiraz. I opened this to see how it was doing at 17 years because my previous standard was at 20 years. This one was not too young to drink. (94 pts.)
Agree Jay on aging these especially good producers such as Clarendon Hills. It was great for a while when WTSO had Clarendon Grenache and Shiraz wines for around $30 a bottle with free shipping.
I am a big fan of the Dead Arm but I stupidly drank most of mine too young. I’ve got an 03 and 05 left. I iwll wait two years or so.
I met Hickinbotham at Zachys a few years ago.Very interesting guy. He was bottling some stuff from the family vineyard under his own name and selling some to Clarendon. Something else I drank too early.
I had an ‘05 Clarendon Hills Piggott Range recently. Really enjoyed an ‘08 I had last year, so had high hopes. This one was super sweet and syrupy. No balance or structure. Maybe a bad bottle?
Thanks for the note on that Jay. Brings back memories though not as much with clarendon Hills.
IMO the age ability of Australian Syrah wines from that era was greatly misjudged. Have one last Marquis Phillips, a 2002 Sarah’s blend left. Going to wait until its 20 years old. Based on a couple other MP wines from 01 and 02 opened the last couple years the oak will be excessive but if one can taste around it the rest of the flavor profile should be surprisingly good. About $14 in the day.
Another Dead Arm fan here who also took a while to figure out it is great with age. Don’t recall opening one past 15 years of age and at that point holding to 20 or 25 was reasonable.
Your description doesn’t really suggest how this has benefitted from age. How do you perceive that it has? Did you try it at younger ages and find it not as good as it is now?
I don’t mean those questions to be critical, I just want to understand how you perceive the benefits of age on this wine. Thanks.
I’ve had a good number of early 2000s Dead Arm in the last few years, they are really in the middle of their prime drinking years, or maybe even the early-middle of their prime.
But those also weren’t the most ripe/oaky/hedonistic wines from that era, either. I think they’re more mid 14% alcohol type range.
I’ve had some Torbreck Shiraz with similar amounts of age to them that I would give similar praise to. Also have an 01 Kay Bros. Amery’s Vineyard Hillside Shiraz I’m waiting to pass judgement on soon as it’s a wedding year wine. Thinking it’s got 2 years left…
The roughness of young Aussie shiraz fades away. The fruit is very smooth and pure. It is not “in your face” like a hammer hitting your tongue, but it is all there. Not wanting to overstate, because it was a measurable level below, but similar to the fruit purity of a 1999 Rayas I had as described in this note. I had a 100% Grenache from Janasse that had the purity of fruit but was still a bit rough due to lack of age.
1999 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve- France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (7/18/2017)
I don’t know who PRBY is, but probably the same bottle. Wow!! I hesitate to use the word perfect when describing a wine because it can always be better, but this wine made the word perfect enter the conversation. The winemaker performed his or her craft with great precision, and the force was with them. Beautiful Grenache fruit vinified so there were no flaws or even close to it. The fruit was full, soft and rounded as a pure example of what Grenache can exhibit. There were gobs and gobs of flavor with nothing that could be considered jammy or syrupy. After the bottle was almost done I took the last tiny pour and it went down like silk. It was not until I looked at my glass and saw this lump of sediment that I realized that even the dregs were better than most wines. WOTY so far. (97 pts.)
Yes, I know that Syrah isn’t Grenache, but I find them both to be up front fruit wines and when very well made, they converge in general flavor presentation, but with a different fruit.