Yellowglen Exceptional Vintage XV Piccadilly Valley 2004

Yellowglen Exceptional Vintage XV Piccadilly Valley 2004 (Piccadilly Valley, Adelaide Hills, SA)
12%, Cork, $49.95
Source: Sample
www.yellowglen.com

Welcome back Yellowglen.

After nigh on a decade in the premium wine wilderness, Yellowglen has reentered the quality wine market, releasing a pair of sparkling wines that sit right up the top of the quality bubbly tree. Apparently these two Adelaide Hills wines are but the start of things to come, with further releases from the Coal River Valley in Tas and Deer Farm in the Yarra.

Personally I have fond memories of the old Yellowglen ‘Y’ wines (big y on the front, huge bulbous bottle), as they were the first ‘premium’ bubblies that I started selling way back when I started in the industry 13 odd years ago (when I was younger and had long hair). Since then, the Yellowglen brand has faded into a sea of pink coloured, erm, Pink, and the legacy of what was once a handy sparkling ‘house’ has been lost. I’m actually glad to have the brand back, corporatised or not.

This wine is the younger of the pair (02 is in the fridge at home) that I’ve tried and I can only guess that the 02 may be better again. Both are unquestionably built with intent, and the packaging looks more rather Champagne-like too (the Heidsieck Monopole NV blue top wines come to mind. They’re rubbish, but have quite French labels).

A Pinot dominant 66% Pinot 34% Charodnnay blend, this is sourced from the Hargrave vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley, and spent 7 years on lees and has a dosage of 8 grams/litre.

What I like about this is that mineral purity. There’s more than a hint of the Croser bubbly, made just across the Piccadilly Valley at Petaluma, in the style here, the precision and linearity of the palate and delicacy of the flavours all very clean and pure and well made, much like Croser. If anything, you really want to see more funk and wildness in this actually, with the delicate, lemon drop and white peach flavours mingling with autolytic gummy yeast characters and soft acidity.

A very pretty, light and well made linear style, I can fully appreciate the effort that went into this. I’d love to see more power, more weight and less squeaky clean-ness, but its very good wine all the same.

Welcome back Yellowglen.

Drink: 2013-2018
Score: 17.7/20 92/100
Would I buy it? I’d rather drink the similarly priced Daosa but would enjoy a glass of this all the same