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Francis Greenslade
(Actor)
Moss Brothers Semillon 2004 |
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| Semillon as a variety
has always intrigued me. Chardonnay has its own strong identity and
you could never mistake a Sauvignon Blanc for a Reisling, (well I
could but you get the idea) but Semillon has always seemed such an
enigmatic wine. Like the next door neighbour you live next to for
years, who you say good morning to every day, who keeps to himself
and seems all right, quite nice really, until something cracks and
he goes on a killing rampage in the mall........ perhaps not a good
example. |
Start again.
Until recently semillon was a wine that was really only seen in
the company of sauvignon blanc - the second violin to the sauvignon
blanc's crisp and aromatic first violin, never getting the starring
role , always in support, playing away unnoticed, slightly jealous
perhaps,brooding and resentful, until suddenly something cracks and
she goes on a killing rampage in the mall....... I don¹t think this
is going very well. |
Talk about the
wine.
My wine education was cursory. It began with the discovery that
you could buy a bottle of wine for $1.98 and ended with the
realisation that you shouldn't. It has not progressed much in the
20 years since that harsh lesson was learnt. However here's a tip I
picked up recently. When you're asked to review a wine, don't do it
when the house is being painted - the wine will have the bouquet of
Dulux's "Chalk USA", slightly creamy with an aftertaste
of turpentine.
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So - Moss Brothers
Semillon. A review by an oenological novice..
This wine goes splang firmly yet gently at the back of my mouth
and plink plink pleasantly at the sides. Subsequent tastings reveal
a glingling effect all around the mouthal area that demand further
investigation until the bottle is empty. It reminds me of visiting
wineries when I was young and irresponsible and makes me look
forward to barbecues with friends when the children are old enough
to get their own food and go to the toilet by themselves. It's
clear and clean and citrussy and makes me want to run to the shops
and buy the ingredients for fish soup and crusty bread and have
people round so I can pour them glasses of Moss Brothers Semillon
and say "Try this, I have alway found Semillon an enigmatic
wine but this bottle has finally explained it all to me, what do
you think?" Most importantly it makes me forget for a short
yet blissful time, the awful paint smell. Which is just as well or
otherwise something may crack and I might find myself on a killing
rampage in the mall. |
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Phillip Gwynne
(Author)
Moss Brothers Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2004 |
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I grew up
surrounded by grapes.
Before your mind conjures a bucolic image of a child frolicking
amongst lustrous bunches swaying in the breeze let me qualify that
statement - I spent some of my peripatetic childhood in a town
called Waikerie. Waikerie is in the Riverland area of South
Australia and is not really famous for anything, except, perhaps,
that it rhymes with Bakery. And yes, many a pastie and finger bun
was purchased by my seven siblings and I from the Waikerie
Bakery.
Waikerie is one of the reasons I’m writing this review. In fact, as
the paucity of my oenological expertise becomes laughably evident
it may well be the only reason I’m writing this review
You see, Jane Moss and I have Waikerie in common. Some of her
peripatetic childhood was spent there, too. I’m not sure about her
intake of pasties and finger buns but I have no doubt that she too
patronized the Waikerie Bakery.
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But let’s talk
more about grapes.
We picked a lot in Waikerie. We picked oranges. We picked
lemons. We picked peaches. We picked apricots (except we called
them ‘cots). And we picked grapes. Picked isn’t really the right
term, however. We cut grapes.
There’s an old grape picker’s joke. The novice grape picker asks
the experienced grape picker how many years he’s been picking. He
holds up four fingers to represent four years. He needs both hands
to accomplish this.
In other words you had to be careful who you picked grapes with,
who was on the other side of the vine, or you’d finish the day
without the full digital complement.
Who did we pick grapes for? Famous companies like Yalumba or
Seppelts. No we picked grapes for blockies. A blocky is a bloke who
owns a block (of course). A block is an orchard. The grapes were
invariably sultanas, or sullies as they were called.
My viticultural knowledge is of the same standard as my oenological
expertise but it seemed to me (as I knelt down on the scorching
sand) that these sullies were almost grown hydroponically – they
were given lots of fertilizer and River Murray water and the sand
was basically there to stop the vines from falling over.
I’m not sure what happened to the sullies we picked - maybe they
ended up as table grapes, maybe they were dried, maybe they found
their way into cask wine, but I do know that picking sullies was
hard work. Really hard work. The sort of work that made you realise
that your mother’s crazy idea that you should study harder at
school wasn’t so crazy after all.
I can remember clearly the last day I picked sullies - February 16,
1983, more commonly known as Ash Wednesday. By ten the temperature
was well over 45 and the northerly wind a super-heated blast from
the outback. At lunchtime we quit and retreated to the river to
watch the sky turn red and the sun turn green. Seventy-five people
died in bushfires that day. And I quit picking sullies for
good.
