What a few days it has been -- a busy schedule combined with the sort of low-level cold that is mind altering in an irritatingly subtle manner. It's one thing to be demonstrably ill, each messy blow of the nose fully justifying the most outrageous self-pity and prompting those wonderful moments of over-the-top affection from one's partner. The curse of the slight cold, however, is to want to complain knowing no-one will take you seriously. It's also to taste wine (as I did last night) and realise that you have a totally screwed palate. Hence no tasting notes.
Tonight's a completely different story, though. I'm as fit as a fiddle (well, I could lose a few kilos but let's not get hung up on details after surviving a vicious sniffle) and things are again tasting of themselves. I remember this wine created quite a stir on release. It was as Bin 389 is to Grange -- a way to get a good hit of Canberra Shiraz Viognier goodness without shelling out for Clonakilla's top drop. I enjoyed it a good deal on release, but this is the first time I've tried it in a while.
Quite a pungent nose, really, with whiffs of cooked meat, formic acid, a mixture of fresh and slightly oxidised berries. In other words, pretty characterful and complex, if not squeaky clean. It's the kind of wine at which some people will turn up their nose, which I usually take as a good sign. There's definitely an extra dimension developing in the bottle, though whether it is working as a whole package is an open question for me. I keep smelling it, so it must be doing something right.
Unexpectedly lively in the mouth. For starters, there's a real kick of acidity here that belies the aged notes beginning to intrude into the flavour profile. And it's obviously, impressively long. In between, a line that rises to the middle palate and stubbornly pushes its way along the tongue without skipping a beat. But the flavour profile is what I find challenging here. It's not unpleasant, but it is odd and perhaps in transition. Sometimes, sweet and savoury fruit flavours show beautiful tension. Here, there are opposing flavours that seem to clash a little, recalling the grimace I used to produce involuntarily on drinking cough syrup as a child. There's a strong thread of sourness, perhaps slightly vegetal, that sits alongside the fruit, not quite integrated but mouth-watering nonetheless. A bit of vanilla oak, a lot of deliciously fine, ripe tannin and some aged notes complete the picture.
I don't know if I have my head around this wine, but I do know it's causing me to think. A puzzle that may resolve in a few years' time.
Tasting this again tonight and, although I can relate many of the above descriptors to this wine, my experience of it right now is altogether more resolved and positive. The acid is, perhaps, showing itself to be a little prominent in middle age, but the flavour profile strikes me as cohesive (and still quite fresh). A pleasant surprise.