T/N: Amazing & Rare Aussie Wines Of The 40's, 50's and 60's!

[Sanjay_Nandurkar]

@paul hanna

@Sanjay Nandurkar

Great write up on Australian treasures!! Although general winemaking has improved significantly in Australia across the board it makes you wonder why we cannot rise to such heights.

Couple of years ago we had a perfectly cellared bottle of Penfolds 1962 Bin 60A opened at our offline. It was pure joy.

Agree.

I have had it a couple of times, and it is truly fantastic in every respect. So balanced and complex, and close to a perfect wine deserving of all the accolades it has received…

The last time we tried it, we also had the (just recently released at the time) 2004 Bin 60a.

There is no doubt both of this wines share a lot of similarities, and I can actually see the 2004 bin 60a being regarded in the same way in 30 years time…a real modern Aussie classic in the making!!

I am pinning my hopes on a 6 pack of 2004 Bin 60A!!

[Anthony_Hall]

@Graeme Gee

@Sanjay Nandurkar

Great write up on Australian treasures!! Although general winemaking has improved significantly in Australia across the board it makes you wonder why we cannot rise to such heights.

Interesting mystery, isn’t it?
It says that winemaking has changed, not improved, perhaps?
Who, these days, can bring themselves to pick grapes earlier?
These Redman wines, and the O’Sheas, did they use cultured yeasts, or wild?
Does anyone these days put some of their best grapes into old barrels? Or can no-one resist the lure of the new french barrique?
At least some people in the Hunter are making a few wines in the old style (I’m thinking things like Tyrrell’s new 4 Acres and Johnno’s shiraz).
It’d be lovely if someone in Coonawarra (& Barossa, come to that) was doing the same…
cheers,
GG

An elder statesman winemaker has told me one of the big differences is that it was legal to add water back then to lower the alcohol of insanely ripe grapes - now it is illegal.

[David_Lole]

Utterly fantastic line-up, Paul. Your friend who put the Woodley’s Treasure’s on is one helluva generous person. But the rest of the wine’s were just simply amazing, too.

I’ve drunk Bin 60A and Bin 7 on a few occasions over the years and “good” bottles of both are truly stupendous. Never had any of the Woodley’s though.

Thanks so very much for the write-up. Where in Australia are you based?

[Sanjay_Nandurkar]

@Anthony Hall

@Graeme Gee

@Sanjay Nandurkar

Great write up on Australian treasures!! Although general winemaking has improved significantly in Australia across the board it makes you wonder why we cannot rise to such heights.

Interesting mystery, isn’t it?
It says that winemaking has changed, not improved, perhaps?
Who, these days, can bring themselves to pick grapes earlier?
These Redman wines, and the O’Sheas, did they use cultured yeasts, or wild?
Does anyone these days put some of their best grapes into old barrels? Or can no-one resist the lure of the new french barrique?
At least some people in the Hunter are making a few wines in the old style (I’m thinking things like Tyrrell’s new 4 Acres and Johnno’s shiraz).
It’d be lovely if someone in Coonawarra (& Barossa, come to that) was doing the same…
cheers,
GG

An elder statesman winemaker has told me one of the big differences is that it was legal to add water back then to lower the alcohol of insanely ripe grapes - now it is illegal.

I am under the impression that it is still legal…

[Anthony_Hall]

@Sanjay Nandurkar

@Anthony Hall

An elder statesman winemaker has told me one of the big differences is that it was legal to add water back then to lower the alcohol of insanely ripe grapes - now it is illegal.

I am under the impression that it is still legal…

I am no expert but a quick google found that the applicable food standard http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/foodstandards/applications/applicationa573water3296.cfm allows addition of up to 70 mL/L, with the condition that this level is only permitted where the addition is ‘in conformance with good manufacturing practice’. Water is used in winemaking primarily to incorporate a range of food additives and processing aids required in the wine production process.

Hardly the gross dilution practiced back in the 60’s.

[Walt_Hoehler]

Paul, thanks for sharing these notes. Very cool stuff.

[Jeremy_Holmes]

It is not Legal Sanjay but a lot of wineries in Austrlaia seem to have staff that have very long showers during vintage if their water bill is any indication.

[Graeme_Gee]

Rather than deliberately watering back the must, I think it was the inevitable consequence of trying to chill the ferment in the absence of modern cooling techniques. The approved method was the fairly low-tech approach of chucking blocks of ice into the vats.
I remember hearing Bruce Tyrrell say once that the year the last wineries in the Hunter got mains electricity was the year the Cessnock Ice Factory closed down…
Technology available in Coonwarra in the 40s would have been fairly rudimentary, I imagine.
cheers,
GG

[Kent_Comley]

It can take a fair bit of water to wash out the crusher!

Fantastic line up Paul. I do know the whereabouts of a few bots of Treasure Chest wines, and am still awaiting the opportunity to try them.

The move to 14% plus Coonawarra cabs is really a recent one and commenced around the 1990 vintage. I think it has more to do with making wine palatable in their youth for the now generation. The 12% reds of the 60s, 70s and 80s would now be decried as under ripe, tough wines I suspect.

[Anthony_Hall]

@Graeme Gee

Rather than deliberately watering back the must, I think it was the inevitable consequence of trying to chill the ferment in the absence of modern cooling techniques. The approved method was the fairly low-tech approach of chucking blocks of ice into the vats.
I remember hearing Bruce Tyrrell say once that the year the last wineries in the Hunter got mains electricity was the year the Cessnock Ice Factory closed down…
Technology available in Coonwarra in the 40s would have been fairly rudimentary, I imagine.
cheers,
GG

Hi Graeme,

It was Ian McKenzie (ex chief winemaker from Southcorp) who told me that water was deliberately added and he has the old wine making journals written in “winemakers code” to prove it !

[paul_hanna]

@David Lole

Utterly fantastic line-up, Paul. Your friend who put the Woodley’s Treasure’s on is one helluva generous person. But the rest of the wine’s were just simply amazing, too.

I’ve drunk Bin 60A and Bin 7 on a few occasions over the years and “good” bottles of both are truly stupendous. Never had any of the Woodley’s though.

Thanks so very much for the write-up. Where in Australia are you based?

David,

This group is Melbourne based.

[Graeme_Gee]

@Anthony Hall

Hi Graeme,
It was Ian McKenzie (ex chief winemaker from Southcorp) who told me that water was deliberately added and he has the old wine making journals written in “winemakers code” to prove it !

Ah, yes; “Found black snake in winery today…”
cheers,
GG

[brodie_thomson]

Paul,

thanks for the notes. Such an iconic and famous set of wines. I think I must have read about them from Halliday’s writings. They sound fantastic, colour me jealous…

Such a long way from the Queen Anne’s Claret- which I think I remember as being the last of the wines made under the Woodley label in the 1980’s and early 1990’s

Cheers Brodie

[Anthony_Hall]

@Graeme Gee

@Anthony Hall

Hi Graeme,
It was Ian McKenzie (ex chief winemaker from Southcorp) who told me that water was deliberately added and he has the old wine making journals written in “winemakers code” to prove it !

Ah, yes; “Found black snake in winery today…”
cheers,
GG

you got it !

[Matthew_Hemming]

Great stuff. I have an empty bottle of the 1954 sat on a shelf in my lounge. We drank it in a brakcet that included the Bin 7 1967, and a number of other rarities like Wynns Michael 1955, in the Hunter with Len Evans. My bottle’s signed by Len as well as the others there - Halliday, Riggs, Macca, etc - so I can’t refill it and sell it via Spectrum…