Featured Winery Review Hobbs 2

Hobbs of Barossa – Part Two

A few months ago, I wrote the first part of a featured winery review called And I Thought Hobbs Was About Stoves which detailed the stunningly good dessert wines from this producer as well as a little about their operation. The story ended with the tag line "to be continued...." and there was a very good reason why the story was to split into two. In time, this micro-producer will become better known for their top-shelf reds which were not reviewed in the first story. The reason for the split in the story and the omission in of the two red tasting notes was simple. When I opened the two reds there was something unusual; both corks looked like wine barrels and were leaking slightly although the wine seemed fine; no signs of TCA or oxidation. Prior to posting the story, Gregg read my tasting notes and resulting conclusions and he thought there must have been something wrong with both of the reds. He suggested I retaste those wines and if I found them to be the same, by all means post the original story but if they were different than it would obviously need to be altered.

Whilst the original two reds seemed fine, indeed sound wines that were enjoyable, but they were not worth anything like the $100+ asking price. That wasn't just my opinion. I knew that my good mate Brian was going to stop in on his way back home to Canberra, so I decanted a couple of extra glasses of the reds for him so I could get his opinion. When Brian tried the first wine (double-blind) he rated it as Recommended and thought it was a reasonable $30 bottle. When Brian tried the second wine, once again he had no idea what he tasted or how much it cost, and he said, "It has good structure and oak handling, but there is a green flavour with a sour edge which I think may come from slightly green tannins." Brian thought it was a good $35-$40 wine.

Due to the cost of the wines and extremely limited availability, I arranged for the two of us to meet Greg Hobbs at his home in the Eden Valley to retry the wines during our recent trip to SA. Greg was right; the second tasting was very different to the first. The original bottles were mailed in a styrofoam pack in January and in hindsight it seems the bottles were cooked. Since then, the winery refuses to ship wines using this method during hot months - smart move!

Greg's place is located high in the Eden Valley a few kilometres past Yalumba. His property is located right next door to Chris Ringland’s Three Rivers property. Two and a half acres of Greg’s vines were planted over a hundred years ago and the resulting yield from all those vines is a measly 3 tonnes in a good year. Prior to tasting the wines, we piled into Greg Land Rover for a tour through the ancient vineyard. When Greg purchased the estate, there were 70-year-old Pedro Ximenes vines that were fetching a whopping $200 a tonne so these were ripped out and change to Shiraz. The Semillon, which was as valuable as airbrakes on a turtle were changed over to "that weed" Viognier, but these guys make a very respectable desert wine from most of it! During the vine pull scheme, well before Greg brought the property, acres of hundred-year-old vines were pulled. That area is now being replanted with root stock from the small area of remaining old vine material.

The property is fairly steep with a conglomeration of higgledy-piggledy old, mature and young vines. As we drove through it, there were rolled up bales of nets all over the place; something you don't normally see on the Barossa floor. In this area and on this property in particular, birds decimating the fruit is a real problem and although the cost of netting is horrifically expensive, the very low yields and value of the crop makes it mandatory. When you drive through most vineyards at this time of the year, the vines look reasonably dense and still have a fair amount of foliage. The general impression in most vineyards is one of density, but not this one. For some reason, it seems sparse in comparison to others and that low density or sparseness may be why the fruit is so good.

According to Greg, as he came from the city, he doesn't know what to do, so he just wanders around the property (and the borrowed winery space at Trevor Jones?) and does exactly what Chris Ringland tells him to do.

I must admit that when Greg told me the cost of his flagship wine was $130, I was somewhat taken aback. There are very few wines with no track record that could possibly justify anything like this price. However in its favour, the fruit was previously used in Run Rig and that is substantially more expensive, but it takes more than just great grapes to produce a wine that is worthy of this price tag; so let's see how they stacked up second time round. We sat outside the house in the warmth of the late autumn sun enjoying the peace and tranquillity, seemingly a million miles from anywhere yet we were only a few kilometres out of the Barossa as the crow flies. A plate of cheese and bickies were also laid on, an addition that is always appreciated. The bickies help to refresh the palate and the cheese offers another perspective as far as food matching is concerned.

Hobbs 2002 Gregor Shiraz has a list price of from cellar door of $111 and only 73 dozen bottles have been made. The wine was made in an Amarone style and matured in French oak. It had been decanted for a couple of hours prior to tasting. The lifted fruit exuded sublime purity and oozed pepper resulting in a sensual bouquet. This is classy winemaking; perfect construction and a sensational balance between top quality, cool-climate fruit, ultra-fine, tightly-grained tannins and unobtrusive acid. A savoury top layer of black pepper, white pepper, aniseed, rich chocolate and mint flavours flow over a sweet river of fruit that finishes with extraordinary length and persistence. An elegant, layered wine with a supple consistency of just ample-weight, it is sophisticated and already harmonious. A wine of exceptional quality, it is rated as Excellent with ** for value and the rating should improve as it reaches maturity in 2010 and beyond. At that time you will be glad you bought it! I could have cried when I had to spit it.

Hobbs 2002 Shiraz has a list price of from cellar door of a $130 and only about 66 dozen have been made. After sniffing this wine, I can understand how people get addicted to sniffing glue and petrol because the bouquet on this wine was certainly addictive with its coffee, milk chocolate, mocha and blackberry aromas; I just wanted to keep sniffing it all day. The palate is a shut shop -- closed tightly; but it’s a bloody serious wine! Pure, deep fruit combined with ultra-fine, dusty tannins to deliver cherry, milk chocolate, pepper, subtle blackberries, a touch of charred spice; it is rich but not overripe and finishes long, dry and persistent. Weighing in at 13.3% alcohol, it is medium-weight with a refined complexity that is already harmonious; this is a classically constructed, tightly-knit, complete wine. It is more traditional than the Gregor and is rated as Excellent with ** for value but that rating is bound to improve the wine eventually matures.

The 2001 Hobbs Shiraz received a high rating (96) from Parker, and originally I felt the one high rating combined with a very limited production had been used to justify the prices on both the Shiraz labels. Whilst to some extent that is still the case, there is no doubting the quality of the wine and I would much prefer to purchase these than pay a $160 a bottle on the secondary market for a good vintage of the Noon's Shiraz, which many people do.

Hobbs is a new winery, does not have a track record, does not have a reputation but watch out, if they keep making wines like this, it's only a matter of time before they are highly sought after.

You also have to admire how the Gregor wine was named. Some years ago Greg (Gregory to those that want to be formal) was having skiing lessons from a European. The instructors English pronunciation wasn't great and he was the "formal" type. All through the lesson, much to the amusement of Greg's wife, the instructor kept yelling "Lean over Gregor, Gregor you need to lean over." Its not often someone is prepared to name a wine in a manner that "takes the pi$$ out of themselves." But then that is typical of Greg's attitude towards life and dry sense of humour.

As we were leaving and John got up and complained about his jeans being to tight after all the good food he had been eating. Greg responded "That's what good living is all about; being able to afford a wardrobe full of the next size of clothing." What a great way to spend an hour!