A weekend of eating and drinking in Port Macquarie. Five Way Cellars customers join restaurateur Lou Perri and his customers for two fantastic meals. July 31st and August 1st 2026.
Night one.
The theme here was Piemonte, focussing on brackets of high quality vintages. No bad wines here. ome comments:
- the 2021s both looked extremely elegant and both further evidence that great Barolo, these days, has a lot to offer when young. The Sandrone my pick.
- The pair of ‘10s the bracket of the night. Both wines in a fantastic spot. Ballooning aromatics, red fruit, elegance. The Poderi Colla my wine of the night
- The 2016s looked great but are perhaps in a bit of an adolescent phase. Delicious drinks but you couldn’t help but feel that there is more to come in another 5 years.
The kitchen’s Piemonte menu did a great job of highlighting the strengths in all of the wines.
A great evening exploring vintage, age and producer style.
Day two.
Lou possibly has the best collection of Domaine Dujac in Australia, so Saturday's lunch was entirely devoted to looking at these wines across both Domaine and negociant bottlings.
Krug 163 Edition got the day started in a very nice way, then we were underway with a glass of Dujac Puligny Montrachet Les Folatieres. This seemed to be in a nice drinking window. More saline/tidal pool than mineral, it had plenty of generosity, great expanse across the palate and a rich core of fruit.
The pair of 2017 Chambolles were great with the Domaine wine the clear winner here. Depth, intensity and a hint of ferrous character making this wine sit above the negoc wine.
A slightly different story in the Morey bracket. We all thought the negoc wine stood up very nicely indeed to the Domaine wine. Some preferred it. Both solidified the theory that you can’t beat a great producer on their home patch of dirt! A great bracket.
Then into the premier crus and personally, my bracket of the day. A combination of a strong vintage, 14 years of age and a collection of great sites (4 1er cru sites make up the MSD 1er Cru) meant that both of these wines were singing. Perhaps the Gevrey had a deeper core of sweet fruit that meant it pipped the Chambolle, but sometimes you don't need a 'winner' and you can be content with marvelling at two great bottles.
The Grand Cru bracket brought a lot of discussion and some different opinions across the room. Most agreed that the Bonnes Mares was the best wine here: composed and complete and in a great spot. Opinions varied of the Clos Saint Denis - i found it elegant and taut, some people were looking for more flesh on the bone. The 2014 CdlR seemed a bit sleepy and crying out for more time in the cellar.
If that wasn't enough, some of us sat around well into the evening knocking off other things from Lou's list!
A final word here. A huge thank you to our customers who came with us to Port Macquarie for the weekend to indulge in some great wine from Lou's cellar. We appreciate the time and effort and hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! And to Lou and Tom: a fantastic weekend full of great wine, food, company and discussion. Thanks for your generosity and for pulling off a great weekend. Anyone yet to visit The Stunned Mullet must add it to their list when next travelling north from Sydney!
