Spanspek

Some friends of ours hosted a special wine event at the weekend: a vertical tasting of pinot noirs from Morningside in the Coal River Valley. Here are my notes: 2008 Reserved, slightly sappy. 2007 Quite well developed. Good varietal characters. 2006 Initially a bit austere and spicy. After one hour, it really opened up. 2005 The last wine with a clone which produces big flavours. (Now used for a lower-priced pinot for heroes!) First of the wines sealed with a Diam closure. Wild and stinky with a marked vanilla overlay. Almost creamy mouthfeel. A second bottle, less developed, exhibited more restraint. 2004 Brick red. Stinky but more restrained. Opened up after 10 minutes to be quite fragrant. Slightly viscous mouthfeel. 2003 Purple. Funky characters like the 05, but more herbal. 2002 Very fragrant. Stink blew off after a few minutes. Sweet, smooth, slightly sappy. Delicate in the mouth. A second bottle showed a beautiful balance between youthful acidity and aged elegance. 2001 Much more restrained on the nose than 02. Slightly dusty character and drier on the palette. 2000 Dry finish. Slightly astringent. 1999 Fragrant and restrained. A little funky. As you can see, the odd years mostly seem to be funky. I compared them to a Urei 1176. The 2005 has all four ratio buttons pushed in: nasty compression, but with the right signal just the ticket. For the pinot, choose the right food!

A couple of weekends ago I went picking at Windy Ridge, a winery in South Gippsland. We picked cabernet and malbec. Cabernet forms nice little bunches. Malbec is a weed!