Large Format Collection

Juicy with ripe red fruits, some pot ash and a savoury finish, ‘The Barry Bros.’ Shiraz/Cabernet has managed to far exceed all expectations. With no new oak used, this is a wine that is totally focused on providing clean, ripe fruit and pure, primary flavours. Nothing too complex just pleasant, easy-drinking wine in a classic Australian blend. Plum and cassis up front mix with mocha and char towards the back with only hints of fruit sweetness appearing towards the finish. You really are getting a lot out of this entry level red from Jim Barry. – FWC.

Sometimes the rosé from Provence can be so dry it borders on bland but the good ones like Riotor have good texture with lots of crunchy red fruit plus crisp acidity, which keeps them interesting and refreshing. – FWC

 

'Delicious creamy texture ... perfectly ripe strawberry fruit, finishing on a dry savoury redcurrant note ... exceptional mix of breadth and freshness.' - Gourmet Traveller

This is the freshest, youngest wine in the Pieropan family range. An effervescent and expressive Soave, with classic white flower, almond blossom and a touch of citrus. Rounded, ripe fruit is perfectly balanced by a fresh, clean acidity. Long and fragrant, it has a note of fine, almond pastry on the finish. Clean as a whistle, this is a pristine blend with expressive florals and a crisp apple palate. Great early drinking wine, although this has the balance and concentration to age for a few years. Decanter Magazine.

The good news is that Isle 2018 is looking superb and follows the highly sought-after 2017 vintage which barely touched the sides here at Five Way Cellars. This will be gone in record time too, I suspect. This release shows a great deal of elegance: a mix of red fruits with some darker undercurrents, light in the mouth but with gentle persistence of flavour that leaves a last impression on the senses. It isn’t muscular but rather slowly builds on you with its all-encompassing mouthfeel and ballooning aromatics of red berry, foresty undergrowth and some gentle spice. A fantastic expression of Huon Pinot. – Ches Cook, FWC.

To quote Jim Chatto, The Isle Pinot Noir is from “the purple patch in the vineyard.” It’s taut. It’s not dense but it’s powerful. It has reductive characters but they’re complexing rather than excessive. I described last year’s release as exquisite and this is the equal of it. It crackles with dried leaves, woodsmoke, cranberry, red and black cherry and woodsy spice. There’s a garden herb character, particularly through the finish, but it gets swept up in the overall rush. We’re in elite territory here. Drink 2021 - 2030+. 96 Points - Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front

Savoury with a perfumed lift of cherry & blackcurrant florals, plus a little honey richness matched with a hint of red apple on the palate. The most minerality of the Spatlese with a good lengthy zing on the second half of the palate. All the Spatlese wines seem drier than previous vintages – the Wehlener, long, flinty & savoury with quite a drying finish. My favourite by a whisker. Ian Cook. FWC.

The 2016 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese (AP 23 17) is still discreet, floral and finely mineral rather than fruity on the nose compared to the other 2016 Spätlesen. Lush, piquant and juicy on the palate, this is a firm but sensual Sonnenuhr with remarkable finesse, lightness and lingering salinity. 94 points, Stephan Reinhardt, The Wine Advocate #236.

Not necessarily bigger or darker when compared to The Acre but a sense of seriousness and superiority hovers over this wine. Aromas are lifted and bring new dimensions of floral tones to the wine with each sniff. It has an Aperol/Campari/botanical thing going on which is hard to pinpoint but so alluring at the same time. There is a coolness to the wine and for all the prettiness of the fruit, there are savoury undercurrents which is where the real enjoyment lies. Again, it is one to cellar if you can, but drinking it young will bring a lot of enjoyment, too. – Ches Cook, FWC.

Goldkapsel indicates that the wine is made from later picked, higher must-weight (Beerenauslese+ level) and often botrytised berries. These extraordinary wines live and evolve for many decades. They can certainly work with appropriately matched desserts (fruit based). These wines, as the name clearly suggests, are designated by a golden capsule. These are some of the most revered Rieslings on the planet.

This is Wehlener Sonnenuhr writ-large. As you would expect at this level and from this vintage, this is an astonishingly beautiful wine. Rich, intense and profoundly multifaceted yet nonetheless wonderfully ethereal and refined. Somehow – and don’t ask us how - a tightly coiled seam of mineral slatey-ness and tangy grip keeps the stunning package of concentrated stone fruits, pastilles, smoke, pungent citrus and white florals, all tightly woven and ravishingly refreshing. It’s an Auslese for the ages, so much so that you could fill a room with this wine’s ambition.

