Tuesday, July 7, 2009

2005 Rolf Binder Heinrich GSM


Left is a nice picture of mataro starting to ripen in Binder's vineyard in Feb 2006 (equivalent to August up here). At end see interesting discussion of the way this very vintage of Heinrich was put together.

Very deep, profound nose of caramel, burnt oak, violet, cherry and raspberry. There’s a scotch-like component, like it’s been aged in old sherry casks! This is one of those wines where one whiff tells you it’s gonna be fun to drink (like the 2004 De Lisio Grenache). It is dominated by Grenache, I suspect. There’s plenty of acid in this full-bodied wine, but tannins are very soft. The color actually is a bit lighter than cabernet-dominated wines and is showing a small hint of brick at the edge indicating less long life than most of the reds I’ve reviewed previously. I suppose this one qualifies as a fruit bomb, but that seems unfairly derogatory since it’s certainly not a simple wine. The finish is extraordinarily long and that requires acid, tannin and some alcohol too. I’d speculate that this one is nearly as good as it will ever get. All in all, it’s not as complex and profound as other Grenache or GSMs (or Priorats) I’ve had, but it's not simple/one dimensional either. I’ll say it’ll peak in 2010 and go for 5-6 years after that. At the bottom I'm pasting a kind of interesting entry from the Binder winemaker's blog where he discusses the work that went into this wine (which turns out to be mostly Shiraz and Mourvedre (called Mataro sometimes in Australia) and only 15 grenache). What Parker calls creosote below is what seemed to me that Maderized/oxidized/burnt element. He thinks it'll last till 2014 or so and I'm saying a year or two longer. He's probably right of course. I certainly didn't get any blueberry or currant/cassis.

Update: Opened after vaccum pumping and refrigerating normally next day (7/8/09). Delectable today, even silkier, softer tannin and acid. The burnt oak/caramel is receded tho present and now it tastes more like a fruit bomb shiraz, though the sweet blueberry, like a pastille, is now present to my nose. A hint of flowery and spicy perfume, as if it had real bottle age. Yes, a good quality red is often more enjoyable the next day. In fact, a clear distinction between the less good and better is even when the former is fine day 1 it won't be worth drinking day 2. This one cost under $25 and as such is a bargain. Notice the differences between what Parker and Wine Spectator tasted. The main thing is to pay attention and savor the complexities of taste, mouth feel, finish--not to worry about exactly what fruit tastes are "really" in there.

Here's what Parker said in Oct 2006 (2.5 years ago as I write). 93 points:

The 2005 Heinrich, a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre, and Shiraz (15%, 30%, and 55% respectively), reveals a dark purple hue along with a sweet perfume of crushed rocks, blueberries, creme de cassis, creosote, vanilla, and spice. It is a full, earthy effort to consume over the next 7-8 years.

Wine spectator: Smooth and velvety, this is a plush mouthful of milk chocolate-accented cherry and autumn leaf aromas and flavors that linger nicely on the harmonious finish. Shiraz, Mataro and Grenache. Drink now through 2011. 91 points.

Here's the informative material from the Binder website/blog talking about making this wine in 2005:

Wine is constantly being tasted on a day by day basis to see how it is developing but once a year we taste in methodical order every barrel of red wine in the winery. This is the definitive tasting as from it we decide which barrel will go to which final wine of the number we make at Veritas.

This is an exhaustive process and this year it was spread over five days with about six hours tasting each day. We tasted over 700 barrels covering the 2004 and 2005 vintages. The tasters were Christa Binder Deans, Kym Teusner and myself.

Some wines that earlier in the year had picked up enough oak and wines that we do not want to show much of an oak influence have already been taken out of oak and are in tanks. These components are used if required in the final wine blends.

From the barrel tasting we then make a trial blend of the final wine from the barrels selected to see what it will taste like and if it looks O.K. the individual barrels are blended together and returned to oak.

To explain this clearly it is best to use an example, and this is how we composed the Rolf Binder Heinrich Shiraz Mataro Grenache 2005.

Behind the Veritas winery is a shiraz block called Stephanie Lot 2. This yielded 18 barrels. Of these we thought two barrels were good enough for the Heysen, a grade higher than Heinrich, nine were right for Heinrich and seven will become Christa Rolf (the domestic brand)/Halliwell (the overseas brand).

We then made a trial blend of the nine barrels which is equal portions of each barrel to see how it tasted. In this case we were happy and they were all approved as Heinrich. It can be that the barrels do not blend nicely so you then find out which one or two do not belong in the final blend. If this happened that barrel or barrels is declassified to a lower grade wine.

At Veritas if it does not fit the wine style it is declassified and we do this often.

Now a base can be anything from one barrel to a dozen or so, and in a very big winery can run into hundreds. Incidentally the process we are doing at Veritas is pretty standard Australian wine making practise.

So these nine barrels form one of the bases of the shiraz component of Heinrich. For the 2005 Heinrich we ended up with seven shiraz bases. These are next examined in detail and compared with each other. Of the seven it was decided that only five were good enough. Of the two bases declassified one will go to Rolf Binder Christa Rolf Shiraz Grenache 2005 and the other to Rolf Binder Hales Shiraz 2005. This of course lifts the overall quality of these two cheaper wines.

For the mataro component of Heinrich we ended up with two bases. One from the 100 plus year old bush vines from behind the winery and the other from plantings done in 1972 that are next to the winery and were taken from cuttings off the old bush vines.

The grenache we are very particular about and every vintage it generally comes down to a special lot from our Western Ridge vineyard in the Gomersal sub-region of the Barossa. And that is how it turned out this vintage with only one base of grenache making it to the final blend. We looked at 18 barrels of this base and whittled this down to 12. The six that were declassified will go to the Christa Rolf/Halliwell Shiraz Grenache lifting the quality of this wine.

This then led to a final Heinrich 2005 blend of 55% shiraz, 30% mataro and 15% grenache. Each variety is made into the final blend and is kept separate and the wines go back into oak. At this stage we may elect to change the oak, for example we are about to bottle a red which will free up some good two year old oak and the grenache component will go into this oak.

So we were pleased to finish an exhausting week but it may be the most important week in the winery.

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