Montevecchio Rosso 2011 (Heathcote)

Montevecchio is a new brand from the Chalmers family - one of the driving forces behind alternative varieties in Australia, both with their Chalmers Wines brand, their previous vineyard and nursery, and their support for the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show.

The Chalmers sold their original vineyard (from where I bought sagrantino fruit in 2007) to Macquarie. While much of the nursery stocks of rare clones, including the MAT clones imported from Italy, has since been bulldozed, the family also set up a Heathcote vineyard with a mixture of Italian and other varieties.

My first impression of the title 'Montevecchio' had me wondering if there was a chance of this being an exercise in passing off Australian fruit, winemaking and wines as if it were an Italian brand. But given the age of the Heathcote soils, the Mount Carmel range, and the clear badging of 'Heathcote, Victoria' on the front labels of the red and white blends and the moscato, I think this passes well.

The 2011 Rosso is described as a 'co-fermented field blend of hand-picked shiraz, lagrein, nero d'Avola and sagrantino'. The description has me wondering how many purchasers and drinkers would understand what 'field blend' might mean (not to mention co-fermentation)? Were the grapes picked at the same time and co-fermented as a single batch? Picked from one, mixed-block, or several mono-varietal plantings? Lots of room to move under that 'field blend' label, really.

Anyway, this is a wine of the cool, wet vintage rather than of the varieties involved. There is a bright, clean flow of light, crisp fruit all through the palate here. A pleasant, sour-fizz confectionery note is the main appeal. This is jug wine, in a good way, and has me thinking tapas as much as antipasti.

Purchase, $20, screwcap, 12.5% alcohol, website here.

Back in Canberra

Blog services to resume shortly, having had a brief break for the season over in Adelaide. If ever a place glad to visit, chuffed to leave and ecstatic not to live there...

That said, there were some good finds on the trip, some Italian, some wine, some just good:
- Espresso Royale on Magill Road. By a flying mile the best coffee I've ever had in Adelaide. Roast, ground and made on site by people who know coffee. Drove there twice in two days before they closed down for three weeks.
- Around Espresso Royale is a bit of a Magill Road cluster of good businesses trading in organic produce, including a bunch of organic nonnas knocking out excellent handmade pasta, plus a good organic butcher. Double cut tbone for bistecca, and very fine ham.
- Cheese diversity & quality at the Central Markets is looking up. The Smelly Cheese Shop had crowds three deep for some excellent cheeses (candied cumquats also excellent). And a very good Assam laksa from the Malaysian stand.
- Melt restaurant looked like it still needed to settle into the Italian-Spanish mix/fusion thing, but the highlights (including some of the pizzas) were having me second-guess my expectation of Adelaide food disappointment.

On the way over to Adelaide, ducked in to Tahbilk at Nagambie and a brief stop in Heathcote. Aside from the strangeness of seeing the wetlands at Tahbilk very wet, their 2010 riesling was a real surprise and worth an on the spot six pack buy.

Heathcote was an even bigger surprise. My impressions had been of a red-wine and French-variety focussed (even obsessed) region - a lot of big reds carrying more heat than needed and in a fairly narrow stylistic vein. I now think I need to go back for a proper look. The Heathcote Cellar & Store, with an ex-Hardy's viti manager on the floor, is a good showcase for the region. The number and diversity of non-French vines and wines really surprised me, especially sangiovese, nebbiolo and tempranillo. And when the local showcase is confident enough to run a month featuring Spanish wines (mainly imports), and local winemakers (Sanguine Estate) drop in with wines left-over from a tasting, you know some things are working right for a region. A trip back after vintage is in order, I reckon.

And Australian wines from Italian varieties from the trip? Vermentino is starting to appear more in wine lists, including in Adelaide (such as the Serafino vermentino, which acquitted itself better than some fairly dire greek food on Rundell St). At dinner last night at Stefano's in Mildura, the 2009 Chalmers fiano went very well with a simple fried squid dish - gentle phenolics and a nut skin character on the finish adding interest to the wine.

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.