BUGGA dot NET – Your home for information on Beer, Cars and IT

This was an effort to promote and encourage trying of different wines at my work, along with getting people to have a look at WLTV.
Email I sent out:



Welcome – to the rip off of wine library TV, I am your host malliemcg!Today – just for you we have the WLTV ( http://tv.winelibrary.com/ ) unlicenced, unofficial, super sampling.

We have one wine – to try with/before/around your lunch – so grab a glass, grab your lunch – have a sniffy sniff(pat. pending) and then a drinky drink!

Wine of the Day – Hugh Hamilton Sangeiovese Blend 2005 (85% Sangeiovese, 10% Merlot, 5% Tempranillo)

M

Nose: Dark chocolate coated cherries along with chocolate coated aniseed rings, a green field on a hot summer day (- lucrene hay before being cut) a small amount of menthol/eucalypt. A small amount of dark berries – blue and blackcurrant, but very subtle. Pleasant nose!

Palate: It’s fairly drying almost dusty – cherries and another sour berry are coming through – a little pomegranate juice (not the fruit, but the bottled juice). Does not go well with spicy food – the chilli nukes the fruit completely and you’re left with a somewhat tart almost vinegary flavour for the wine. (85 pts)

Nose – Hints of multi grain toast with a lemon or lime butter with the ever tiniest whiff of nutmeg and cinnamon.

Palate – explosion of little bubbles, nice sour apple with citrusy flavours and the yeasty notes that one would expect from a “methode traditionelle”, slight nuttiness ending with a wonderfully refreshing acidic crispness – there are also hints of under ripe sultana’s throughout the palate, not overpowering and really quite refreshing, this might not to be everyone’s taste, but I loved it!.

I was quite surprised by the quality of this wine coming out of Seaview.

Opening the screwcap on this 04 there was a wonderful explosion of fruit. However I’ve left it to sit in the decanter these past 45 minutes.

The nose in the glass has all sorts in it – lots of mint, some bbq hot rocks with fat burning on them and a wopping amount of alcohol.

On the palate it starts off quickly with some fruit, but its gone and replaced with tar and astringincy not long after that – the tannins are small and cover all of your mouth. There be some liquorice here too perhaps more molassesy than liquoricey and some green leafy bits too. I think I’ve popped this one a little early and the tannins are squishing the fruit, or it’s just over oaked. I’m hoping that its just been popped early I suspect that the fruit here is enough to stand the test of time. Bacon fat is popping its head out occasionally – which is wicked!

Coming from 109 year old vines in the McLaren ?Vale region of south Australia I’m expecting good things from this wine.?Fairly tight nose. Some deep red fruits showing through the alcohol – plums and the like.
Colour is extremely deep red almost purple.
A whole heap of oak is here, not much fruit showing through. Somewhat disappointing. Not horrible, but not outstanding. I’m thinking more time to open up is required here even five minutes after writing the previous statement, things are on the up. I expect in an hour or so this will be very nice. The tannins in this are very tight, smooth and feel nice on the mouth after swallowing.Given an extra 30 minutes this wine is opening up wonderfully, the nose is showing forth blueberries,?molasses,??fine tannins and something smokey like smoked fennel.The oak is easing off, but now there is a hint of vegemiteiness coming through. It’s tip top.?

Dark red berries on the nose, black currant (cassis) is there too along with smoky tannins overlaid on a subtle sweet/pepper mint (mentholy) which is just intoxicating along with hints of freshly cracked black pepper. Buried somewhere in this nose is a little liquorice or molasses. Oh what a nose job this wine has – something new every time you take a whiff.

A tad of the oak monster on the initial palate, however this quickly heads off to the land of fruit and chocolate, giving way on the palate slowly to more astringent flavours that I associate with a just matured granny smith when you first bite into it. On the end there is a dusty dryness, however the mouthfeel does not hang along as much as I’d like.

A nice drop.

From the Cahors region in France, this red drop is made up of

• 79% Auxerrios
• 13 % Merlot
• 8% Tannat

From what I’ve been able to determine in the Cahors region Auxerrios would be known as Malbec in the rest of the world. No idea when its good to drink (or if its way past its best). Am expecting this to be “old world” in style and having raised my palate on new world Shiraz and Cab Sauv’s from the Barossa, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra in South Australia? not sure that my palate would be able to tell the difference.

Colour – Clear dusky red tending slightly to brown.

Nose – Very soft and subtle – I can pick the alcohol in it, but there are other scents there – having trouble separating them out. The cherries from a blackforest cake are there on a bed of forest floor, perhaps a little cold cooked cabbage?

Taste – Dusty tannins, a little sour – unsure if this is meaning the wine has gone bad or if it’s the way it’s supposed to be. I’m getting some uncooked cauliflower juice coming through. The sourness almost makes me think of vinegar, but its not throughout the profile from start to finish and the wine seems integrated with initial tastes flowing on to secondary, tertiary and then the finish, which is a bit short but the journey is smooth and flowing from one part to the next.

Not sure what to make of this wine.

decanted 15 minutes before trying

Fruity nose – hard to pin down – its definitely sweet hints of liquorice even a little menthol (think fishermans friend). Colour is deep red/purple in hue fading to hints of brown on the rim of the glass.

Initial peppery spice on the palate followed up by nice clean red dirt (thinking edge of scrub/fruit block in Winkie) heading off into fruit – almost too much dark berries and grape juice, bordering on fake, tail end is acidic combined with tannins, wonderful mouth feel, perhaps a little bitter (but I love bitters so for me this is just right).

I love this drop, what can I say.

Hailing from Italy this primativo has an interesting colour – not particularly intense – somewhere near ruby in colour, with a dash of red delicious – you can see your fingers through it in a tilted glass.\

The nose has hints of dark berries, overlaid on a subtle forest floor with a new road running through it.

On the mouth the tannins and wood overpower this wine, but its relatively well integrated into a medium finish. I suspect that it will drink quite well with a little more time in the decanter.

Well some time (45 minutes) has now passed, and I have had dinner – the food has shifted my palate somewhat and the tannins and wood are not so overpowering, there is a little fruit, but that is on the initial hit, mid-late palate has a vegeital action going on, which then shifts through to a leather cigar case with the tannins rounding out the finish – to be honest I’d like them to be a bit stickier, but I am definitely enjoying this wine.

Inky purple/red in colour a nose that is dominated by the 14.5% alcohol content, very subtle black currant beneath that sitting on top of very faint asphalt. Weird nose. Tempted to leave it and give it more air and hope it develops over time, then again, I also want to hook into it and try some ;).

Hook in option selected… dominated by oak, lots and lots and lots of oak with a hint of sulphur, finish is a fruit, but unsure which – almost over old, under ripened apples or peacharines, certainly not very pleasant at the moment, will revisit in an hour or so and see how it fares then.

It did improve with a little time – a very tannic alcoholic wine with too much oak to be enjoyable.? I can’t say I’d rate it very highly even after a little time. Many much better wines out there. Only check it out for a try.