Golden yellow. Rich, smoky aromas of dried apricot, baked apple and white raisins. Sumptuous papaya fruit texture with the weight of honey-glazed botrytis is elevated by an ethereal minerality. Complex brown spices on the impressively long finish. One of the three finest ausleses of the vintage. 98 points, Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, Jan/Feb 12

Pinot dominant wine, with powerful fruit and great depth - Classic Bouzy! This Champagne house is based in the Grand Cru village of Bouzy in the Montagne de Reims district. Youthful and enthusiastic winemaker Jean Francois Clouet produces 6000 dozen per year and currently works in ancient cellars dug by hand. “It took ten guys ten years” says Jean Francois. The Clouet’s vineyards closely reflect the village plantings of 88% pinot noir (some of Clouet’s vines are adjacent to Bollinger’s pre-phylloxera plantings that make a single vineyard wine at about $800 per bottle), 1% pinot meunier and 11% chardonnay. The style here is full flavoured and rich. The house is famous for the Silver Brut that is one of the driest Champagnes on the market.

 

This is 100% pinot noir wine that is full flavoured, rich and very dry. In fact it is bone dry when most other Brut N/V’s contain around 10gm/lt of sugar (and legally up to 15gm/lt). To achieve the kind of great balance this wine possesses, the base wine quality needs to be very high as little sugar can hide excessive acidity or phenolics, and even add to the perception of flavour. So good is this wine that the absence of any sugar only adds to its quality and uniqueness. One of the best books on Champagne “4000 Champagnes” is written by the Swede Richard Juhlin, and he writes “A tremendously powerful Champagne. The mature reserve wines give weight and softness and rounds off the completely dry aftertaste. Bollinger like.” - Ian Cook, FWC

Pinot dominant wine, with powerful fruit and great depth - Classic Bouzy! This Champagne house is based in the Grand Cru village of Bouzy in the Montagne de Reims district. Youthful and enthusiastic winemaker Jean Francois Clouet produces 6000 dozen per year and currently works in ancient cellars dug by hand. “It took ten guys ten years” says Jean Francois. The Clouet’s vineyards closely reflect the village plantings of 88% pinot noir (some of Clouet’s vines are adjacent to Bollinger’s pre-phylloxera plantings that make a single vineyard wine at about $800 per bottle), 1% pinot meunier and 11% chardonnay. The style here is full flavoured and rich. The house is famous for the Silver Brut that is one of the driest Champagnes on the market.

 

This is 100% pinot noir wine that is full flavoured, rich and very dry. In fact it is bone dry when most other Brut N/V’s contain around 10gm/lt of sugar (and legally up to 15gm/lt). To achieve the kind of great balance this wine possesses, the base wine quality needs to be very high as little sugar can hide excessive acidity or phenolics, and even add to the perception of flavour. So good is this wine that the absence of any sugar only adds to its quality and uniqueness. One of the best books on Champagne “4000 Champagnes” is written by the Swede Richard Juhlin, and he writes “A tremendously powerful Champagne. The mature reserve wines give weight and softness and rounds off the completely dry aftertaste. Bollinger like."  Ian Cook, FWC

An hour after opening: Very dark blackish crimson. Very powerful and intense. Tar and alcohol and sweet American oak – still very embryonic. Tough oaky finish. Not mellifluous. Very tough finish. Sweet and medicinal but it may age more gracefully. Tough finish with the acidity very obvious. Not harmonious. 24 hours later: very round and supple and seductive – enormous power and only very slight syrupiness. The fruit, acidity and tannin had harmonised, as they tend to do in bottle over the years, so that the aggressive elements were muted and what was dominant was the intensely South Australian fruit – still tar and sweet oak with more than a hint of cough medicine, but gentle. 18+ Points/Drink 2015-2025 - Jancis Robinson, Jancis Robinson.com

It is always a treat to taste Australia’s most famous wine, Penfolds’ Grange cuvee (the word Hermitage has been dropped because of legal issues). The 2001 Grange is one of the few vintages of this cuvee to be composed of 100% Shiraz (the others being 1951, 1952, 1963, 1999, and 2000). Aged 17 months in 100% American oak, and tipping the scales at 14.5% alcohol, the 2001 is undeniably one of the top examples of this wine. At this stage, it appears to eclipse the 1998 and 1996. Inky/blue/purple to the rim, with a stunning perfume of blueberries, blackberries, chocolate, graphite, and earth, it boasts good acidity, huge tannins, magnificent concentration, and a multilayered, textured mouthfeel. It is a big, but impeccably well-balanced Shiraz that should shed some of its structure and tannin over the next 4-5 years. 98+ Points/Drink 2010-2030+ - Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate