Landmark Tutorial: Seminar 4: ‘The Great Australian Blends’ presented by Charlie Melton

One of the surprises at this session was to be able to see the evolution of Australia’s great red blends across time and in terms of maturation in bottle (I had not expected to see some older wines, really, before the Landmark’s centre-piece, Andrew Caillard’s and James Halliday’s ‘Historic Perspective’ tasting).

Charlie Melton, however, treated participants to a stunning range of wines indicative not only of Australia’s prowess in producing blends – from different varietals and regions – but also the immensely good value some of these wines can be. For example, how many people would consider buying a bottle of d’Arenberg’s d’Arry’s Original and ageing it for 20 years? I’d recommend trying this (the 1990 was in very good shape).

This phenomenon reminded me of a tasting where I’d previously had the chance to taste 1976 Penfolds Koonunga Hill – yes, Koonunga Hill, in its first vintage of production. Certainly, that particular wine was on the older side (tasted in 2009), but it had survived remarkably well. I would urge lovers of Australia’s warmer climate reds – especially those of us on a budget that won’t stretch to the likes of Grange, Hill of Grace and Wendouree – to age some of these more affordable wines in the long-term. You may be more than pleasantly surprised by the results.

There were so many stand-out wines here that it would defeat the purpose to list the majority of the above. However, the wine that spoke sheer brilliance was the 1998 Wendouree Shiraz/Mataro, Clare Valley; hardly ‘cheap’, of course, but from one of the world’s greatest wineries.

Editor’s note: This is an ongoing 13-part series of Edward Ragg’s account of Australia’s 2010 Landmark Tutorial. Each week, Edward will give us an insider’s view of the program. Join us next week as he covers a Semillon tasting with Andrew Thomas.