A Dozen Soaks

 

Last December an Auswine offline was held in Sydney and at that dinner it was decided that the next one would be held in beautiful downtown Bowral, which is about halfway between Sydney and Canberra, and from my perspective, that was a great idea as I live in the area.

 

The organisation that went into this dinner was enormous, and all the attendees owe a debt of gratitude to Craig Fynmore for doing such a terrific job of arranging it. Absolutely nothing was left to chance. A list of wines was given to the restaurant and they matched in the six course dégustation menu to the wines. Each couple brought two bottles, one of which was masked so that we could play options, and the other one was served openly.

 

As I live so close to the restaurant, naturally I didn't need to book accommodation, and of course Brian and Andrea, as well as Marion stayed at my place. Marion arrived early so that she could get some help reconfiguring her XDA phone which had just come back from being repaired. As I've had mine for longer than Marion, in theory I know my way around them. We sat down and did a few things but it wasn't working the way it was meant to, so I very carefully forced a synchronisation. Unfortunately, the destructions which are unique to the IBM component of the software that Marion is forced to use (Lotus Notes), are incredibly badly written and instead of the information going from the laptop to the phone, it somehow managed to wipe out the information on both units. Needless to say, Marion was not impressed when she lost her address book, diary and other information.

 

By the time Marion's face had gone from beetroot red, to just flaming red, I heard the deeply throated burble of Brian’s hoon-mobile coming down the dirt road and turning into my driveway. Phew! If anyone can fix this, it's Brian. He is an IT expert/programmer by profession and has had an XDA for longer than I have had mine. As soon as the car pulled up, I whisked him into the house, did not let him go to the toilet, or even offer him a cup of coffee; I was in deep poo and needed to be extracted quickly.

 

We sat down at the computer and reconstructed what I did, and Brian decided to choose the same options that I had, and couldn't believe it when it didn't do what it was supposed to do. We tried a couple of other things, but unfortunately to no avail. By this time, Marion had calmed down from heart attack level to extremely pi$$ed off level; i.e. I want to throw the damn thing away.

 

After a cup of coffee and a chat, it was time for a pre-pre-dinner drink. I opened a bottle of Seppelt 1993 Show Reserve Sparkling Shiraz. The last bottle I had of this wine, the first from a six-pack, was not as good as I had hoped, so my expectations were not overly high. A number of previous vintages of this wine have been riddled with Brett, and when I opened this one, Brian commented on the possibility but we needn't have worried, as there wasn't a trace of Brett to be found. The wine showed bright and vibrant fruit with off-sweet flavours of almost sour blackberry, earthy mushroom characters, and a hint of pepper on a drying finish. Rated as Excellent, this is a perfect example of how good this label can be when you get a good bottle.

 

We arrived at Eschalot Restaurant which is located in the Links House Guest House just prior to the official starting time of 6:30 p.m. There are two rooms in the restaurant, the main dining room and the smaller annex room, in which our table for twelve had been set. Very thoughtfully, an additional table had been set up to hold the excess glasses and our bottles of wine. On the table, there were two different types of jugs of water; iced water for drinking, and plain water to enable us to rinse our glasses between wines; all this for seven dollars a head corkage.

 

By 6.30 most people were there and I opened my first contribution, a Primo Estate Joseph Sparkling Shiraz. Sparkling Shiraz doesn't come much better than this; as usual the wine was absolutely glorious, with excellent aged characters, a lovely long finish, and it certainly has some wow factor to it. The fruit is still fresh and that is contrasted by aged leather characters and chocolate. To accompany this, we had an appetiser of goat's cheese and olive on chorizo. The combination of flavours was superb; there was the spicy sweetness from the pork sausage, the salty aspect of the cheese and the savoury note from the olive tied the whole package together perfectly.

 

With the following courses, the food was bracketed with two different wines; with the first case both of them were served with labels exposed, as Brian had decided that his masked wine would not go with the food, so he had substituted his exposed-label wine.

 

Petaluma 1991 Coonawarra belies its age; the fruit was still fresh and vibrant. The bouquet was beautiful; it exhibited excellent complexity, a quintessential Coonawarra Cabernet with blackcurrant, cedar, tobacco, mint and menthol. The longer the wine was open, the more it evolved in the glass and it also started to show abundant mushroom characters. Tannins have softened beautifully and have integrated well but still provide a solid backbone and provide a structured framework for the blackcurrant, chocolate, and subtle mint/menthol and herb flavours; it just continued to improve as it opened. A terrific wine; it's as clean as a whistle and still has a good many years left in it and is rated as Excellent. When Brian extracted the cork, we both marvelled at the corks fabulous pristine condition.

  

 

They start young at these off-lines!

 

The second wine in this bracket was an Orlando 1988 Lawson Shiraz. The wine was opened and decanted just prior to pouring; it started to develop a stink fairly soon after it was in the glass. On the palate, the wine was silky soft; the tannins have resolved completely. The wine has a wonderful combination of aged leathery characters which is offset by a lesser underlying layer of sweet fruit. The wine finishes with reasonable persistence but doesn't have much length. The wine didn't have a huge amount of complexity, and most of that came from the age characteristics rather than the fruit. A very nice wine, it is rated as Highly Recommended but it is definitely on the downhill slide.

 

 

The first course was barramundi poached in red wine with mushroom crust, king brown mushrooms and beurre rouge. The sauce looked like it was going to dominate the fish but it was subtle, and surprisingly, the barramundi fish flavour managed to dominate the dish. The fruit of the Petaluma complemented this food quite well, whilst the Lawson's sweet fruit was not quite sweet enough or intense enough to stand up to the fish.

 

 

The next wine served (unmasked) was a Lakes Folly 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine exhibited a lot of saddle with out the sweat; it was right into the leathery spectrum with some pleasant sweet fruit below. Medium-weight and whilst I wouldn't call it thin, it certainly didn't have a lot of depth and didn't work well with the food. As the wine started opening up, it was dominated by varnish that saturated the bouquet after a short period of time. The palate was dominated by off-sweet characters, although there were some sweet aspects hidden below; light red cherry, with milk chocolate, mushroom and leather flavours, it probably would have been better without food. Rated as Recommended.

 

The options wine which was brought by Kris had a bouquet that was very reminiscent of tomato with leafy minty notes below; it was very unusual. The first option result yielded a Bordeaux blend, the second Victorian and even before we were given the region I thought it was probably a Mount Mary. Unfortunately once we were provided three choices, I changed my mind; it turned out to be a Mount Mary 1997 Quintet. This wine was simply glorious, it was mid-weight, maintained a semblance of elegance and had a wonderful long finish. Rated as Excellent.

 

The Lakes Folly was almost simple by comparison to the Mount Mary.

 

The dish that accompanied it, a hot lavender-smoked quail with ginger peaches, micro cress and master stock was delicious. Initially I thought the lavender unusual, but it actually did a great job of tying it all together. This was one of my favourite dishes of the night and went beautifully with the Mount Mary.

 

 

 

The next open wine was a Wynns 1994 Michael Shiraz. I was interested to see how this wine was progressing, as the last one I had tried was still an oak bomb. The bouquet showed a little VA and abundant oak characters. The palate was loaded with oak flavours of chocolate, coffee together with plum. It's a huge wine with tons of tannins, plenty of fresh acid and deeply-seated fruit that is still buried; but there is still hope for this wine as the fruit is slowly starting to surface. As it opened up, as well as the pepper and spices, some (green ripe) herbs were lurking as well. Rated as Highly Recommended, it still needs a long time to come good.

 

The option wine in this bracket had a bouquet that is a lot softer and a lot more gentle. The bottle stink, of which there was only a small amount, still made it hard to assess the bouquet accurately. The palate showed something decidedly faulty, with liquorice and pepper, the tannins have integrated well and has softened nicely. Unfortunately the fault has stuffed the wine so it was not rated. It was unveiled as a Hardys 1995 Tintara Shiraz.

 

The dish to go with these two wines was slow roasted wagyu rump, parmentier potatoes, broad bean paste and mustard jus. This is amazing; each dish is better the last. The rump was soft as butter and didn't have a lot of marbled fat in it.

 

We threw an option wine in here as well, Brian's "spare" bottle to make up for the less than satisfactory Tintara. I took one sniff and thought because of its green bean character and blackcurrant; it was a Margaret River Cabernet. The tannins were much softer than when I had first tried it a few hours previously, when Brian was decanting it. (Ric, this one was opened at the restaurant, not wonder you were confused, it was the Oakridge that was double-decanted at your place.)  It had calmed down considerably but it did not have a huge amount of length. In a classic piece of pure genius, Brian screwed up his options (on the vintage only, I said 1991, it came from the bin of 91's and I didn't check properly)  and the wine turned out to be a Yalumba 1990 Signature Blend. It was so unlike a Signature I was gob smacked. The oak had been completely devoured by the fruit and it was a lovely drinking wine that went with the beef. Rated as Highly Recommended. When Carl was asked to select one of the options for this wine, his option was, “I'm getting drunk” but I was unsure whether that was a statement of fact, or planned intention.

 

With the next course, which was duck leg confit, maple eschalots and asparagus, we had two option wines, one from Craig and the one from Brian that was swapped with the Petaluma on the first course. The duck was so soft it was falling apart; it had wonderful flavour and was very rich, and surprise, surprise, the next wine, which is meant to be made for duck clashed terribly with the sauce.

 

 

The first of these option wines could not possibly have been anything other than a Pinot. Although the complexity was a bit simple, it had a reasonable amount of pinosity with milk chocolate, spice and loads of menthol, which is fairly unusual. It was a Lark Hill 2001 Pinot from the Canberra district. It was certainly big for a Pinot and whilst it was very drinkable, it didn't do much for me as I thought it lacked complexity. Rated as Recommended.

 

The second of the masked wines to accompany this course was an Oakridge 1991 Cabernet. It was in marvellous condition (again a pristine cork) and the sweetness of the sauce in the duck really complemented the spicy characteristics of the Cabernet. The tannins have resolved beautifully in the wine was lovely and soft. Rated as Highly Recommended.

 

After the poor showing of the Pinot, Craig brought another bottle of wine out to try and redeem himself. The options were 1996, 2000 or 2002. The bouquet showed lots of musk and violet characters and there was a distinct green tinge to the palate indicating some unripe characters. Craig decided that some wine options bastardry was called for, and the wine turned out to be a Chateaux Pinchon 2000 Les Tourelles Longueville Paulliac and with this wine, he not only looked like scoring the wine options bastardry award of the night, he was in with a chance for picking up the annual award. I didn't make notes on this wine, but it didn't particularly appeal to me, although there was nothing wrong with it, and I made that determination before I knew anything about its identity.  (Brian:  I liked this a lot, it really blossomed in the glass and was more complex than the Oakridge, I think you feeling unwell stuffed your appreciation of this one.)

 

In short, I wasn't feeling great. Around this time, the warmth of the restaurant, combined with a distinct lack of fresh air and the rich food was starting to get to me and I ducked outside into the very cool and refreshing fresh air. After about five minutes, I was feeling a lot better, but unfortunately that feeling did not last the rest of the night and that's why from here on in, the notes are decidedly brief.

 

The next course was cumin scented lamb loin, pilaf rice, eggplant, tomato and mint pesto. The flavour combinations in this dish were incredibly intricate; the acid from the tomato combining with the Moroccan spices were absolutely superb.

 

 

The open wine served with this course was a Rockford 1998 Basket Press Shiraz. The bouquet of this wine has a surprising amount of menthol and mint characters, but it was incredibly rich and inviting with mushroom scents. It was a glorious wine, but I only had one sip. Rated as Excellent.

 

With the masked wine, the first option was Australia, Argentina or Chile. Bastards! This wine is mint city; in fact, “its at moments like these you need minties” wine; did someone drop a packet of minties into the crusher? With characters like this, I would have thought that the only place it could have come from was Langhorne Creek (with an outside chance of Clare) and was most surprised to discover it was a Barossa Cabernet, specifically a Willows 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon. It was an absolute bastard as an option wine and gave Craig a run for his money in options bastardry. One person described it as a freak wine, and it certainly was; the acid is still youthful and the fruit reasonably fresh and the powdery tannins provide excellent backing which indicates the wine still has many years left.

 

 

By this stage of the night, I was really starting to feel the heat and thought the restaurant was quite stuffy, although no one else had a problem with it, so went outside for the best part of 10 or 15 minutes. By the time I got back inside, whilst I did feel a little better, I felt far from good and didn't drink or eat anything more. I might add, I was sober enough to drive so certainly hadn't overindulged with alcohol. This has happened to me twice at this restaurant recently, and occasionally at other places in the past, and I now think I know why. As I have a glucose intolerance problem, I think the combination of rich food and wine, without substantial amounts of low GI food was playing havoc with my system. Next time I have to eat lots of brown bread in these situations.

 

 

 

The final dish was a cheese plate with Roquefort, gratte paille and goat cheese w/ lavosh and autumn fruit compote. Judging by all the oohs and the ahas, the food was still getting better and better and there certainly wasn't much cheese left at the end of the night. Marion thought the combination of fruit compote and cheese was divine.

 

Brian:  I think this is where the Noons 2001 Reserve Shiraz was opened.  Not one of the great Noon vintages, but I didn't find this as ripe or disjointed as Ric did and think it will still improve, but never be in the class of the 98 or 2002.

 

The final two bottles of wine for the night were both served unmasked and brought by me. The first was a Taylors 1983 Port which was subtle, elegant and had phenomenal length and persistence for its weight. It was silky and delicious. When Marion tasted this when I decanted it, she wanted to know if we could start with this wine. Rated as Outstanding.

 

The final wine of the night was a Hardys Chateau Reynella 1981 Port. It would be almost impossible to get to more diametrically opposed port styles. The Reynella which typically big, bold, brash and in your face but also had terrific intensity, power and persistence. It was all liquorice, chocolate and black fruits and was rated as Excellent.

 

Tony Capps, the co-owner and head chef of Eschalot did an absolutely magnificent job with the food and the service was first rate without being in our face. The water jugs were never empty and the time between courses was perfectly spaced, allowing us to have a leisurely and enjoyable dinner that will be long remembered by all those who attended. That's $100 a head for the food, it was well worth it and this restaurant is simply outstanding.

 

The top wines of the night for me were the Taylors 1983 Port, the Mount Mary 1997 Quintet and the Petaluma 1991 Coonawarra. It was a fantastic night, now all we have to do is get somebody to volunteer to organise the next one.

 

 

 

 

 

A special thanks to Brian for taking the pictures.