One of the WSET Diploma question this year is about Australian Vintage 2010. When my friend heard about this, he made fun by saying this question is invalid since Australian wines are all very bold and high in alcohol. Any weather in Australia will produce the same style of wine. This, unfortunately, is the general impression many people have about Australian wines. It is no doubt that a lot of Australian wines are of this style but certainly there are more restrained and elegant examples today. To prove to him that there are some cool climate and restrained example, I would like to search for a cool climate Australian red that is more old world in style. The one I picked is 2009 Farr Rising Pinot Noir, Geelong.
Geelong is located south-west of Melbourne and enjoying a cool climate. For this wine, one just have to look at the bottle and will know the producer would like to create a wine that mimic old world style than new world style. Unlike most Australian wines that are using screwcap, this wine is still using traditional cork. Front and back labels just provide very minimal law-required information and doesn’t come with a lengthy description about the wine. From the outside, it just look like a Burgundy wine except it mentioned explicitly Pinot Noir. And I succeed in tricking my friends! They guess this is a Burgundy red wine!
This wine has very intense nose of ripe fruit. I would say it is a bit more intense and forward than most Burgundy wines. This gives hint that this is a new world wine instead of Burgundy. Yet, it is very restrained in palate with very sweet red fruit flavours. Again, I found the palate is slightly sweeter than most Burgundy wines that I drank before. Although slightly lacking in complexity (probably at the level of a Burgundy wine at village level), this is a very good wine. This would especially pleased people who find most Burgundy wines too lean and tart.
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