Nose: This is nice and brooding, rather dark. Spicy, a little star anise and vanilla. It’s fantastic and seems to evolve in the glass, my favorite aspect of this wine.

Palate: Nice grippy tannins that kick in right in the mid palate. However the only fault I can pick with it, it seems to leave a big hole at the back palate right at the end. The edge of my tongue and cheeks are still possessed with the tannins, but the area up the back is just empty.

I wonder how this one will age, I suspect the hole may fill in a bit with a few more years. Definitely worth a look even in the $15-20 price range.

On the palate – there is fruit starts right up on the front, giving way to smooth grippy tannins at the back end. Some spiciness + pepper also. Excellent long mouthfeel. I can’t help but feel this was some vinfanticide opening it up now, but it at least lets me know this one has some time to go yet. The fruit and wood characteristics are becoming nicely integrated compared to 15 months ago when I last cracked a bottle of this. A little dry dustyness too. Fantastic mouthfeel. Loving every taste of this, a pity the bottle was shared w/ 4 people.

There is nothing wrong with my storage conditions.

Top of leaky cork

So this afternoon I have decanted one of the remaining 8 bottles of St Henri (none of which show any leakage) and what do you know – it’s in perfect condition. It’s not oxidised, it’s not suffering from heat damage, it smells mighty fine – full tasting notes to follow when we start drinking this proper in a few hours.

To Penfolds I say – there is nothing wrong with my storage conditions. There is however something very wrong with the corks you have used in this St Henri vintage. With your recent price hikes for the brand name, I can’t say I’ll be recommending your wines to any one in the near future. Fosters – go back to brewing beer and sell Penfolds to someone who understands wine, for at present, thou art scum.

Penfolds say this is caused by improper storage - rubbish it's their faulty cork.

To anyone who buys wine – check for leakage out of the box – don’t leave the boxes sealed for any period of time.

EDIT: (5h later) I received a phone call from a Penfolds CSU and they’re sending a package to collect the cork and will determine what recourse to take from that point (replacement if 100% sure, substitution if there is some doubt) it’s nice to be taken seriously.

B-o-r-i-n-g. This wine was utterly boring – it did not taste bad, it did not taste great, in fact it barely tasted at all. The notes on the nose were of faint, and I mean very faint white table grapes hiding a sliver of under-ripe pear (I like my pears crunchy so for me – under ripe means very very under ripe).

On the palate there was not much, barely any of the grape that was on the nose, although the acid was refreshing. It’s about all that can be said – practically tasteless – a white for wine haters everywhere. The one redeeming feature was that it was definitely a food enhancer. The Salmon that we had tonight went fantastic, no was actually enhanced by this wine, perhaps it was the searching of flavours that I was performing that made the Salmon, Capsicum, Celery, Carrot, Lime+Pepper spiced cous-cous that made up dinner taste so much better, but there was some enhancement.

I would recommend checking this out only for the weird taste enhancement and the sure fire ability to go with any food (barring dessert), but as a drinker this one needs some more experimentation!

The nose has subtle hint of creamy lemon zest with an odd smell of skinned carrots w/ freshly cut capsisum.

The tiny bubbles slowly come out of the wine as it hits the tongue, which is disappointing as something like this you’d hope for an explosion of tiny bubbles. Perhaps a little too much sour yellow citrus almost over preserved with SO2) too much acid here. I’ve had worse is about the best I can for this bottle.

I’d held on for just a little too long. The nose was all over the shop and after about 3 hours had pretty much blown off, however the palate was surprisingly resilient. The black fruit was there a sort of mulberry cross plum I supposed would be how I would describe it hints of leather, flowing to a liquorice whack on the end. A fantastic length of finish at the back end, but unfortunately this was a bit too bitter and only got worse as it aired. I have no idea what would have happened with a long decant time – it would have been phenomenal or empty and frankly not worth the risk. Surprisingly tasty with food (lamb chops).

Tasting this drop one was reminded of a Cabernet/Shiraz blend, a fairly decent one – in the sense of everything being integrated nicely together, however the wonderful scents on the nose did not all come across on the palate. There were still the dark fruits one would expect from a deep red wine and the complexity provided by the oak. The drying effect provided by the tannins in the mouth did not feel as silky smooth as a fantastic cab/shiraz blend. However in it’s price range, I don’t think you could go wrong with this one and the 2007 is drinking like you’d expect an 04/05 Cab Shiraz from Barossa to be drinking today.

Personally I susepct that this variety could be used to construct wines with a fantastic backbone with massive cellaring potential, I’m even tempted to buy a few more of this bottle and see how they go over the next five years (happily accepting funding for this research ).

ndlt

Once thought to be extinct due to the Phylloxera plauge that ravaged Europe in the late 1800′s, it was recently re-discovered in Chile where the vines similarity to Merlot led growers to assume it was the Merlot grape, however DNA testing in the 1990′s revealed it to be Carmenere. The primary difference between Carmenere and Merlot vines are infact the way the grape clusters or bunches grow, the Carmenere tends to have a tighter bunch, whereas the Merlot berries are spread further apart in the bunch.

Today Carmenere is grown predominantly in Chile where it was rediscovered with plantings also found in Washington State and California(USA) and Italy. Australia has some minor plantings of Carmenere, but these are still in their infancy but found across Australia. Chile has shown that Carmenere is capable of producing high calibre single varietal wines, prior to it’s rediscovery in the 1990′s it was typically grown in mixed vineyards with an approximate 50/50 ratio with Merlot (due to the similarity of the vines) – which would mean depending on ripening conditions and the time the grapes were picked (with Merlot typically ripening 2-3 weeks prior to Carmenere) different characteristics would come to the fore.

Unfortunatly in it’s home of Bordeaux like Petit Verdot it is no longer being grown as much as it once was, and is now all but impossible to find. This is in part due to its characteristics of being a late ripener and requiring a higher than average amount of sunlight along with it’s proneness to coulure – a condition that makes fruit set difficult, the French have all but given up on this variety – leaving it to the “New World” to experiment and play with. Although there is hope – as with the global warming enabling some varieties that were previously not productive most years to now be viable for consideration for planting and use in traditional Bordeaux blends.

N describes the Carmenere as follows “Even more interesting is the wine. Has the vegetal qualities of a cab sav, a hint of the spice of a shiraz, and an elegance that I have not seen in a red (well, at least at a sensible price ). It has become “wine of the moment” for me and will temporarily replace cab sav as my default wine. I’m sure that it’s just a phase and will pass, time heals all :”

Carmenere is also becoming recognised in cooking and one would assume this trend will continue.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/17965/carmenere+pears

Some links to WineLibrary TV episodes that mention and deal with this Variety #465 #363 #359 #239 #268 #21