2003 - The Year in Review

Torbwine offers a snapshot of the past twelve months, the highlight, the low lights, the best of the new releases plus much more. Settle back and grab a glass of good red and read 2003 - The Year in Review.

Let me preface the next section by saying I dislike lists that state “The Best or Top 10” of the year etc. These lists are like sausages, it depends on who makes them and in most case they are pretty meaningless. Yes the wines listed in them are good, there is doubt about that, but “the best”? The best in comparison to what and based on whose criteria? Just because a wine is judged as “The Winner” or in “The Top 10” does not make it worth chasing because it’s possible that the reader may not like the style. You can’t drink points or trophies, just what’s in the bottle. Many great and some not so great wines were tasted by me in 2003 but the standouts, either in terms of quality or value or a combination of both have been used to compile my lists. No arbitrary numbers have been used; I just extracted what I considered to be the highlights, both in terms of value or quality, in many cases both; some are below $20 and a few below $15. Wines that were of a very high quality but do not represent even reasonable value have been excluded.  

In February I toured the wine regions of Western Australia and the full tour diary notes can be found here.  The highlights were-:

Gilbert 2000 Reserve Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Alkoomi 2001 Shiraz Highly Recommended with ****

Alkoomi 1999 Blackbutt Excellent ***

Salitage 1999 Pemberton Excellent ****

Normans 1998 Chais Clarendon Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Cullen 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Outstanding ****

Vasse Felix 2001 Classic Dry Red Recommended  ****

Vasse Felix 2000 Heytesbury Excellent ***

Moss Wood 2001 Cabernet Merlot Excellent ***

Happs 1999 Three Hills Shiraz Excellent  ***

Woody Nook 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Highly Recommended with ****

Woodlands 2000 St Peter Excellent ****

Cape Grace 2001 Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

In May I completed my annual pilgrimage to South Australia for 10 days of wine tasting and general drinking.  (The full story broken down into chapters can be found here.) Once again a large number of terrific wines were tasted and here are some of the standouts – a few great value drops too.

Fox Creek 2001 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Excellent ****

Fox Creek 2001 Reserve Shiraz Excellent ****

Balnaves 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Highly Recommended ****

Penley Estate 2000 Shiraz Cabernet Highly Recommended ****

Penley Estate 2000 Reserve Cabernet Excellent ****

Majella 2000 Malleea Excellent ***

Wynns 1999 John Riddoch Excellent ***

Zema Estate 2000 Family Selection Shiraz Excellent ****

Parker Estate 2001 Terra Rossa Cabernet Sauvignon Highly Recommended ****

Punters Corner 1998 Cabernet Merlot Highly Recommended ****

Pirramimma 2001 Petite Verdot Highly Recommended ****

Cascabel 2001 Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Oliverhill 2002 Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Classic McLaren 2001 Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Paxton 2001 Shiraz Excellent ***

Grant Burge 1999 Meshach Shiraz Excellent ***

Rockford 1997 Vintage Port Outstanding ***

Kaesler 2001 Brogan Shiraz Excellent ***

Eden Springs 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Recommended now with ****

Thorn Clarke 1998 William Randell Shiraz Highly Recommended *****

Kurtz Family 2001 Boundary Row Shiraz Recommended now with *****

Magpie Estate 2001 The Election Shiraz Outstanding ***

Burge Family 2001 Draycott Shiraz Excellent ****

Elderton 2001 Shiraz Highly Recommended *****

Elderton 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Highly Recommended *****

Peter Lehmann 2001 Shiraz Recommended *****

Peter Lehmann 1987 The King VP Outstanding ***

In August the Western Australia Road Show hit the road and once again there were some fabulous wines on offer. The highlights were:-

Voyager Estate 2002 Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Plantagenet 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Highly Recommended ****

Houghton Gladstone 1999 Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon Excellent ***

Moss Wood 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Excellent ***

Lots of other New Releases were tried and here are some of the highlights from that section of notes:-

Burge Family 2002 Olive Hill Highly Recommended with ****

Burge Family 2002 G3 Excellent ***

Oliverhill 2002 Jimmy Section Shiraz Recommended ****

Eden Springs 2002 Barossa Shiraz Highly Recommended ****

Rosemount 2001 Traditional Highly Recommended ****

Seppelt DP 57 Grand Tokay Outstanding ***

Shotfire Ridge 2002 Barossa Valley Shiraz Recommended ****

Kurtz Family 2002 GSM Recommended *****

It’s interesting to note that a wrote up and rated very highly had normal sales until they were later blessed by the “name” judges and writers and the wines took off and sold out quickly. Just one example was the Petaluma 2000 Coonawarra which I rated highly and most people ignored. Then it won a gong and sales rocketed. Readers of my notes knew how good the wine was months previously. In the case of the Cullen 2001 Diana, readers of TORBWINE got in early and didn’t miss out as I reviewed the wine many months prior to the formal writers getting their notes out.

The Australian Wine Industry

Last year saw another year of highs and lows for the Australian wine industry, a pattern they must be getting used to! Southcorp was in the headlines with a change of CEO, woeful profit results and low share prices. BRL Hardy merged with Constellation (moving Southcorp into the number two spot) to become the largest wine company. Fosters remained steady as she goes without any great ups or downs but all players found it difficult to maintain their profit margins. Consolidations continued with some of the medium sized players like McGuigan Simeon Wines getting bigger and some of the smaller wineries (and not so small) went belly up.

The squeeze on profits will continue for some time and those reliant on export markets will continue to feel pressure from the rising Australian dollar.

There was a battle royal for Peter Lehmann by two competing overseas interests, another once proud Australian company gone the way of companies like Arnotts. No doubt this trend will continue as part of the globalisation process.

SA red wines

Coonawarra was the standout region in SA in 2000 and the Cabernets from that vintage are showing well. However in the case of Shiraz, the 2000 vintage proved to be year that required careful cherry picking. The 2001 releases indicate they will be very good for earlier than normal consumption due to their very ripe characteristics. The 2002 early releases indicate that the wines from many parts of SA will be simply fantastic. The vintage is not being hyped by the industry – yet – because they need to clear the backlog of 2000 and 2001s first but there is no doubt the “vintage of the decade” predictions will be upon us soon enough.

Hot Issues

The dreaded TCA or cork taint continues to be a curse on the industry but there is a rapidly growing acceptance of ROTE closures for early drinking styles. Despite the supporters of ROTE seals who in many cases support their beliefs with fundamentalist like convictions, many in the industry are not so convinced they are the perfect solution for the long term ageing of reds. The jury is still out on this one and will be for some time.

Retail Consolidations

Once again, it’s a case of the big getting bigger and the small finding it hard to scratch out a market niche. Coles Myer and Woolworths continue to fight tooth and nail to dominate the retailing scene; in this case they wish to own the liquor retail market. They have continued to buy out independents and expand their tentacles. This domination of the market will have serious consequences for the smaller producers who will have trouble getting shelf space and make it tougher for the large producers who will have to offer more and more to hold shelf space. As competition reduces in the longer term, it will impact consumers as competition lessens. The impact of what’s to come can already be seen with the outrageous prices charged for some premium and icon wines in stores like Vintage Cellars.

Release of 1998 Grange

How could it be a year in review without mention of the hottest topic of 2003, the release of 1998 Grange? I can’t imagine too many Australians were exactly happy with the events surrounding the release. Most retailers were allocated far less than in previous years, however not only didn’t they have to discount it to move stock the way many had to with the previous vintage, they charged a premium and many consumers were happy to pay $100 more than the previous RRP to obtain it. Mass hysteria surrounded this wine with prices jumping to $575 within days of release and magnums going for as much as $2000.

This level of hype did not extend overseas with the wine freely being available on special in the UK and the US despite the high Parker rating. Much of this wine has been purchased overseas and then shipped back to Australia for sale to those still desperate to get there hands on some of this wine. Still, it pays to remember its still fermented grape juice no matter what’s on the label, something many of the 1998 Grange buyers may have lost site of! Each to their own, but isn’t what that wine is all about?