Clarendon Hills Baker's Gully Shiraz 2003
After drinking the Clarendon Hills Astralis at the gala Pour Boys tomahawk ribeye wine dinner last weekend, for midweek meatloaf dinner I pull from the cellar another Clarendon Hills label, this aged single vineyard syrah-shiraz, Baker's Gully Syrah. At seventeen years, this bottle is past its prime and its time to drink while it is still within its drinking window. This is the final bottle of several that I obtained more than a dozen years ago. On my last tasting note of this label, three years ago, I wrote it was past its drinking window and starting to show its age. Ideally, I wouldn't finished consuming the remaining bottles rather than waiting three years to consume this final bottle as it has diminished linearly over that time.
Clarendon Hills winery was founded in 1990 by Roman Bratasiuk in Clarendon, a town 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Adelaide, part of the McLaren Vale Wine Region in South Australia.
Bratasiuk, a viticulturalist as much as a winemaker, selected Clarendon as a base because of the significant number of
old vine vineyards that were planted there, vineyards of 50 to 90 years.
The township of Clarendon was
established in 1880 by European migrants, who brought with them
pre-clonal, original French vine cuttings that they planted and propagated across the surrounding hilltops. Clarendon is home to hugely varied
terrain with sandy, clay based soils in the lower elevated regions and
contrasted with shattered shale and ironstone rich, quartz ridden soils
in the highest areas. It is ideal growing conditions for traditional French Rhone varietals - Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre as well as Bordeaux varietals Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Clarendon Hills vineyards sources lie within the Clarendon, Blewitt Springs and Kangarilla
districts. Using single vineyard designated fruits, Clarendon Hills seeks to express terroir
driven varietal expression in its wines.
Today, there are many single vineyard wines in Australia,
but when Roman started in 1990, he was a pioneer in this approach. In the early
1990s, Roman started becoming known for his Grenache, but today he has an extensive portfolio of premium and ultra premium quality wines across 19 single vineyard cuvee labels.
With the release of the 1994 vintage. Roman hired his first employee and rebranded
his $30 Clarendon Hills Shiraz as 1994 Clarendon Hills Astralis. It was
the first bottle in Australia to be priced at $100. It sold out and became his signature flagship label which remains to this day.
Robert Parker has written that "Clarendon Hills is one of the worlds elite wine estates". In 1996, Parker tasted the 1994 Astralis and wrote in his newsletter, Wine Advocate issue 110:
"This is the hottest wine in Australian wine circles, as it came out ahead of two great vintages of Henschke and Penfolds’ Grange in a recent tasting. If readers can believe it, it is a bigger denser, more concentrated wine than the Grange," and in issue 108 (1996) he named Roman wine producer of the year. Thereafter, Astralis became a cult wine.
Two
vintages of Astralis (1996 and 1994) were recently included within the
'Greatest 1000 Wines of all time 1727-2006" as a result of 15
international MW's collaborating with Scandinavian publisher FINE.
Clarendon Hills was awarded New World Winery of the Year in 2006 by Wine
Enthusiast. To date, Astralis is either the highest or equivocally
scored as the best Australian Shiraz/Syrah based wine every year
according to US publications Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate.
Today, Clarendon Hills produces broad portfolio of nineteen labels; eight Syrah, six Grenache, three Cabernet Sauvignon and one Merlot and Mourvedre wine. Roman exclusively produces single
vineyard wines, all single vineyard, single varietal wines, produced from low yielding, dry grown old vines which are hand pruned, hand picked. All wines are aged in high quality French oak barriques.
Clarendon Hills Baker's Gully Shiraz 2003
This Baker's Gully label was produced to be an entry level wine targeted at the restaurant trade which found the Clarendon
Hills Old Vines range too pricey for some wine lists. This also provided an introduction to Clarendon Hills wines to a broader customer base.
The Bakers Gully vineyard from which this label is sourced, is located approximately 1 km from the
winery. Bratasiuk has been looking at this site for a few years, which
consists of 10 year old dry grown Shiraz. The cropping levels are at
the higher end of the quality status at 3 ½ tonnes per acre. Roman
believes that over a period of 2-5 years the yields will be reduced to
2-2 ½ tonnes per acre. The soil profile is similar to those of another popular well known vineyard/label, Liandra,
with sandy and clay soils which are typical of Blewitt Springs. The wine is aged in 15%
new oak consisting of a mixture French Allier and Nevers.
Over the years we've had and still hold several labels from this producer including the flagship, premium Astralis that we consumed last weekend at our gala Pour Boys dinner. My actual favorite label from this producer, and perhaps most memorable drinking experiences is their Piggott Range Syrah. My experience is that those labels were always vastly exceeding this label. Lastly, we hold and recently tasted their Romas Grenache varietal label. It was underwhelming to the extent that I did not publish a review at that time. I'll wrap that up at the bottom of this post.
At this writing, the Baker's Gully still holds its dark inky garnet color and full bodied concentrated fruits, but a slight earthy leathery funk has set in with notes of a slight burnt note that was described a decade ago but a fellow cellartracker reviewer, offset by a raisin tones and a bit of a cognac alcohol heat tone. Satisfactory sipping as it nears end of life.
RM 86 points.
Clarendon Hills Romas Clarendon Grenache 2007
Last week I opened this Clarendon Hills Romas Vineyard Grenache. This is Clarendon Hill's top Grenache, sourced from the Romas Vineyard, which sits in the tenderloin/best part of the more famous Blewitt Springs Vineyard.
The vineyard was planted in 1920 with the 'Romas
Grenache' in the steepest, most elevated section. What makes this site
special is its elevation of almost 1000 ft and its proximity to the
ocean, which sits only a few miles away. The hillside site in some
places reaches above a +40˚ slope gradient where the old vines struggle
to survive on a steep rock hill face with yields a microscopic 1.2 ton
to the acre.The elevation and slope combined with the proximity to the ocean results in a
cooler-climate site and not prone to producing the ‘jammy’, ‘porty’
styles of Aussie Grenache so popular from the broader area, rather, this wine is more like wines from the north side of
Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
This was dark garnet colored, medium bodied with strong nose of cherry liqueur, ultra ripe raisiny berry and strawberry fruits are accented with an offsetting medicinal glycerin and high
alcohol tone, with notes of oak, clove and mineral.
RM 84 points.
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=933956
