15 Year Vertical Tasting – Part II

Back in November of last year, you may recall we posted about the 15 year vertical tasting of all vintages of Curly Flat Pinot Noir and Chardonnay dating back to our first vintage in 1998.  If you wish to know more about that initial tasting, please click here.

For the first vertical we were joined by several prominent wine writers, but with pace of the world, let alone the world of wine, it is almost impossible to organise an event like this where the timing works for everybody.

Our response to this was to host another tasting, this time in Sydney.  Here we utilised the professional tasting room of the wine man himself, Peter Bourne.  Peter’s tasting room provided us with a setting where great light and no distractions could avail, allowing for the wines to take centre stage.

For this second tasting we were thankful to be joined by wine writers Huon Hooke, Angus Hughson, Peter Bourne, Rob Geddes MW and Stuart Halliday (Tetsuya’s Manager & Sommelier).  To give the wines a voice, Curly Flat co-owners Phillip Moraghan & Jenifer Kolkka were on hand with insights and anecdotes that have been gathered over each of these 15 vintages.

From our last tasting we learnt that outside obvious TCA taint, there was marked variation throughout the wines under this closure, which these days could surprise only the few (well at least in Australian circles).  But in the time since that first tasting, we discovered something quite pleasing. Going back to the first vertical last year, to our surprise, it seemed that the 2003 CF Chardonnay was over the hill.  We opened 4 bottles that day with each to be met with the same dull, flat experience. This was not in line with the other vintages as even the older vintages CF Chardonnays still had a pulse of acid, so that got us thinking something wasn’t right. We decided to try a magnum of the same vintage, and we were absolutely blown away.  This is the wine we remember!

This cause of this anomaly falls (again) on the shoulders of the justifiable whipping boy that is cork.  Within our 750 ml museum stock of this vintage there must be a whole batch of bad corks, explaining the alarming strike rate.  Saying that though, all of our magnums are under cork, but that too eventually, will be changed over to screw cap.  We are looking at moving towards screw cap magnums in the near future, probably starting with our 2012 CF Chardonnay which will be bottled around October.

On the whole we were happy to say we had a pretty good run on the wines under cork, with only a few (still unacceptable!) victims of soul sapping cork taint and random oxidation.  But that’s enough cork bashing for now!

The wines themselves were in fine form, as each wine has the stamp of its season also the evolution of its handling is clearly on display, with the more recent vintages showing more assuredly in terms of structure and complexity but without the suggestion of overplaying the subtlety that Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are synonymous with.   This is brought about not only our continual improvement program, but of course the vines are also getting older.  But there’s still a long way to go…

We took notes for all the wines tasted at both events, so we’ll get them up on our website/blog in a meaningful context for those wanting a guide of how our wines are currently looking and what the drinking future holds for them.  In the meantime here are some of Phillips notes on our wines from the 1998 vintage, tasted last Thursday (14/2/13).

1998 Curly Flat Chardonnay: “Mid gold, clear; generous with white stonefruit, cashews, mealy; viscous, moderate acid, good fruit and texture, lots here, nutty; medium plus finish.”  

1998 Curly Flat Pinot Noir: “Deep ruby, tanning at the edges, clear; generous lifted nose with spearmint with underlying dark fruits; still fresh & alive, mocha dusty oak; medium plus weight with viscous, lightly textured, good acid, lively and long. 

In relative conclusion, with any meaningful review, more questions are asked than answered, but we have learnt several things none the less.  Such as less extraction in Pinot Noir, can mean more in the glass.  This is found in our 2010 Pinot Noir, where we no longer use enzymes and employ a gentler cap management whilst in ferment.  We can go on, but maybe its best to make the visit out to Curly Flat where can explain the myriad of elements in context!

What we have learnt is that the journey will never end, as the term perfect is really a metaphoric castle within a kingdom of fools, these tastings announce the quality of our site, its soils and the vines that grow older and wiser within it…   Hopefully we do too.