The remnants of my original tasting group assembled recently and sampled the following wines over lunch. The Champagne, in particular, and all the reds looked very good indeed, the two whites a bit ho hum. Everything served double blind.

Louis Roederer Vintage Brut 1996 - glorious wine - incredibly fine streams of slow rising, smallest of beading glisten in a sea of light burnished gold. An extraordinary bouquet and palate displaying such a complexity of nuance, depth of flavour, unforgettable structure and awesome length. Traces of honeyed citrus and glazed white peaches support the most congruous assembly of yeast autolysis characters one seeks in a top Champagne - brioche, fresh crusty bread and nutty digestive biscuits. Magnificently rounded and polished in the mouth with a wealth of swirling mousse, creamy texture although still lively enough with perfectly meshed, but softening, acidty supporting the rich and poised yeasty flavours. Slips down the throat with consummate ease. My gut tells me this wine is close to as great as it will get. Drink now - 2011. 95 points.

Tyrrell’s Stevens Semillon 2003 - tight but a little dilute and somewhat non-descript - no obvious faults except for being a little bland - 84 points - good

O’Leary Walker Watervale Riesling 2006 - some reduction on the nose, that gradually dissipated, quite a powerful wine with plenty of acid although a little phenolic and some bitterness in the finish - didn’t improve with air - 85(-) points - good/very good.

Ch. L’Arrossee 1982 - This St. Emillon really kicked some butt on the day - fully mature with a lovely cedary/sweet earthy bouquet with supporting leather/dried herbs and blackcurrant fruit. Palate equally engaging with a near perfect equilibrium and decent length. Top class right-banker. Drink now - 2012+ 92 points

Yarra Yering Pinot Noir 1995 - a bit exciting for me to see an Australian Pinot hold on for so long with no sign of senility. Bucket loads of sweet plum and cherry fruit with some sappy/gamey notes in the nose, just lacks a touch of complexity on the palate. Otherwise, excellent! 90 points Drink now - 2010

Peter Lehmann The Mentor 1992 - an unusual blend of Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz and Malbec. This wine had me stumped for vintage and maker. Very youthful for age. A powerfully built, classy number with an incredibly good bouquet (cedary, herbs and bucketloads of briary sweet blackcurrant fruit) followed by an equally impressive tight but fleshy palate with surprisingly good structure, plenty of petrol in the tank and a whopping but controlled and well-balanced finish. Top marks from me for what it is! 93 points Drink now - 2017+

Cambrai Vintage Port 1985 - This small idiosyncratic McLaren Vale winery pulled off a great result with this vintage of 100% fortified Shiraz. At least one Championship, several trophies and gold medals on the Australian Wineshow circuit right through to the early 1990’s. Outstanding effort with one of my experienced wine buddies firmly convinced this was Portuguese. Still holds very good depth of colur for its age, an impressively ripe but not overly sweet and spiritous nose. Unlike so many other Aussie vintage ports, the Cambrai displays none of the overextracted, sweet pruny characters. This wine’s fruit’s firmly in the cherry/blackberry spectrum with a nice touch of couterbalancing spirit. Still carries some firmish astringency through the long finish and will go another 10-15 years if well kept. 92 points

Substantial bricking belies the fresh and lively bouquet that houses deepset black fruit offset by strong malty/savoury oak, freshly turned sod of earth, game and pinot sap with intriguing faint top notes of miso, soy, ginger and cinnamon stick. The thumbprint of Burgundy’s 1996 Pinot’s - cool fruit, high acidity and potential for extended longevity plasters itself all over the palate. Unlike the 1996 Echezeaux from the same Domaine, the Ruchottes displays the requisite level of ripeness with no “green” or “rough” edges. The elegant, silky mouthfeel sits perfectly with fine lacy tannins and perky acidity that offer the correct amount of grip for this slightly austere style with a finish that provides quite ample length and some decent authority. Drink 2010-2016. 93 points

Wynns has always held a special place in my life of wine. For it was the 1976 “Black Label” Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet that I cut my teeth on in 1983, giving me the impetus to start my twenty-five year association with most things vinous.

Wynns make two flagship reds - their Cabernet Sauvignon - the John Riddoch, and a Shiraz - the Michael. And 1991 was an exceptional year in Coonawarra with many a heralded scribe now giving this particular year more accolades than the massively hyped (but perhaps a little more forward and riper) 1990 vintage. Over the last several years some bottles of the 1991 Riddoch I’ve tried have been utterly sublime, some a little unready, but never one anything like the bottle reviewed below. Previous bottles of the Michael from the same year had never overly impressed. In more recent years I’ve much preferred the 1990 version of this label, the inaugural re-release of the label commemorating the brilliant and quite freakish 1955 Wynns Michael Hermitage (100% Coonawarra Shiraz) - a wine, with proper provenance, still drinks incredibly well today.

So what went wrong here?

Both wines were sourced at release by the owner (a long standing and very good friend) and have been stored in what I can only describe as a relatively good “passive” cellar over the last decade or so. Seeing I know this person (and his wine inventory) very well, we have opened and shared glorious bottles from his Australian red wine collection dating as far back to the seventies and eighties with very few problems with oxidation, heat damage, senility or the like. Both wines were decanted and served double blind and drunk from Riedel Bordeaux and Shiraz glassware at about 16 degrees celcius ambient temperature on a fine, cool Autumn day.

Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 1991 - Mature hue. Planky, volatile nose with a distinct “aged” green bean character over weak greenish fruit. Big, lumpy, varnishy oak-dominant palate over tired, fading green herbaceous fruit followed by a rather rough, soulless, hard tannic finish. Barely drinkable! 70 points. Could only think (after the wine was revealed) this was an errant bottle.

Wynns Michael Shiraz 1991 - Drunk immediately after the previous wine, this fared a little better but, unfortunately, shared several of the previos wine’s trait/faults. Colour a tad more youthful but definitely mostly brick red; fruit a little fresher and sweeter but veering to the cooked plum/pruny spectrum. Palate not so bad with jammy/pruny fruit behind a wall of high-octane/dill-infused oak; in better balance than the Riddoch, but overall a big clumsy over-extracted red revealing only a little varietal or regional character. 82 points and going nowhere in my book. My friend began asking me the usual questions/options to those of the Riddoch and the first question was grape variety …. Cabernet/Shiraz? ….. I answered “Shiraz and it’s the ‘91 Michael”.

So it’s difficult to say what caused the poor showing of the 1991 John Riddoch. Perhaps the wine was just old and tired. The Michael - pretty well as I remember it from a few years back, only worse. Whatever the problem/s, the only positive I can muster is I own not a bottle of either!

Mature hue, mostly rusty browns, a little amber with a light ruby core. Attractive multilayered bouquet of pinot sap, sweet earth, undergrowth, plum, black cherry over a solid base of savoury oak. Quite masculine and with enormous depth. The palate marches to the beat of the same drum - solid, well-endowed, plenty of earthy, sappy, plummy fruit with resolute support from a firm, but integrated, tannin regime and lively acidity. Finishing with excellent persistence, this very impressive wine has the potential for another 5-10 years of superior drinking. 90 points

I’ve always regarded 1988 an extremely good year for many Coonawarra producers. This wine, somewhat remarkably, continues to hang in there, exhibiting a terrific melange of mature cooler-climate Cabernet characters, akin to an excellent effort from Bordeaux (but in the older, more austere classic style). Very mature brick red hue; beautifully developed, classic Coonawarra nose and palate of weedy blackcurrants, cedar and sweet earth with added complexity from notes of old saddle leather, cigar box, soft licks of menthol and fallen autumn leaves; all seamlessly meshed with not a hair out of place. A smooth, polished, perfectly poised and integrated Coonawarra Cabernet revealing wonderful delineation, a decidedly cuddly personality, marvellous balance and stupendous length. 93 points

What an impressive first showing! Intensely steely and mineral-laden nose housing an abundance of rapier-like citrus (limes/lemons), oyster shell and seaspray. Similarly etched palate, although, surprisingly, quite generous and mouthfilling with typical Chablis grippy chalky/minerally acidity and an explosively long, invigorating finish. Went ohso well with the freshly shucked 3 year old Sydney rock oysters. Needs a calming year or two to be at its best but performed brilliantly in this instant with the oysters. Long cellaring window anticipated. 92 points

13.0% A/V Cork sealed $22

A surprise replacement on the shelf of a local wine shop who’d just sold out of the 2007!

Pristine infantile colour of bright white/green with a whisper of pale straw. Quite reticent bouquet on opening, far greater and more perplexing aromatics on day two, revealing earthy minerals, river pebbles, subtle lime, pear and pomegranate with the merest suggestion of redcurrant. The palate displays an immaculate line, houses an abundance of crunchy citrus fruit, an inviting minerality, simply marvellous acid cut and impeccable carry. For such a terrific Riesling nearing its third birthday to show such understatement in its development, a long drinking window must be forecast. Quality of this wine is beyond reproach. 93+ points. A marvellous sibling to cellar and compare over the next several years to the outstanding 2002.

For some months now I’ve been working my way through some very smart, mostly cooler-climate Aussie Chardonnay from the 2004/2005 vintage. Apart from not yet tasting the extremely well-reviewed 2005 LEAS (my bottle of 2004 LEAS didn’t present a problem with the high alcohol problem some scribes have mentioned) and the almost-impossible-to-get Giaconda, I’ve been most impressed with the quality and direction of many of the offerings from Toolangi, Pierro, Kooyong, Penfolds etc etc.

The general thrust of what I’ve liked ……

- a continuance of a more elegant/restrained style of Chardonnay with significant, but not over-the-top, complex barrel work.

- less time spent in less new French oak (more often than not a mixture of new and one-year-old barrels).

- seemingly, less reliance on cultured yeasts, added acidity and partial/full malolactic fermentation.

- far greater cellaring potential, hence even greater things in store for lover’s of more complex bottle-aged Chardonnay.

The only criticisms I can muster amount to …..

- the persistence of a few producer’s still sealing their wine with traditional corks

- alcohol levels creeping into the 14%+ range with some heat evident in the finish and a balance issue in the longer term.

- prices for some of the cult producer’s still out of whack with quality/reality (although I well understand why they can do it)

So, after a very long absence, I’m almost convinced to get back on the Aussie Chardonnay trail and may it continue to keep progressing in its current form and direction.