These two rich Pinot Noirs from the Yarra Valley’s Oakridge Wines will become even more sensual after a few years in the dungeon.
Oakridge Local Vineyard Series Swallowfield Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2012
$38; 12.8% alcohol; screw cap; 93+ points
Oakridge is the property of corporate lawyer Tony D’Aloisio, chairman of the Winemakers Federation of Australia. He is a former chairman of ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission). He must love his Burgundy; his winemaker, David Bicknell, just sent me eight new releases from this series of Ozgundies – four Pinots and four Chardonnays. Over the last five days, I’ve drunk them to bits. I like this one for its rich Pinot fleshiness. It’s silky and polished, and smells like a compote of ripe raspberries and strawberries has been heated to the point of conserve, but well short of jam. There’s a touch of steamed cashew nuttiness. The palate has both comforting flesh and steely natural acidity, and will swell to a more Rubensian form with three or four years’ dungeon. Swallowfield is a great name for a vineyard, by the way.
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Oakridge Local Vineyard Series Guerin Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2012
$38; 13% alcohol; screw cap; 93+++ points
This wine has all the components of the Swallowfield, and then some. Its oak seems a little more sooty, and its flesh is perhaps slightly more muscle and sinew than plump, with a slice or two of poached quince in the pot with the berries. It also has that slightly sicko junkety turn that often accompanies the presence of isovaleric acid, the pheromone that adds the sweaty adult workout whiff to clean scrubbed flesh. I suspect this will be the more sensual wine in time. I started out intending to enthuse at greater length about these eight wines, with a few more layers of colour and poesy, but given the Winemakers Federation’s attitude to public forums and the press and its recent tendency to ask invited journalists to leave the room when the discussion begins, I’ll do precisely that at this point and draw the door quietly closed as I depart.
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