Seppelt Benno Bendigo Shiraz 2006 (Bendigo, Vic)
$45, Screwcap, $14.5%
Not everyone is a fan, but I quite like the Seppelt packaging - simple, elegant, if just a teensy bit boring. Classic regardless. This Shiraz is one of the flagship wines for Seppelt Week (SW for short - acronyms are excellent) even though it doesn't convince (quite yet)
In the glass it look positively purple - bright & very youthful. The nose is very sweet and juicy, with cherry ripe and Bounty, sweet fruit and oak on the nose - its all small berries and creamy French oak, topped with VA & a bit of mint. The palate though doesn't quite live up to the lusciousness of the nose - its quite sour, dry and dominated by alcohol, backward and even a bit hard in its profile, with woody oak tannins intruding on the back palate. After a couple of hours in the glass it softens up a shade, but it still has a hardness about it that seems to detract from the drinkability, the alcohol giving it a final bludgering boot on the finish.
So my conclusion here was that this Benno may well emerge as something very fine indeed - the firm structure and briliant colour give hints of that - but at this very point in time its just hard work. Important plus signs on this one.. 16.0++
2009/10 WCA Wine Journalism 'Young Gun; Wine Judge; Gourmet Traveller WINE and Breathe Hunter Valley magazine contributor; LattéLife & The Retiree columnist; National Liquor News tasting panellist and Chablis lover who fell into the liquor industry chiefly to buy cheap beer.
That (declared) ABV is getting a worry given the fruit profile. 13.5% on the 2003 (which was the first vintage I believe). That's turning into a pretty handy wine, though was originally also pretty hard going.
ReplyDeleteAs for packaging, better than the visual horrors of the 1990s!! That said, there is no real visual differentiation between the Chalambar and Jaluka upwards. For example, the excellent St Peters 2004 looks like a bog-stock 2006 Chalambar. People who work in bottleshops have told me that Seppelt premiums hardly move because only the wine-savvy look at them, and the wine-savvy only comprise a small percentage of the population, and many of this small percentage aren't interested in Seppelt, Victoria or perhaps even Shiraz. In short, a Seppelt premium wine is not a Veblen good. No points for conspicuous consumption here!!
MichaelC
I'm with you on the alcohol Michael - throttle it back a degree and better wine may result.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Seppelt labels, nothing beats those old Terrain Series labels which were positively shocking, the Chalambar not much better. Lucky those mid 90's Chalambars where so good...