TN: Hoddles Creek Pinot Noir 2015, Mac Forbes

WINE TALK
1

Alas, my webserver, that hosts Elitistreview.com, has gone arse over tit, and my computing department is too busy earning a living, so we can… erm… live, to fix it for a few days. Therefore, the note of last night’s wine will gladly accept a place to lurk on Todd’s fine, working server. Just head to Elitistreview at the end of the week (oh please work by then) to get the joke-tastic, 402 word, introductory preamble.

Pinot Noir ‘Hoddles Creek’ 2015, Mac Forbes
Ooooohhh… yummy, yummy! This is bursting with lovely Pinot fruit that is super fresh and charged with energetic vivacity. The fruit reminds me of the lovely Premier Cru raspberries one can find in the Domaine Dujac garden at the right time of year.

But there is a subtle difference from the Morey character of those raspberries: a sort of blackberry/blackcurrant thing fiddling around at the edges of your perceptive range. Definitely there, just not jumping out of the glass and slapping you around a bit. This is more involute than the first sniff of hilariously pleasurable, stunningly enjoyable, obvious fruit one first gets.

The fruit is sweet, lively and ripe. But, get this, even though the fruit is sweet and ripe this wine is only 12%! I was rather surprised when I read this on the label, but this is the reason why it seems so lively and fun. So it should be easy on the head and not impede the execution of one’s afternoon of trying to improve my musical skills for my second album; an exercise that seems necessary as my first album is yet to sell a single copy!

So it smells great and won’t knock me for six; a top luncheon wine then! It smells like it will be great with my Beechcroft Farm beef.

And it is. There is a hint of prickle to the tannins, and the acidity is wizard. This is quite the stunner of a structure – a really delicious light Pinot composition.

It has the same delicious raspberry fruit and the acidity tastes like it is actually freshly squeezed out of some raspberries. Ooohh… I’m having a good time with this!

Now I am being completely honest here – flavours in wine can remind one of all sorts of things. Whilst I was doing my doctorate I took a day off, did not get many of them, to drive to Wales with my chum Miles to climb a mountain. Buggered if I can remember why I agreed to this lunatic plan: I am petrified rigid of heights and mountains are… well… high.

Once we got to the top Miles said he wanted to take the fun way down. This involved sliding down a vertiginous scree slope on one’s arse, using feet to control speed and to prevent heading toward the several hundred metre sheer drop worryingly close to Miles’ preferred route.

As I burned down the slope, wondering how many of the small rocks would end up burning through my clothes and getting permanently lodged between my buttocks I felt a strange, hard bite in my mouth; I though this odd, stony grip was rock dust from the slope filling my palate in what I thoroughly expected to be a successful attempt to choke me to death.

Now, that anecdote does actually have relevance to this tasting note. You see, on the mid-palate and finish of this wine there was a seasoning of the flavour exactly like the rock dust I tasted so long ago.


It was a subtle addition to the palate’s flavours, but I recognised it so clearly that after my first mouthful I said to The Editor, “Good god! This tastes precisely like a Welsh mountain that nearly killed me almost twenty years ago! With fruit.” I explained myself above and I was gratified that he too could taste shades of rock in it. With an awful lot of fruit.

So this winsome little number actually ended up having a rather complex set of flavours – it was a deeply satisfying luncheon wine. It coloured and illuminated our discussions as we ate and we were terribly disappointed when the bottle was empty. It is not a frighteningly expensive wine, by any means, and will delight and engage you as you drink it.

This will please people who want to taste where their Pinot comes from. OK, I have piss all experience with this vineyard, but I was very much taken with its demonstrable communication of its origins. Top kit, Mac, many thanks!

Nighty, night!
Davy.

2

Terrific! The most fun and vivid tasting note I’ve read in ages. I feel I can taste the wine, including the rock dust.

Where is this from (country? region?). I have no idea.

Welsh pinot, perhaps?

3

Fantastic note as always, Davy.

John, this might help you a bit.

4

Thanks, though even that doesn’t specify a country. Unless you know the Yarra Valley is in Australia, you still have to look it up.

5

Sorry, figured that you knew.

6

I did, but I bet a lot of people wouldn’t have.

I have a campaign to get people here to say where the wines they discuss are from. If it’s Caymus or DRC or JJ Prum, no need, but there are a lot of posts on wines that are not by any stretch universally known and yet are mentioned with no info at all.

There, now I’m stepping off my soap box (and high horse).

