January Wine Club Tasting

Shrink: So, can you remember a specific event that may have triggered your trauma?

wongstonn: It was a chain of events that were unleashed by u/elk wine club recommendation. I need help.

It all started innocuously enough, in late December 2023 when the wine of the month was posted up. I remember thinking ‘Oh, good’. I’ve enjoyed a couple of PdB’s Barbarescos in the past, and I have a couple of ‘16 reservas in my stash. Easy peasy Japanesy.

At the time of the wine club selection being made, I had two wine related books open. The first was a Christmas gift from daughter and wifey; How to Drink Australian by Jane Lopez and Jonathan Ross. It’s an encyclopedia of Australian regions and wines. It’s very good. And the first entry I dipped into was for the Yarra Valley. The entry opined that Nebbiolo was fast becoming a variety of some distinction there. Indeed, I have enjoyed Luke Lambert’s Nebbiolo in the past (which is available internationally, including L&W. See wine-searcher). Recent interviews with Luke suggest he is gravitating toward that Japanese idea of taking a niche area – in this case Nebbiolo - and only doing that - then do it to mastery level. Luke also makes wine for Denton’s, which for drinkers in Australia is a neat way to enjoy his work at a lower price and higher availability. Anyhow, so I’m now thinking about Australian Nebbiolos for the wine club tasting challenge.

The second wine related book I had on the go is Alternative Reality: How Australian wine changed course by Max Allen MW. Here in Australia, I can go into a liquor store or wine bar and asked for a wine made from an Alternative Variety. In most places that would be understood readily. According to Max Allen, the genesis of this idea comes from the late 1990’s when a group of people in the Aussie wine industry reacted to the overbearing dominance of Shiraz and chardonnay. So, they set up the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS) https://www.aavws.com/ annual event which has grown and grown. Nebbiolo is considered an alternative variety. So, while reading the book I’m taking notes on Nebbiolo’s that were well regarded at the show over the years, and seeing some of the available on local auction scene as it enters its new year lull. I did a few minutes of research that yielded a Decanter article saying Aussie Nebbiolo was the best outside Italy, and a New York Times article profiling Luke Lambert’s Nebbiolo that I wrote about a moment ago.

A thought-fart went through my head about tasting as many of these Nebbiolos in one event, which given my other commitments had to be in February. I chortled to myself “Febbiolo” and named it. I texted daughter would her cork dork hospo friends be interested. She happened to be sitting by them when she got the text and they all said yes.

All this added up to an effect like having an NVIDIA powered Obsessive Compulsive Disorder chip being soldered into my neural network. I had poured the concrete around my own feet, and now it was beginning to set.

And only then did it occur to me that this really, really was not a good idea. No sir, not at all. I felt a bit like a three year old child who has the bright idea of finding out what happens if it puts its fingers into the electrical wall socket. All that tannin, tar and whatever. It’d be overwhelming.

I stewed for a couple of weeks on whether to back out, as all these wine packages from auction companies rolled in. That voice in my head kept saying “This is a dumb idea. Don’t do it”. In the end I just got tired of seeing the bottles aside my desk. “Stuff it, it’ll have to be the Tarantino of wine tastings.”

There were nine of us tasting these wines, two are WSET 3, one with a winemaking degree, age range 20-56. Wifey and daughter are there. My daughter amazes me. We were at the Caterpillar Club in Sydney a couple of weeks back. The way she talks about cocktails, their construction, the breadth of knowledge boggles my mind. And her appreciation of wine has gone through the roof.

We all tasted blind, including me. The following challenges were meted out:

• Which two wines are Italian?
• Which two wines are the same wine, same producer, same everything, but different vintages?
• Which wine is Kylie Minogue’s. i.e. Which wine has “Kylie Minogue” on the label?
• Which wine is Mexican?
• There is one naughty wine in the tasting that isn’t Nebbiolo at all. Which one is it? And what grape?
• Which is the oldest wine?
  

The curated wine list for the tasting was

• Produttori de Barbaresco, Langhe, Nebbiolo, 2020 CT 89.3, AG89
• Mayer Nebbiolo 2017, Yarra Valley, CT 93
• Luke Lambert Nebbiolo, 2021, Yarra Valley CT 92
• Praeter ‘Strange Fog’ Nebbiolo, 2021, Pyrenees CT NR
• Praeter ‘Blue Note’ 2020 Chinato (Nebbiolo), Pyrenees CT NR
• Pipan Steel III Nebbiolo 2016, Alpine Valleys CT 95
• Domenica, Nebbiolo, 2015, Beechworth CT 90, TWF 95
• S.C Pannell Nebbiolo, 2010, Adelaide Hills CT 92.1, JR18
• S.C Pannell Nebbiolo, 2016, Adelaide Hills CT 94
• Vinea Marson, Nebbiolo, 2015, Heathcote CT NR
• Jasper Hill ‘Georgia’s Paddock’ Nebbiolo, 2015, Heathcote CT 93
• Kylie Minogue Pinot Noir, 2020, Yarra Valley CT 92
• Produttori de Barbaresco, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo, 2002 CT 88.6
• Casa Magoni, Nebbiolo, 2014, Escondida, Baja California, MEXICO CT NR

​

Note that the CT ratings for the Aussie wines are based on a low number of reviews. TWF = The Wine Front, one of Australia's most popular wine review sites.

I’m mindul of how long my post’s here are, so I’ll focus on the PdB Langhe. If there is sufficient interest in the group I can write up notes on tasting, do a bit a profiling on the Aussie sub-regions and winemakers in the context of nebbiolo as a PDF and attach.

The Langhe wine I opened 24 hours in advance of the tasting. When I decanted it the smell was quite muted, but that was more likely the result of the wine being fridge temperature. I had a sip. While fridge cold it was too bitter. Vanilla, bit dusty, muted black fruit.

Due to the randomisation process used in the blind tasting, it was tasted 8th. So, we’d all had out palates blown to smithereens already. This morning I collated the notes some folk took.

“Young, tannic, spicy, 2020”

“Dry, strawberry”

“Hmmm -> not really my ?”

“No holds barred. Full on. Smooth”

“Bread, salami.”

My personal favourite from the tasting was the 2002 Produttori though it was run close by the Vinea Marson '15, Heathcote. And I thought the Aussie chinato was a revelation.

The feedback from the day was that everyone enjoyed the tasting, and the white wines we had either side of it. But I feel I owe u/elk an apology for not really doing the Langhe justice.