Ad Hoc Hen and Chicken Chardonnay 2010

After last week’s uninspiring Mâcon-Villages, I’m pleased to report that this week’s wine, the Ad Hoc Hen & Chicken Chardonnay 2010 from WA’s Pemberton region, restored my faith that I would be able to find good Chardonnay in my $15-20 price bracket. I picked this wine up from a major national retailer, but the Ad Hoc website notes that the 2010 vintage is sold out.

On the nose the wine had some lemon notes with an obvious, but not overbearing, oak influence. There was some creaminess and the citrus was accompanied by some tropical fruit – think melon and even banana and mango.

All of this flowed through to the palate: plenty of lemon and good acidity mellowed to creaminess and tropical fruit. The best way to describe it was a mixture of pineapple and natural yoghurt. The wine had a lovely weight to it and reasonable length. It did strike me as being ever so slightly warm (the wine is 13.5% abv) but not enough to put me off.

Larry Cherubino, the winemaker, has four brands under his belt: Ad Hoc, The Yard, Cherubino and Laissez-Faire. He started his wine making career with Hardys and then Houghtons before setting up on his own in 2005.

The tasting notes for the 2010 give it a cellaring potential of up to 5 years. I guess we’re about half way through that and the wine is drinking beautifully. At $19 a bottle it puts last week’s effort to shame.

Working with Wine – Seminar One

Thursday 19 April 2012

As I mentioned on Friday, this year I’m taking part in Negociants Australia‘s Working with Wine program. The program is an incredibly generous initiative: it’s completely funded by Negociants and the dux of the program receives a trip to Europe.

Back in February I sat the entrance exam (yes, it’s not all lolling around tasting wine) which consisted of a theory paper and a blind tasting of two wines. I had mixed feelings about the exam so I was thrilled to find out that I’d done well enough to get a spot!

The first Adelaide seminar was held at the Italian Club and focussed on the white wines of the Côte d’Or. That would be Chardonnay. The panel was headed up by Nick Ryan, and included David LeMire MW, Sandro Mosele of Port Phillip Estate and Dave Brookes, current Len Evans dux.

The panel took us through four brackets, each of five wines. I’m not going to detail every wine (that would be one long, and potentially very pretentious, blog post!) but I’ll give you a swift overview.

We started with a bracket of Chablis Grands Crus. All the wines were William Fèvre: 3 2009s (Valmur, Vaudesir and Les Clos), and 3 Les Clos (2009, 2008, 2007). This bracket really highlighted what the day was about, which was terroir.

Next up we tried a selection of wines from the Montrachets – four 2008s from Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet as well as a 2009 single vineyard wine.

After lunch we tasted a bracket blind: four Australian Chardonnays and one Meursault. This was really interesting – the wine which really stood out was wine 5 which was Penfolds 09A. The other wines were much more consistent with one another but the Australian wines were a touch more fruit forward, with the Meursault showing a real savoury character, along with a talciness (you might want to call that ‘minerality’) that I’d picked up in a lot of the wines in the preceding brackets.

We wrapped up with a vertical of Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne, tasting the 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 1993 vintages. Considering I’m not likely to be buying myself one of these wines in the near future, to taste 5, including a 19 year old one, was a real privilege.

The fun part of the day was over – the 16 South Australians participating in the program then sat a theory and tasting exam. That’s just to prove (again) that these things aren’t all beers and skittles!

Our next (and final) session is in July and will be focussing on Champagne. I can’t wait!

Louis Latour Macon-Villages Chameroy 2009

As I mentioned on Friday I’m on a mission to check out Chardonnays in the $15-20 price range. The first cab off the rank is the Louis Latour Mâcon-Villages Chameroy 2009 which I picked up from a very large national chain for about $17.

This was a bit of a sentimental purchase – when I lived in England our local Oddbins sold an excellent Mâcon-Lugny for £10. The Mâconnais is the southern part of Burgundy and the wines it produces are significantly more affordable than those from the north (the Côte d’Or). The grapes for a Mâcon-Villages can come from one or more of 43 villages and if they come from just one village then that’s when you may see the village name instead of ‘Villages’. In the case of this wine, the grapes come from more than one village and the Chameroy refers to the Clos Chameroy where the wine was bottled. I suspect it’s on the label to make the wine sound a bit more exciting.

And it needs it. I thought this was a really dull wine and I really hope I’m going to be able to find more interesting Chardonnays in my (admittedly arbitrary) price bracket. On the nose we had lemon and lime with some slightly ‘warmer’ fruit – particularly some honeydew melon. There was also some creaminess. On the palate, there was much more citrus, a nice line of acidity and just a touch of creaminess which leant the wine some weight. The palate finished with bitter almonds which I didn’t particularly enjoy. All of this (perhaps bar the bitter almonds) is exactly what you’d expect but there’s no personality there at all.

My disappointment with this wine was best measured by the fact that it took me something like 4 days to finish the bottle*. And then, just to cheer me up a bit more!, I read a write up of the Shaw+Smith M3 Chardonnay. This is a lovely wine which retails for about twice the price of the Latour.

Given the choice, I’d choose the M3 and drink half as much.

* I didn’t actually finish it – I donated the last half a glass to make gravy.