Burge Family 2002 Releases

It’s so much better to be able to try good wine over a period of many hours rather than just having a quick taste at cellar door or at a wine show, a bit like looking at the preview of a movie versus watching the whole thing. Therefore, I was delighted when Rick Burge sent me two of his new releases to try, the Olive Hill and the G3.

The 2002 vintage was the 75^th anniversary of Burge Family being in the exemplary plonk business and Rick wanted to do something special and being the sort of creative type that does his own thing regardless of what anyone else thinks, he decided to do something a bit radical. And just like when he ditched the Draycott Reserve and many people thought he was nuts, this project seems to have worked too; well it certainly did for me.

The wines were tried side by side and then together and as there was no time pressure over many hours, no spitting took place.

Burge Family 2002 Olive Hill is a Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvedre blend (50%/35%/15%) that sells for $29 at CD. Initially the nose was brooding but clean with some meaty characteristics and interesting but subtle spices. The wine shows perfect balance with loads of fine grained drying tannins and the pure distinct fruit has been allowed to shine through. It’s a big wine that’s not overly extracted; it’s still tight with a solid as a rock structure, firm consistency and sophisticated complexity. The balance of flavours shifted and changed over the hours. What did not change was the way in which the mouth was filled from the tip of the tongue to the back of the tonsils with flavour that persisted for ages. Flavours of plum, bacon (meaty flavours) black fruits and chocolate are simply yummy. Rated as Highly Recommended with **** for value, this wine needs time to show its best and the rating should increase as it reaches maturity about 2007.

Burge Family 2002 G3 is a Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre blend (52%/42%/6%) that sells for $45 at CD. The wine is a combination of the best parcels of fruit from the Draycott vineyard, all the old vine Grenache and some Mourvedre for good measure. As a result there will be no Draycott Shiraz in 2002.

Stuck my nose into the glass and the wine punched back with a brooding perfumed assault of buried complexity showing some meaty characters, sweet berry fruit and a little spice. A wine of obvious class, the smooth drying tannins are well balanced to the youthful acid and obvious, deep strong fruit. If anything, this wine is tighter than the Olive Hill and needed hours to open up and whilst it’s muscular in weight it has better depth and complexity than the Olive Hill. A firm but supple consistency and refined complexity with some elegance and class means this will be easier to drink from about 2006. It’s a rich wine with initial raspberry, intense mid palate dark chocolate with a meaty finish that’s long and deep. This is a class act and one of the best GSM’s I have tried. Rated as Excellent with *** for value.

When I first started tasting the wine I preferred to drink the Olive Hill but over time as the wine opened the true class of the G3 became apparent with its increased complexity and better depth of fruit.