Great Australian Wines!

Last night we hosted an Australian Winemaker's Tasting! With us was Dean Hewitson, owner/winemaker of Hewitson Winery; and Sandro Mosele, winemaker for Kooyong Winery on the Mornington Peninsula of Victoria.

Oh man, the wines were great! Nine wines were poured, and there wasn't a single one that I wouldn't put on my table anytime!

Kooyong was fascinating. Their winery is on the Mornington Peninsula, way south in Victoria, literally looking over the strait to Tasmania. It's very cool there (relatively), so they don't do the big shiraz type wines - just Chardonnay and pinot noir! Available for the first time in Ohio, Sandro poured two single vineyard Chardonnays, the Mosaic and the Faultline. The vineyards are only 50 yards apart, but the soils are a bit different. Picked, fermented, barreled, made completely the same way, yet the differences were striking. Both reminded me of top-notch premier cru burgundy. The Mosaic was a little livelier, a little more forward, yet the acids were great and the flavors vibrant. The Faultline was a little fatter, with a little nuttiness and more sense of structure. Both wines are rich a creamy with complex long finishes. Here's the kicker - they both taste as if they have a good dose of malolactic fermentation on them, but no! Zero malolactic - which means the acids are fresh and stable and these wines will develop and improve for years, like a good white burgundy!

Ah, the Kooyong Pinot Noirs! Keep in mind that Pinot is not my favorite varietal, it's not what I pick to have at home unless my dinner just demands it! But this Kooyong 2000 - it is one of those wines you just sniff and sniff, it's just after ten minutes of sniffing that you realize that you haven't even sipped it yet because it smells so good and fascinating, why let it get out of your glass!?! The nose reminded me of some of the best Cotes de Beaune wines I've had - sensuous, floral, berries, earth. The palate was extremely complex and the finish smooth and long. As the evening went on, the wine developed some structure and fatness ('shoulders', one taster described) that just made it better. The other Pinot was the 2001 Haven, a single vineyard. If the 2000 Estate was a Beaune, then the Haven was a Cotes de Nuits. It too, had a beautiful nose but the spice and earth was a bigger part of it, the wine was more masculine, heavier in the mouth with a more angular tannic structure, yet not rough at all. Outstanding!

Tasters were evenly divided between the two Chards and the two Pinots. I myself liked the Mosaic Chard and the 2000 Estate Pinot!

On to the Hewitson table: Dean started us out with the new 2004 'Mermaids' Muscadelle, a lovely, delicate, DRY white wine great for lunch, before dinner, pool, deck, hot weather, before noon, brunch - we cme up with a bunch of times it would be good. Picked early to preserve the acids and then fermented dry, it only reaches 10% alcohol so it doesn't go straight to your head in that aforementioned hot weather! Get all ideas of what 'muscadelle' tastes like out of your head! This has hints of an Alsatian white to it, without, of course, the alcohol. Crisp, light, did we mention DRY?, altogether refreshing!

Hewitson's reds are what you might expect (or put another way, everything you'd wish for) from a top Aussie winery. The Miss Harry's, a Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre blend, was jammy and lively and exuberant, a great wine to slurp down with grilled stuff, at a party, and just plain great by itself! The Ned & Henry's Shiraz was focused, spicy, balanced, a top shiraz for the money by any standard. But the real stars of the table were the last two wines. 'Old Garden' Mourvedre is from a single vineyard which was planted in 1853 (not a typo - 1853) and is believed to be the oldest mourvedre vineyard in the world. The depth of flavor was incredible, the color, almost ebony, the concentration, well. it seemed you could taste all those years. Yet the wine was incredibly balanced, elegant almost. We had some Irish Kashel Blue cheese out and a new taste sensation was found! Like a good port or cream sherry, the acids and fruit concentration of the wine stood up to and matched the creamy blue cheese perfectly! And finally, the 'L'Oizeau' Shiraz. Dean's hallmark, at least from this tasting, is that he is able to get so much color and extract out of the grapes yet present a wine that is elegant and balanced and just tastes so darn good on it's own. And the balance, of course, makes it even better with food! So it is with the L'Oizeau Shiraz. Big fruit, tons of flavor, in the mouth the wine has a sense of being packed, and the longer you swirl or chew it, the more the different flavors unfold and reveal themselves!

All in all, a great tasting! But sad to say, these wines are not in great supply! We'll be getting as much as we can, but orders placed last night have priority and only some will able to be in stock for the holidays at the Dilly!