Toms Waterhole Wines October Newsletter

Five new releases

On 14th September we bottled three new wines - a 2009 Shiraz, a 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, and labelled  2010 Semillon, a 2010 Chardonnay, and a special mail order only wine we'll tell you about later.
We are not sure whether these are the best wines we have ever made but taken over all they go close. You could argue that the 2005 Semillon that scored 92 points from James Halliday was better than the new release 2010 but it's a close run thing and while we still love the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon the 2009 doesn't disappoint. We tend not to be passionate about Chardonnay so here our judgment can be questioned but when a wine picks up the equivalent of a bronze medal before it's even finished it's a pretty good indicator of quality.
But
We will accept no argument about the Shiraz. It is, unequivocally, the best Shiraz we have ever released.

For a couple of months now we have been pretty certain that we had something good in prospect but it was only after we had finished the bottling and could line up all the wines that we realised just how extraordinary this batch of wines is. And when you add to them the already released Semillon/Chardonnay (James Halliday 87 points) and the rave-reviewed Cabernet/Shiraz/Merlot we are convinced that we have never had such a high quality array for sale. We look at the display on our tasting bench and shake our heads in wonder.
So how did it happen?
It actually goes back to a decision we made in 2008.
Like almost all winemakers we are influenced by the show judges, wine writers and critics. Oh, we claim not to be, but we can't help it. They keep banging on about cool climate, about "refined" (read astringent) Chardonnay from Tumbarumba and cherry and pepper Shiraz Viognior from Canberra and the Yarra Valley and so almost unconsciously we head our wines in that direction. You can see that most clearly in our 2006 and 2007 Shiraz and our 2006 and 2008 Chardonnay.
We had our Damascus road moment when we were fermenting our 2008 Cabernet and we realised that the fruit was so big, rich and ripe there was no way we could use cool climate techniques such as whole bunch processing. It was then that we finally accepted that we are a warm climate wine region. We make rich full bodied wines that can hold their own with a standing rib roast or a rack of pork with all the crackling. You should be able to taste the sun in our wine and the flavour of the stunningly beautiful Canowindra valley.

New Release 2009 Shiraz

New Release - 2009 Shiraz: We made this wine with a mix of tradition and innovation. We used traditional Shiraz pump-over techniques in the fermentation then aged it in flextanks with new American oak planks. The result is that the second you see this wine in the glass you know it's not cool climate. It's thick and purple and it smells like sticking your nose in a punnet of blackberries. It's a dense plum pudding of a wine with the taste of cassis, plums, chocolate and hints of cedar and coconut from new American oak. This is the wine we started out to make in 1999, almost made in 2002 and then lost our way. It screams for rare roast beef. To order 2009 Shiraz on line now click here. and don't forget to login to receive our special mail order prices.

New release 2009 Cab Sav.

New Release - 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon: At first sight you might expect this to be lighter and thinner than the Shiraz. It was plunge fermented then taken off the skins and pressed a little earlier than our previous vintages. As a result it's a slightly lighter colour - dark red - and less viscous when you swirl it in the glass. But don't be fooled. As soon as you smell it those typical Canowindra spices - cinnamon and cloves - jump out at you and the taste compounds them with dark chocolate, liquorice and vanilla from the French oak. There are some really big tannins as well so we expect the wine to improve for up to ten years. We love the Shiraz now but the Cabernet may well be the one to put down for the long haul. To order 2009 Cab Sav on line now click here and don't forget to login to receive our special mail order prices.

New release 2010 Semillon

New Release - 2010 Semillon: We have sold out of our 2008 Semillon which is a pity because we were hoping to put aside ten or twenty cases for a museum release in four years time but as you know, cash is king around here. We are sure that the 2010 is better than the 2008 and 2006. Whether it ultimately matches the 2005 we will only know after a year or so in the bottle but we think it's certainly in that league. At the moment, as a five month old Semillon it is clear straw in colour (actually it's almost as clear as water) with that distinctive Semillon aroma of cut grass, lanoline and citrus that follows through on the palate. What lifts it above the 2008 in our mind is that it seems to have an additional something - quince, grapefruit, guava, something like that - that the 2008 didn't have at the same stage but the 2005 did. It eats Sauvie Blanc for breakfast right now and in two years this wine will astonish you.

New release 2010 Chardonnay

New Release - 2010 Chardonnay: We liked the 2008 Chardonnay, we really did, but the truth is that it was just a nice unoaked Chardonnay. It wasn't Canowindra. So in 2009 we went the other way and made a small amount of heavily oaked wine. We hadn't intended to make any Chardonnay at all but the grapes were given to us and so we decided to go back to the 1970's. Enough customers loved it so that we sold out but it wasn't quite right. It was the right idea but the execution let us down. So this year we dialed back a little. It is still an oaked wine but less so than last year. The grapes were picked at our direction a little earlier than in the past (around 12 degrees Baume) and that heightened the tartaric and malic acid content. It's light green gold in colour with the aroma of stone fruit - maybe white peaches - and the taste of peaches and honeydew melons but over all is spread this lovely citrus character. It's a warm climate oaked Chardonnay for sure but not in the 1970s style, more 1970s interpreted in 2010; more subtle, more delicate, dryer and less cloying but still able to hold its own with a leg of pork.  Click here to order now.

Newsletter Special Release

New Release - 2010 Vintage Port: In the millennium year 2000 when we started our Port solera we had no idea of the trouble we were getting into. You see, Canowindra is not really a region suited to making Port.
To make really good fortified wines as they do in Rutherglen you need to have what they have in Rutherglen - an Indian summer. That's so the grapes can reach a really ripe state of 20 degrees Baume or so. In Canowindra what happens is that by early April the overnight temperature drops towards zero. For grapes to continue ripening they have to be warmer than 12 degrees Centigrade so mostly the grapes left on the vines dry out and raisin. Fortunately Canowindra has small micro climates where the grapes do ripen but the locations of these change from year to year depending on the prevailing wind, the soil moisture and a whole heap of factors too complicated to even begin to understand let alone explain.
So every year around March we go on a grape hunt. We prefer Shiraz but we can't afford to be fussy. We'll use Cabernet (both Sauvignon and Franc), Merlot and even in one year Sangiovese. Some years our search is literally fruitless so we husband our solera carefully.
Then along comes a year like 2010 when everything is perfect and there are abundant port grapes just hanging there. To cut a long story short greed got the better of us and we contracted for two tonnes of grapes more than we had barrels in our solera.
Back in 2000 not only did we start our solera but we also hand bottled ten or so cases as an experiment in bottle aged vintage port. It was a pretty rough bottling with very dubious corks but the bottles that have survived the ten years ... oh brother!
So this time we set out to make a vintage port from scratch, not just by accident. This means thinking ten or twenty years ahead because that's how long the wine is supposed to age in the bottle. This means it's a touch drier, a touch higher in alcohol and a touch more tannic than the 2010 ingredients for our solera but we think that the result is nothing short of sensational.
We have bottled all 600 litres (yes, that's how much port 2 tonnes of grapes makes) under a high quality screw cap with a classy label. We have set aside 25 cases for the "house" - we're going to give it to our children and grandchildren for Christmas to be opened no earlier than 2025 and the rest, some 40 cases, we're offering for sale. By the way, because of the new labeling laws the label calls it "fortified  Shiraz" but we all know what it really is.

And now the rest of the range

We have raved about our new releases but we also have two "easy drinking" blend wines and a Rose that we released earlier in the year and we think it's worth reminding you of just what they are and how they came about.

Prevoius release- Semillon Chardonnay

Previous release - Waterhole Blend Semillon/Chardonnay: The Semillon in this blend is the same as in the premium 2010 Semillon but the Chardonnay is different. We learned a few years back that oaked Chardonnay just doesn't work in a blend so prior to putting our premium 2010 Chardonnay into oak and running a malolactic fermentation we streamed off a proportion for the blend. This has three advantages. Firstly it makes a better blend, secondly we can get it ready sooner and thirdly and by no means least importantly, it's cheaper to make.
James Halliday says " a remarkably good wine at the price; fresh and lively, with grass, citrus and mineral flavours." We would add that it's green gold in colour and we think you can also taste peaches and melons. Halliday scored it 87 points - a silver medal standard.

Previous release- Cab/Shiraz/Merlot

Previous release - Waterhole Blend Cabernet/Shiraz/Merlot: This is a real "bitser" of a blend with a base of 2007 Cabernet that we never released freshened with a splash of the brilliant 2008 Cabernet left over from bottling. To that we added some 2006 Shiraz (newsletter readers may remember the forgotten barrels) and a small quantity of 2007 Merlot made especially for this blend. We then added a small amount of 2009 Shiraz that wouldn't fit into our American oak flextanks.
We make no bones about the fact that we blended this wine to a specific taste and made use of all the materials available to us and it took us months to get it right. But we did get it right and Rick Allen's wine review of a couple of months ago says it all: "It's soft and easy, with plummy fruit and some spicy complexity. Don't expect the earth to move but at the price you'll be glad you discovered it"

Previous release- Shiraz Rose

Previous release - 2010 Shiraz Rose: This is the most controversial of all the wines now on release because one of us doesn't like it at all and one of us loves it. But irrespective of our opinions it is our single largest seller at the cellar door.
You will recall that we made the 2010 Rose from Shiraz because there was no Grenache available. Now it's true that the first Rose we made, in 2008, was also made from Shiraz but that was strictly experimental and had enough faults to persuade us that Grenache was preferable. But you work with what you have and so we worked with Shiraz and produced a glowing pink wine that is all the bright red cherry and strawberry fruit flavours and slips down beautifully with Asian and Indian food but to one of us it's too sweet.
In the end it's a matter of taste. If you like pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast this is the wine for you. If you prefer to start you day with a grapefruit you might pause before you buy. One thing on which we both agree is that the wine is faultlessly clean and bright and quite lovely if you like the style.