Wine Spectator Reviews Aussie Reds

[KMP]

The October 15, 2005 issue of Wine Spectator devotes a significant number of its pages to The Best of Australia with sections on

ABCs of Its Wines and Terroir
Great Aussie Reds: 633 rated
Top Hotels, Restaurants

Harvey Steiman provides the tasting reports on Australian wines for WS. In this issue he rates Shiraz vintages from Barossa/McLaren Vale as follows

1999 88 Uneven, drink
2000 85 Uneven, drink or hold
2001 92 Hot vintage, drink or hold
2002 90 Cool vintage, hold
2003 94 Ripe intense wines with impeccable balance, hold
2004 90-94 Clear, pure flavors and open textures, hold

For comparison Parker rates Southern Australia (Barossa/Clare/McLaren Vale/Langhorne Creek) vintages as follows: 2003 a 90 (early maturing), 2002 a 95 (tannic, slow to mature), 2001 also 95 (tannic, slow to mature), 2000 gets an 88 (caution may be too old), and 19991 gets an 88 (early maturing).

While those vintage ratings will probably generate a fair amount of discussion, I was more interested to see what wines had and had not been rated. Steiman notes that he tasted 850 red wines for his report and that 633 were rated. That’s 74.5%, a very high number! But its hard to figure out what defines a rated wine as some have scores in the 70s. According to the WS 100 point scale such wines would be considered average and might have minor flaws. Maybe that is why the subtitle to Steiman’s article Australia’s Big Red Engine is “There is plenty of power coming from Down Under but beware the misfires.” The vintages of the wines rated range from 1999 to 2004 with the majority of wines coming from the last two vintages. When you look through the scores 544 wines received 84 points or better. That’s 64%, still a high number. If you are looking for value in among the points then 192 of the wines (35.3%) receiving 84 or more points cost less than $20USD. Impressively there are 24 wines costing less that $10USD that received 84 or more points. About 1 in 4 of the rated wines receiving 90 or higher.

Unlike ParkerÂ’s review of Australian wines in The Wine Advocate there are no tasting notes in the Wine Spectator tasting report on Australian Reds. The tasting notes do apparently exist either on-line or in the Buying Guide in individual issues of the magazine. There are a number of reviews of Australian wines in the October 15 issue. This is a problem with all the tasting reports in the Wine Spectator and says a lot about how the magazine views the importance of a point score.

How did some selected Aussie reds do in the points battle. The two shiraz from Dutschke scored over 90. Only three of the PenfoldÂ’s wines scores 90 or better and all are from 2002 (RWT, 707, Magill). Both Torbreck and Two Hands did well with a number of wines in the 90 and above group. But there were also a number of wines that scored poorly. Some examples. None of the Kalleske wines got better than a 89. None of the 2002 KayÂ’s Amery scored above 89. The Burge Family 2003 Draycott received less that 80 and the Tait Basket Pressed 2002 Shiraz less than 85.

Without seeing SteimanÂ’s tasting notes its difficult to see how he gave some of these wines such low points. The KalleskeÂ’s certainly deserve better. Having just retasted the Draycott one could argue that it is a weird wine, but less than 80 is pretty severe and the Tait is at least a 90 in my book. Still like any list of impressions (which is the value of any point score system) its easy to find scores that are either agreeable or disagreeable in terms of my own experiences with some of the wines. And that is why I certainly donÂ’t recommend anyone place too much faith in the impressions of a single critic.

Mike

[Milwaukee Twin]

Take HS with a pinch of salt.

My take:

1999 **** Cool Vintage(Elegant)
2000 ** Wet Vintage(Diluted)
2001 **** Hot Vintage (Very Ripe)
2002 ***** Long cool and dry vintage(Concentration)
2003 **** Similar to 2001(Very ripe, uneven)
2004 ***** Better than 2002? (Yet to be seen...)

[TORB]

Harvey Steiman provides the tasting reports on Australian wines for WS. In this issue he rates Shiraz vintages from Barossa/McLaren Vale as follows

1999 88 Uneven, drink
2000 85 Uneven, drink or hold
2001 92 Hot vintage, drink or hold
2002 90 Cool vintage, hold
2003 94 Ripe intense wines with impeccable balance, hold
2004 90-94 Clear, pure flavors and open textures, hold

What a load of rubbish on 99, 00 and 03. The guy clearly doesn't have a clue!

99 in the main was way more consistent than 00 and is a hold proposition, way more so than 00. 2003 was very uneven and inconsistent; some great wines that will age but there are some makers that normally produce ageworth wines that will need to be consumed young.

