Every 5-6 weeks or so, a small group of guys get together mid-week for a themed tasting. Last week we tasted an incredible lineup of Australian Shiraz, as well and a wonderful Viognier and a few GSMs.

From the lineup, the wines that really stood out for me were the Elderton Commands (both 97 & 98) and the Dead Arm (particularly the 97). In general, I think the 1998s are pretty closed up right now, and in some serious need of sleep, while the 1997s are drinking well with a bit of coaxing (i.e., decanting and vigerous swirling) and have a long life in front of them.

All in all a tremendous lineup of wines, and a wonderful comparision tasting of the different vintages. Notes follow:

flight #1

1999 Brokenwood McLaren Vale, Hunter Valley

1999 Tatachilla Foundation, McLaren Vale

1999 The Standish, Barossa

1999 Turkey Flat, Barossa

1999 Knights, Granite Hills

1999 Clos Clare, Clare Valley

Flight #2 – This flight simply blew away flight #1 across the board.

1997 Rosemount Balmoral

1997 Elderton Command

1997 d’Arenberg Dead Arm

1998 Rosemount Balmoral

1998 Elderton Command

1998 d’Arenberg Dead Arm

Flight #3 – Changing gears to GSM

2001 d’Arenberg Stump Jump

1999 Rosemount GSM

2000 Hewitson Barossa Private Cellar (50% Syrah, 50% Mourvedre)

1999 d’Arenberg Ironstone Pressing

In addition to the official flights, we also enjoyed:

2001 D’Arenberg Last Ditch Viognier

1994 Jasper Hill Georgia’s Paddoc Shiraz

Impressive TNs - looks like a great tasting!

Winetex,

Looks not only like a great tasting, but possibly a very
unproductive, hung over April 9th in the workplace !

Great job on the posts EW!! Thanks for putting all that time into it. (some are dups, but hey, awesome job anyway)

As always, many thanks for posting the TN links in this manner. Mucho appreciated!

Budman - that's the nice thing about these particular tastings, we start at 4:00 in the afternoon, affording adequate recovery time and a good nights sleep

Rev, thanks and sorry for the dups! I meant to do a search on each, but when I got to posting I forgot