01/19/2015

Top Taste’s of 2014

At Vinified we always guide you on how to taste, what to drink and what to put in your cellar.  Here are our top five wine discoveries from 2014 and Luke’s tasting notes. Enjoy!

Criteria of selection: Good wines are tasty, Great wines are evocative!  All these wines have a story and covey a sense of place and enable the varieties to shine above all!

Jacquart Champagne Rosé, Reims, France

A Chardonnay-based blend, Pinot Meunier and pinot Noir (15% Pinot Noir added back in) salmon-pink in color and delightfully elegant with a brilliant balance of fruit and freshness. Medium bodied and dry.

A deliciously elegant, rounded, fruity style with hints of cherry and wild strawberry. Its fine streams of bubbles enhance the delicate pale pink color. It is fresh and vibrant in style with some notes of apricots on the finish.This rosé is made by adding red wine to the blend, which is a practice only allowed in the Champagne region.

2013 De Iuliis ‘Sunshine Vineyard’ Semillon, Hunter Valley, NSW

Mike de Iulliis is cleaning up at present in all the national wine shows. A crisp, clean wine with intense citrus flavors, balanced by structured acids adding length to the palate. Planted on the sandy loam soils of Black Creek. This traditional style Hunter Semillon shows all the hallmarks of a classic. Fresh lifted lemon and limes dominate the aroma, the palate is lively and fresh. The natural acid ensures great length of flavor and gives the wine structure that will hold it in good stead for the future.  5 years Cellaring.

2013 Heirloom Riesling, Eden Valley – SA

Produced by a fabulous Female wine maker and organically farmed.

This wine is a really generous and expressive Riesling. Loads of lemons and limes jump out of the glass, with some nice floral aromas as well. The palate is pure and energetic and surprisingly textural – no doubt aided by the time it spent on its lees. Nice one. Deliciously ripe fruit, great length of flavor and mighty refreshing!

2013 Domaine Gueissard ‘Restanques’ Rosé, Bandol – Sth France

Palate cleansing freshness for summer. So clean! 40% Cinsault, 30% Grenache, 30% Mourvèdre. Screwcap.

Fresh, fruit forward and powerful. A creamy and briny nose amid gooseberry, guava and cucumber – Sancerre-like as some tasters have remarked. Where the 2012’s persona was serious and tense, this is a more giving release leaning to the tropical fruited spectrum, with great saline and schist-mineral derived length. Certainly refreshing, though layered and deceptively complex.

2011 Pressing Matters, Pinot Noir, Coal River Valley – TAS

Deep color, and displaying an essence pastille bouquet of plum and sage; the palate is thickly textured and unctuous revealing plenty of concentration and depth, toasty oak notes and a bitter mocha note to conclude; big boned and muscular stems and whole bunch.

2013 Ministry of Clouds Tempranillo / Grenache, McLaren Vale – SA

Ministry of Clouds is the name of a new selection of wines developed by two of the wine industry’s bright young talents, Julian Forwood, previously with Wirra Wirra, and Bernice Ong, ex Woodstock. 52-48% blend is homage, juicy and savory color flavors to those styles with silkiness and plenty of length on the palate. Fragrant and luscious and matured in old oak.

Have you got any of these wines in your cellar?