Chalmers 2005 Sagrantino

The Chalmers family have done a lot for alternate grape varieties in Australia. Their old Chalmers Nurseries business brought many interesting grapes to field trials, to the market, and then to plantings around the country. Sagrantino (MAT1 and MAT4 clones) was one of their imports, with, if I recall correctly, the first vintage being released being the 2004.

This 2005 vintage sagrantino was made by Sandro Mosele at the Kooyong winery, but the fruit came from the Chalmers vineyards at Euston in NSW. These young plantings were the source of the sagrantino fruit I bought in 2007 for a trial make in part-amarone process.

The fruit in the 2005 is starting to thin out a little, though still offers preserved cherry and dark bramble berry characters, as well as an attractive, dusty, bitter chocolate note. It is a wine where the flavour of fruit and the taste of tannin are hard to separate. And it does have tannin. Serious, chewy, drying tannin.

I was in the mood for tannin, to go with a full-flavoured pork ragu and fettuccine, and this hit the spot. Bottled under Diam, if you have any of these left, I'd suggest drinking up this year before the fruit fades further. For what it's worth, I reckon this is a wine that would have presented better under screwcap than Diam.