7

2015 was an excellent Vintage for pinot in the Yarra Valley, and south eastern Australia in general. The Yarra Valley is a pretty big area with different sub regions and Mac Forbes produces several single vineyard pinots from across the region. He’d be one of the more interesting producers from that region.

8

Great note. Might weigh here in as I’ve worked vintage for Mac, and I genuinely think he’s making the most exciting Pinots in the country right now.

Yarra Valley is traditionally thought of as “cool climate”, which to a European would be a laughable concept if you actually lived there over harvest. It’s all relative I guess. Nonetheless, the region is planted to mostly Chardonnay and Pinot, as traditionally it’s been sparkling territory. But there’s great Cabernet and Shiraz to be found also. The effects of climate change are quite noticeable here, and in the dry seasons, it becomes very hot. The Yarra Valley itself is quite vast and sprawling, and lies to the immediate north-east of Melbourne, Australia’s southernmost mainland city. It’s situated around the Yarra River, which is an inlet that runs from inland Victoria, through the valley, cuts down the middle of Melbourne’s CBD and empties at Port Phillip bay.

Phylloxera is still a thing here. Many vineyards are still on own roots, and quarantine controls are strict in these “exclusion zones”. Mac has lost a few prized vineyards to the blight which is pretty sad. Prevention protocol is inconsistent from winery to winery and so it’s inevitable that eventually the whole valley will have to be planted to rootstock. In the meantime, growers are pretty strict about protecting their assets.

Mac’s emphasis in his vineyards are on cooler, less exposed sites in the upper Yarra Valley, which is an area to the south of the valley which sits at a marginally higher elevation. Through his wines, he’s started a conversation similar to what you folks have had about the “In Pursuit of Balance” stuff, wines that reflect place and variety with less additions and winery trickery. Vineyard practices are largely organic, depending on the season. He’s interested in cover crops, as well as methods to retain soil-moisture in the dry seasons. He picks early, wanting to retain natural acidity as much as possible. Never uses new oak, never fines or filters. Sometimes uses a bit of whole bunch, so they’re a bit savoury and chewy in style. The Chardonnays are not allowed to go through malo, so they are leaner in style, but they still manage to offer plenty of texture and power as they are oxidatively handled at crush and sometimes left on skins for a bit.

The labels of his wines are listed with the village name in big bold letters, and then as a subtitle “Mac Forbes” below that. The variety is less relevant. Might not seem so revolutionary to the Europeans or Yanks here, but I’ve never before seen that on an Australian label. His wines have changed the conversation about Australian wine and are still largely flying under the radar. The production is small. He also makes Rieslings, and a series of Experimental Batch wines which are unusual blends and varieties, which are more about winemaking fun like extended maceration and oxidative ageing, etc. But I think his area of influence is in his Pinots and Chardonnays which are world class. They aren’t trying to be Burgundy or whatever, they reflect where they’re from and sometimes that means they have a warm, sunshine-y sort of bright fruitiness about them. But they are never “simple” wines. They offer a lot of complexity and I think are very finessed and elegant in style.

Hoddle’s Creek is one of these cooler, upper Yarra parcels and is usually one of the last to be picked. It is a beautiful place, off the beaten track a bit, surrounded by woodland and with a gorgeous view. I helped pick there this year and will never forget the early-morning view becoming clearer as the fog lifted. Gorgeous spot. I’ve been trying to attach some photos I took but am having trouble with the uploading, getting the “It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image” message.

Anyway, it is one of the larger parcels he deals with and is broken down into Upper, Mid, and lower patches qualitatively, with the mid and upper sections making it into this wine, and the rest going into his “Yarra Valley” entry-level pinot. The most special of his vineyard sites for me are Woori Yallock and Wesburn. Small sites producing intensely flavoured but elegant Pinots. They mostly fall around that 12% mark. I strongly recommend tracking some down.

9

Ah! Terribly sorry, chaps! I should have realised that Mac’s wines would hardly be known in the USA when they are hardly known here in his biggest export market.

Gareth, thank you for providing all the information - I’m a bit jealous of you working with Mac! He’s a really top bloke, and you are undoubtedly right: he does make Australia’s best Pinots. He’s better than Gary Farr.

Anyway, I shall provide more information in future. Sorry again, boys and girls.

D.

10

Perhaps to reinforce your point, I have no idea who Caymus or JJ Prum are.

11

Hoddles Creek Estate (situated in Hoddles creek) is a winery that also makes superb Chardonnay and Pinot. Franco D’Anna is a terrific wine maker and a friend.

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Not knowing Caymus is forgivable. :wink: