I was privileged to attend an intimate tasting put on by one of the United States’ most astute retailers of wine from Down Under – Chuck Hayward of San Francisco’s The Jug Shop (www.jugshop.com). Almost a decade ago, Hayward had the prescience to lay down a number of wines from the very fine 1994 vintage in Australia. Fast forward to the winter of 2006 and Hayward decides to open up 25 bottles from his stash in order to assess how they have developed with time in the bottle.

1994 was a cool vintage in most regions of Australia. The additional hang time allowed the grapes to fully develop their flavors. The 1994 vintage also marked the last vintage before Parker “discovered” the country. As such, the vogue for extremely ripe wines preferred by Parker had not yet completely swept the nation. As a general rule, wines were fermented before going into oak, acids were adjusted (ham fisted acid adjustments still plague Australian wine), and wines were filtered before going into glass.

Jeremy Oliver, an Aussie wine writer with strongly held views of a decidedly contrarian bent, participated along with Hayward in moderating the tasting. In a nutshell, Oliver’s philosophy can be distilled down to one concept – high alcohol levels equal bad, “unnatural” wine. Call it the Iron Law of Oliver. Oliver’s opinions about wine certainly are a breath of fresh air however about 80% of the time Oliver was almost comically out in left field with his thoughts. Some particularly memorable zingers were his claim that after tasting a vertical of Bryant Family Cabernet the only quality wine in the entire line up was the 1998 (when in fact the least appealing Bryant of the nineties was the 1998 not surprisingly because that vintage was the worst of the nineties in the Napa Valley by a fairly wide margin) and his assertion that all of the “Parkerized” Australian wines from the mid nineties are already dead (anyone who has recently tasted these kinds of wines (see for example lmy recent reviews of the 1995 The Malcolm, a wine Oliver specifically cited as “dead”, and the 1996 Three Rivers) knows these wines are years away from full maturity).

W. Blake Gray, the San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critic, also attended the tasting.

Overall, the results of the tasting were not surprising. Most of the Cabernets confirmed my predilection for ignoring Australian Cabernet. The Shiraz were of considerably more interest with many still having plenty of life left to them. Unfortunately, we experienced a 16% corked bottle rate. As a result, the Penley Estate Cabernet, Katnook Estate “Odyssey”, Yalumba Cabernet-Shiraz “Signature”, and Dalwhinnie Shiraz (a particularly acute loss) were not reviewed.

Jones,

Your TN's/impressions/list of the other 84%? Wish we were there. Chuck was one of the first to cover the Aussie scene in CA in my humble opinion and has hosted many great tasting bar events at the Jug Shop in SF. Thanks! Joe

I haven't typed them up yet but its on my list. The wine of the day was the 1994 Reserve Shiraz precursor to Duck Muck. I tried to buy some on the spot but unfortunately it was Chuck's last bottle.