TNs: Margaret River wines

WINE TALK
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Interesting dinner with a really strong line up of goodies from Western Australia’s Margaret River. To kick things off we started with a very decent 2012 Piper Heidseick vintage.

2013 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay
Nashi pears and sub tropical fruits drizzled with vanilla scents. Some oak evident but quite linear, fine style. Lovely.
2014 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay
Riper, broader wine, more on the tropical fruit spectrum. Richer than the '13 but without the cut. Still very youthful.

2000 Moss Wood Ribbon Vale Cabernet Blend
Now mature and perhaps drying out a bit, but good sinew and muscle and slightly coarse tannins. Dark, dark fruits trimmed with a hint of camphor and barnyard. Would have been a bruiser in its youth.
2004 Voyager Estate ‘Tom Price’ Cabernet Sauvignon
Quite high toned with jubey black fruits. Quite a lick of sweet oak. A bit over done with the oak but still relatively fresh.
2006 Cullen ‘Diana Madelaine’ CS blend
Elegant, integrated, long and silky palate. Perfectly ripe boysenberry and cassis fruit now showing semi maturity. Really good drink and my WOTN.
2010 Chateau Xanadu Black Label CS
Very good, firmish black fruits, still very primary and young. Needs time.

2010 Woodlands Heather Jean Cabernet Sauvignon
Redder fruit spectrum, mid-weight, elegant style. Lovely fruit but needs time to gain complexity.

2010 Deep Woods Estate Reserve Nebbiolo
Dusty, firm sour cherry and herbs. Robust tannins. A bit blocky at this stage, needs to slumber. Can’t recall seeing another Nebbiolo from Margaret River.

2014 Deep Woods Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve - Jimmy Watson Trophy
Awarded best one year old red at the Melbourne Wine Show which is Australia’s most prestigious wine trophy. Glossy cassis fruits cedar and graphite. Impeccable balance and real length from refined tannins. Delicious even as a youngster.

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Cullen, brilliant.

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I know basically nothing about Margaret River wines, but I was very impressed with a 2013 Woodlands “Margaret” five years ago and tracked down a few bottles. Like you said of the Heather Jean, it was very elegant. I have no idea whether it needs more time. Advice, Kent?

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To my palate, most premium MR river reds need 15yrs to be at their best. Woodlands are making some of the best wines in the region and the Margaret is a real value play.

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I had the 2018 Cullen Di Madeline recently. They moved over to biodynamic in the past decade. Lots of interesting names to the wines now!

But the Di Madeline was looking great as a youngster just bottled. More settled and balanced with out oak overtones. I still have their older wines eg 1999, 2001, 2004 in my cellar that I drink from time to time but I think they have substantially improved since 2012.

I then got tempted and purchased a few bottles of they Legacy Sau Blanc. Expensive. I don’t tend to purchase Sau blancs apart from occasional bottle of Mount Mary Triolet or Sorrenberg Haven’t opened one yet. But hoping it will be good too.

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I had several bottles of the Cullen DM a ways back, maybe it was vintages of the early 2000s or 1990s. They were elegant and restrained, lacking any obvious excesses, but kind of light bodied, simple and straightforward. They seemed more Lanessan than classified growth.

I’d be interested to revisit it, though.