How these guys can proclaim themselves to be "experts" when they make conclusions like those above is beyond me. And I assume we are mainly talking about SA here, but even then, its a huge generalisation.

Look at Coonawarra in 2002 vs say the Barossa to illustrate the point. And then there are WA and SA, not to mention NSW, but possibly the latter 3 don't count.

I am not going to even comment on the scores or the importance they place on them, but it does reinforce all I have been saying about them.

[Red Bigot]

Harvey Steiman provides the tasting reports on Australian wines for WS. In this issue he rates Shiraz vintages from Barossa/McLaren Vale as follows

1999 88 Uneven, drink
2000 85 Uneven, drink or hold
2001 92 Hot vintage, drink or hold
2002 90 Cool vintage, hold
2003 94 Ripe intense wines with impeccable balance, hold
2004 90-94 Clear, pure flavors and open textures, hold

What a load of rubbish on 99, 00 and 03. The guy clearly doesn't have a clue!

Be fair Ric, the rating on 2000 is about right, it was uneven (as are most vintages across the vastness of Australia, and I'm holding my Coonawarra and Yarra cabernets for a while yet.

[TORB]

Brian,

I was refering to the differences between 99 and 00 where HS said
"1999 88 Uneven, drink
2000 85 Uneven, drink or hold"

IMO the chances of 99 "holding" are far greater than the chances of 00 "holding."

[Andrew Jordan]

While living in the US I did have a subscription to WS, and as Milwaukee Twin has already stated, took the whole magazine with a grain of salt. However, when Harvey Steiman stated in a previous review of Aussie wines back in 2003,

Western Australia, on the other side of the continent, is better known for its whites because the reds too often taste strongly of herbs or vegetables.

I did not review my subscription. I think this was covered in a previous thread here.

Clearly Steiman, and therefore the WS magazine have no clue on Aussie wine, if they let rubbish like this be written in their magazine. Waste of paper and I pity the poor trees that sacrificed their life for this book of fairy tales!

[Kelvin]

"Western Australia, on the other side of the continent, is better known for its whites because the reds too often taste strongly of herbs or vegetables."



Whilst I would on the whole disagree with the first part of this quote - I do totally agree that many of the WA reds such as Devils Lair as a good example to 'smell' but not necessarilly taste strongly of green herbs.

It is true to an extent and from a normal non-wine experts point of view, not many people enjoy this. In fact some of us wine fanatics (non experts) find the same in Clarendon Hill wines.

[Guest]

03 rating is a load of Garbage!

Slightly off topic is 2004 Three brothers reunion Shiraz good for $10? Has anyone tried it before. I got offered some through a promotion type deal so am very sus on its quility even for the price.

[Les Miserable]

Slightly off topic is 2004 Three brothers reunion Shiraz good for $10? Has anyone tried it before. I got offered some through a promotion type deal so am very sus on its quility even for the price.

Guest, what have you gotta lose? $10

[smithy]

guest
3 Brothers make some nice gear. Lash out and spoil yourself.

Cheers Smithy

[Guest]

You have to buy in lots of 12. I never buy 12 of any 1 wine.

[Red Bigot]

You have to buy in lots of 12. I never buy 12 of any 1 wine.

Well, if you are not intending to buy it I can confidently say it's a brilliant wine and great QPR. Don't you trust Nicks 96 points?

It'll cost you a neat $10 to buy one bottle (or $9.99 on a credit card), $9.50 pb for 12.

[Guest]

Who is Nick? 96 points seems high for $10 bottle of wine.

[GraemeG]

... there are no tasting notes in the Wine Spectator tasting report on Australian Reds...

Well, that's about as helpful as a castor on a walking stick. A tasting report consisting of a table of names beside a descending list of numbers starting at 98 and petering out at 70-something. How valuable. Still, WS does hang well in the dunny, and those large sheets are wonderfully absorbent.

cheers,
Graeme

[Red Bigot]

Who is Nick? 96 points seems high for $10 bottle of wine.

If you are serious, join up/ sign-in and PM me, I'll tell you all about it.

[Alan Rath]

Not going to stand up for Mr. Steiman, except to say that he probably gets his reviews right the same fraction of the time any other critic does . In defense of the Spectator (again, I'm no big supporter, just read it as I do many other sources), this is a review article based on the past year's tasting notes. So what you find in these things is a summary list of the several hundred wines reviewed, their scores, and the date of the original published review. If you want to know more you have to go back to the original magazine, or look it up online. I don't have a problem with that.

Frankly, looking for more balanced wines you probably have a better chance with Steiman than with Parker up here. Why do you think some of us read this forum instead?

Regards,
Alan