Orlando 1997 Jacaranda Ridge Sept 05

 

One of the joys I find in drinking wine, and something I frequently like to do, but don’t do often enough is compare different vintages of the same wine. As I had recently had a bottle of 1996 Jacaranda Ridge, last night I opened up a bottle of 1997. Whilst there were many similarities in the bouquet between the two vintages, the standout difference between them was that the 97 was obviously from a cooler year as the wine exhibited spicy characters and the bouquet didn't seem to have as much a ripe fruit dominating its profile. Whilst the bouquet did seem ripe, there were more dusty notes and the tannins more pronounced. A muscular-weight wine, the tannins are still very much in play and need another few years to integrate, but they do provide a very solid backing for a wine that should be fairly long lived; the 97 is nowhere near as “eminently drinkable” as the 96. It also doesn't have the complexity or depth of fruit of the previous vintage, but nevertheless it still a most enjoyable wine and an excellent result from a very difficult vintage. Rated as Highly Recommended, it is stylistically very similar to its predecessor and I'm very happy to still have five more in the cellar. It just goes to show, you don't necessarily need to only purchase the best vintages to have most enjoyable wine.