I’ve never been much of a drinker. Maybe that’s because I grew up
with a father who was a serious one. He never drank wine though (or
‘plonk’ as he called it) and he didn’t trust anybody who did. If
they weren’t a derro, a wog or a shelia then their manhood could be
justifiably questioned. Or maybe it was because the first time I
got drunk was at a winery. The Waikerie Junior Colts had just won
the premiership and we were celebrating in style. Until our
full-back (or was it our full-forward?) found you could quite
easily slide open the top to one of the vats, dunk your head into
the half-fermented liquid and imbibe.
So I invited some friends around – another writer, a lawyer, an
actor, and a politician (ok, only joking about the politician – I
may be hard up for friends but I’m not that hard up). They’re all
serious wine drinkers. One of them even brought his own glass.
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Let the tasting
begin!
‘Gwynnie, it’s not cold enough,’ muttered the actor, doing a very
good Nicole impersonation.
Jane, how could you do this to me? How could you give me wine that
wasn’t cold enough? The lawyer pointed out (as lawyers tend to do)
that this was probably my responsibility. The wine went back into
the fridge.
It returned suitable chilled and the adjectives started to fly. You
know what I mean, all those lovely-sounding technical terms that I
don’t have a clue about. But everybody agreed it’s a ‘noice’ wine,
it’s a lovely wine, it’s a credit to it’s maker.
And what should be eaten with such a splendid drop – a pasty and a
finger bun from the Waikerie Bakery, of course. |
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Bryan Dawe
(Actor)
Moss Brothers Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2001 |
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Wine, someone bearing
a more than abnormal resemblance to my good self, once observed:
should be drunk not discussed – either orally or in print. There is
good reason for this: there is a bewitching hour at night when, say
after the fourth bottle of fine red such as this one, that any
serious discussion about wine or anything for that matter, is
undesirable and should be banned at any civilized table. Apart from
anything else, at this stage of the night the conversation tends to
descend less into intelligent discourse and more towards a series
of slurred utterings – often around a repetitive motif. To the
untrained ear, it can sound very much like a strange dialect from
the Planet Zargon. This babbling and incoherence in turn restricts
the physical act of pouring the contents of one’s glass down one’s
throat and this is not helpful; for, it is my personal view that
the glass of red wine you miss out on - is the one you never make
up.
So, in an endeavour to review this gorgeous drop, I have therefore
had to put aside my strongly held views on the above and by way of
compromise: put down my glass and grudgingly comply with the
request to put in print at least my assessment of the Cabernet
Sauvignon Merlot 2001 The first known reference to a specific wine
vintage was when the Roman Historian Pliny the Elder rated 121 B.C.
as a vintage “of the highest excellence.” It was possibly the first
wine review. Pliny the Elder wrote the history of the Roman Empire
around 70 A.D. that made the wine he was ‘reviewing’ 200 years
old.
Clearly the 121B.C. was a great year and the vintage aged well.
Will the Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2001 do the same? I have no
doubt. If I were you I would cease reading this immediately and
purchase as much of this wine that you can lay your hands on. Buy
it with your ears pinned back, it will be in great demand. This is
not a wine to store as the Romans did. And there is always the risk
that over such a prolonged period it might go off. This would be a
tragedy. Turning to the wine itself. As Len Evans, once said:
"You have only so many bottles in your life, never drink a bad
one."
We have no fear of that here. On the contrary; unlike some wine
which one can tell from the first whiff has never seen a grape in
its life, this is a wine that sleeks out from the bottle, gliding
down the throat like a sophisticated model along the catwalk of
one’s mouth.
This is not one of those light, portable, discreet, and compact
wines that fits into the pocket, purse, or wallet of one’s
palate.
There’s nothing hidden nor squeezed in its aroma; retronasally, it
is not a wine that skulks around in the dark corners of one’s mouth
too shy to show its face; nor conversely does it creep up behind
your palate and biff you; nor does it bring a large hammer down
upon your skull at the first taste – or the next morning. It is a
wine for dancers: ballerina’s not construction workers in singlets;
it is the wine of poets not politicians. It should be drunk in the
company of artists and writers not bankers and real estate agents.
It’s flavour and colour will be lost on a footballer but never a
craftsman.
Its aroma has the complexity of a Whitlam or Keating but none of a
Howard or Ruddock.
It’s medicinal qualities are obvious: give this to the sick and
they will recover.
It is to be poured at candle lit dinners not in ‘Clueless’ movies.
A sculptor of bronze should drink this but not a 19 year old blond
at the Logies. Paint the wine and it is a Whitely not a Ken
Done.
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A drink to enjoy in
Venice, not in Vienna.
Cellar it for ten years, you’re joking aren’t you?
Now if you don’t mind I’d like to go back to drinking it.
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