To my understanding, some results from EWS Tastings have appeared on this site before. As a member, I can give more of an insight in to these tastings, and this is one tasting where being there to see what was going on and the type of people who were there really adds another dimension to these results. So let me break this all down. 13 wines tasted blind, 38 people and these were the results. (worst to first)

13. Wild Duck Creek "Duck Muck" 2000 95 RP
12. Penfolds RWT 1999 87 RP
11. Penfolds Grange 1997 94 RP
10. Jasper's Hill Georgia's Paddock 2000 91 RP
9. Kay Brother's Block 6 1999 95 RP
8. Jim Barry's The Armagh 1999 92 RP
7. Peter Lehman The Stonewell 1996 95 ST
6. Rosemount Balmoral Syrah 1999 93 WS
5. Torbreck Run Rig 1999 97+ RP
4. Elderton Command 1998 94 RP
3. E&E Black Pepper 1999 ???
2. Claredon Hills Astralis 2001 98-100 RP
1. D'Arenberg Dead Arm 1999 96 RP

The Real Deal on All This Nonsense....

Ok, now my top 3 picks (in order)
1. Claredon Hills Astralis
2. Jasper's Hill Georgia's Paddock
3. Jim Barry's The Armagh

Now the reason I say that there was a lot of nonsense was...

1. Rosemount Balmoral finished where!?!? This wine sucks! Well, maybe not that bad, but it tastes like a young fruit bombed Tuscan wine. Dry tannin, not much in the mid palate, dry oak flavors and the fruit was simple. NOT AN AUSSIE SUPERSTAR BY ANY MEANS!!!

2. Penfolds RWT was corked. So it was really only 12 wines.

3. Duck Muck was the most controversial wine of the night. Why? Because it is real Aussie Shiraz. Gobs of blueberry, cassis, anise, licorice, black berry, ample sweet new American oak, moderate tannin, and some earthiness to it, but 17% alcohol, which pushes this wine into a very intense catergory. (Dal Forno Amarone is this high and is twice the price of Duck Muck, but people lust after that?) So what was wrong? I question the level of Aussie wine experience in the room. Continual complaints of too much alcohol and fruit sprouted up from the room too often during the course of the night. Enough said there, but I bet the Duck Muck haters picked Rosemount instead. This was my 4th pick, (if I could have actually had 1) because it opened up quite a bit with some time, and I actually went back for more.

4. My final quibble is about the fact that the more California-like wines finished higher. WIth the exception of Grange and RWT, 4 of the other 6 lowest ranked wines actually were blockbuster Aussie Shiraz, while Run Rig was waaaaaayyyy too young, (very lean and closed, came off as being smooth) E&E (where's the complexity?) and D'Arenberg Dead Arm (Tastes like my $20 everyday wine, Kilakanoon The Prodigal, 90 RP) all finished ahead of some of the best examples of Aussie Shiraz on the market.

P.S. If you can find/afford Astralis, I highly recommend to pick it, this is the best young Astralis I have ever had and scored it 98+ in the tasting. I think Parker was really on to something with this wine, but what the heck was he thinking about the Run Rig?

Welcome to the Site.

What is EWS Tastings? Sorry, not sure what that is. Thank You.

...I would imagine that Testing Wines blindly, where all the Wines were from different regions, is very tough. One would have to have a LOT of experience & a killer palate.

You can probably easily pick out the differences in the Wines but to actually nail down all or most of them. I do Not know if many could do that.

Great notes, libraryrat. I am going Australian shopping next Tuesday in Raleigh--I don't know if I'll see any of these but I'll be on the lookout.

Parker compared the Astralis to a Guigal single vineyard wine ("La" which, I forget) - a high compliment indeed. Incidentally, I saw a wooden six-pack of this at my wine shop, but it sold within the week. Not that I would've been able to afford it...

libraryrat - welcome to the forums.

Regarding the '99 Balmoral, I have to suspect an off bottle, as your notes are nothing like the bottle we just had at a tasting recently. My notes:

"WOW. Black-purple color, this is just a baby, but what a baby it is! A nose that wont quite, Intensely spicy, showing anise, meant, superb sweet fruit, excellent structure and balance. Still tight an tannic, this needs some years."

Your comment about dry tannins and dry oak flavors are as far from what we tasted as anything I could imagine.

libraryrat-you and i have had quite a few discussions about the staying power of some of these over the top aussies. will they have the staying power down the road or will they lose it. my experience shows so far that tend to change quite a bit after the first few years.

as for the dead arm. there is no comparison between the 98 and 99, but parker rated them the same.

as for the run rig. parker rated the 98 (99) and 99 (97+) two points apart, but i felt there was at least a five point difference.

as for the 2001 astralis. any help getting it would be greatly appreciated.

Isn't the Run Rig something like 50 cases imported to the US?