Out Of The Bottle
With David Ellis
Wicks Estate Chardonnay & Katnook Estate’s 2008 Merlot
The 2011 vintage in South-eastern Australia can best be summed up in
three words, wet, wet, wet, with some vineyards totally inundated by
flood waters, areas reporting rains of six or eight times their normal
for summer – and still others drenched with entire annual rainfalls in
just three months.
It brought out the most innovative in those
on the land, not the least vignerons and winemakers like Simon and Tim
Wicks whose Woodside (Adelaide Hills) Wicks Estate would normally
harvest Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc of enviable quality
for resultant enviable wines. But this year they abandoned all hope for
Chardonnay and Riesling (although some early-picked Chardonnay is going
towards a sparkling wine.)
“But we saw light at the end of the
tunnel for Sauvignon Blanc,” says Tim who manages their vineyard and
winery. “It seems to develop quite distinct varietal flavours early in
the season, so it was a matter of protecting the fruit – and those
flavours – once the wet set in; we did a lot of leaf plucking to make
sure that the canopy was clean and that our rigorous spraying program
could have maximum impact on keeping the berries free from disease.”
Then
the winemaking team led by Tim Knappstein (working his 50th vintage,)
got to work and although not easy produced a 2011 Sauvignon Blanc the
Wicks’ say “jumps out of the glass.” At $18 it’s a rewarding drop with
nice varietal tropical fruit and grapefruit flavours to pair with
seafoods and poultry. One For Lunch
If you enjoy Merlot, don’t look past Katnook Estate’s 2008 Founder’s
Block that at $20 is a generously-flavoured wine from an excellent
vintage, one that gave this wine particularly nice flavours of dark
berries, ripe plums and a hint of spice.
Named after the
original landholding of John Riddoch, the founder of Coonawarra, this
is a beauty to enjoy with tasty plum-marinated pork ribs.
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