Vintages
More fine wines coming from Oz

By Randal Caparoso

By now, everyone who appreciates good wine is aware of the fact: South Australia produces some of the best red wines of the world. The Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and Coonawarra are the three best-known regions of South Australia.æBut because of the fame of these districts, we are also beginning to see other wines from the area, bearing less familiar regional distinctions, such as Clare Valley, Eden Valley, Langhorne Creek, Padthaway, Limestone Coast, Adelaide Hills, and the least known of all, Kangaroo Island.

In the United States we are seeing a broader range of top-quality South Australia brands than ever before. A sampling, if you can find them:

• 1999 Classic McLaren, "La Testa" Grenache/Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon ($22-$28) — This brand is aptly named, as it demonstrates the classic South Australian blend that takes the best of the grenache (a white peppery, sweet raspberry fruitiness), shiraz (black pepper and violet perfumes plus strapping, meaty structure) and cabernet sauvignon (black licorice and black currant liqueur-like concentration) grapes, and combines all of this into a big, burly, yet round and seamless structure, enthralling the senses as much as intellect.æ
• 1997 Grant Burge, "The Holy Trinity" Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre ($45-$55) — This bigger priced behemoth of a red offers stupendously aromatic fruit — smoky oak, plummy-sweet fruit, black leather, black pepper and star anise-like spice — as well as a deluge of thickly tannic, yet sweetly layered flavors. If you're easily undone by wine's more deleterious effects, stay clear of this; otherwise, you're likely to see angels.æ
• 1998 Dutschke, "Willow Bend" Barossa Valley Merlot/Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon ($35-$45) — Wayne Dutschke is such a master at layering multiple flavors, that I just might smile even if he handed me a Vegemite sandwich.æ The Willow Bend, in fact, is a feat of levitation — wonderfully bright, dexterous, intensely oaked fruit, packing tannic sinew and fleshy, jaw dropping flavors — that simply challenges and confounds the mind. Whatever it is, it seems daring, and delicious.æ
• 1999 ADW, "The Hattrick" ($35-$45) — The Hattrick is winemaker Tony DeLisio's (who also crafts the Classic McLaren wines) vinous equivalent of a Triple Crown, combining mostly Shiraz with grenache and cabernet sauvignon from three different regions, and it's a beauty — a powerful nose, spraying black pepper and lush, sweet black fruit all over the place, following up with a magnificently full, thick preponderance of shiraz flavor, hitting the palate with both hip-hop style and classical grace.
• 1999 Scarpontoni, McLaren Vale "School Block" Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon/ Merlot ($16-$22) — Not all South Australian ultra-premium wines of today are ultra-premium priced, and neither are all of them tempests in a teapot. This one, in fact, is calm, cool, and collected — a velvety textured blend of rich chocolate, brown spice, soft leather, and ringingly bright, cassis-like fruit, stretching round and effortlessly across the palate.æ
• 1999 Parson's Flat, Padthaway shiraz/cabernet sauvignon ($22-$28) — The winemaker of Parson's Flat — a brilliant ball of energy named Sparky Marquis — likes to talk about a "matrix" of flavors he endeavors to achieve.æ That is, a wine that takes off when it hits on all cylinders; which this one does with its huge, heady nose — aromas of black and green pepper, smoke, succulent black fruit, and an entire forest of leafy, woodsy trees — plus its full, fleshy, chocolaty, black fruit and glycerol glossed flavors, lashed against thick, brawny, yet smooth, flowing tannic muscle.
• 1998 Henry's Drive, Padthaway shiraz ($25-$35) — Henry's Drive is Sparky Marquis' better known label, and you can bet it's even better, charged up with sweetly perfumed, juicy, briary, black pepper and allspice-like fruit, going full blast in the nose, and giving a layered, meaty, gripping, yet miraculously round and pliant feel on the palate.
• 1998 Clarendon Hills, "Hickinbotham Vineyard" shiraz ($38-$48) — This pure syrah, from a spectacular, higher elevation, rolling hillside estate, combines the blunt, brutish, clobbering structure associated with South Australia with a sumptuously rich, oily, satisfyingly lush taste.æDoes it mean that it's conflicted?æNo, it means that a wine lover needs to take it for what it is; and so if you can handle its fuller throttled aspects, you'll greatly appreciate the richly fruited, meaty, nostril tingling qualities that it has.
• 1998 Clarendon Hills, "Old Vines" grenache ($18-$24) — In most places of the world, pure grenache produces pure, weak, sappy wine.æBut old-vine South Australian grenache is another story. Here it grows as a bush, like gnarly, somewhat oversized bonsai, and the wines it yields are etched with both the intensity and complexity of age.æThis one evinces strawberry and other red fruits doused in white pepper — like the "soup of fruit" so popular in restaurants not long ago — and these spicy, lush elements fill out a medium-full body, bolstered by firm yet round, fairly easy tannins.

Randal Caparoso is corporate wine buyer for Roy's Restaurants.