Lunch with the Tolpuddles
Every tasting needs a warm-up wine – that one wine that you write-off as a ‘palate calibrator’ and then revisit later for a more serious examination, largely because, as the first of the day, you usually think it is bloody amazing (particularly if you’re thirsty, and the wine is cold).
But what do you do if you’ve only got two wines to taste?
This is what ran through my mind after tasting the 2012 Tolpuddle Chardonnay at lunch on Tuesday. I thought immediately ‘this is the best Australian Chardonnay I’ve had this year’ and proceeded to empty my glass. Worse still, it was a day or two since my last sip of something winey, and thus the Tassie Chardonnay in my Riedel tasted like liquid gold.
The only solution to this realisation was to push on – ie drink some of the Pinot Noir. It was then, after sipping the quite juicy, slightly minty, great-but-not-perfect 2012 Tolpuddle Pinot Noir that objectivity stepped back into the building.
Coming back to the Chardonnay over the next hour or so, however, and I think that my initial thoughts weren’t that wrong – this is a stunning example of modern Tassie Chardonnay, that I genuinely enjoyed drinking (thirsty or not).
Given the context of the Tolpuddle story, I’m actually not surprised that both of these wines are bloody good.
For starters the Tolpuddle vineyard, where these wines are sourced from, won the inaugural ‘Tasmanian vineyard of the year’ in 2006, and carries a reputation for supplying top-shelf fruit to other makers – including Accolade Wines (the 2012 Eileen Hardy Pinot Noir is nearly all Tollpuddle fruit), and Treasury (Tolpuddle goes into the Heemskerk label) amongst others.
Further, the ‘grape guy’ behind this wine, Ray Guerin, won ‘Viticulturist of the Year’ at this years Gourmet Traveller Winemaker of the Year awards, winning for both his work at Tolpuddle and also a long career that saw him establish Hardy’s Hoddles Creek vineyard in the Yarra and Ray’s own famed Yarra vineyard ‘Applejack’ (source of the multi-trophy winning 2012 Giant Steps Applejack Pinot)..
Ultimately it is the newish owners of Tolpuddle – cousins Martin Shaw & Michael Hill Smith MW and the Shaw & Smith team – whom must claim the most credit for this pair of wines, having purchased the vineyard almost on a whim in 2011, and now turning that potential into pure vinous glory.
Actually, the Tolpuddle vineyard was more than just a whim-purchase, this arrangement was meant to be – the Shaw & Smith pair almost stumbled upon it serendipitously, and tellingly just couldn’t come up with any decent reasons not to buy it, the value confirmed by another winemaker who asked Hill Smith recently ‘how the fuck did you ever get that vineyard’…
The wines
Tolpuddle Vineyard Chardonnay 2012 (Coal River Valley, Tas) $65 RRP
Sourced from vines that date back to 1988 (for certain parcels), the fruit was handpicked and transported to the Bay of Fires winery, where it was then juiced and sent up to the Shaw & Smith facility in the Adelaide Hills for fermentation and maturation. Whole bunch pressed, it went into 30% new oak (the rest 2nd and 3rd fill) and only 20% of the wine went through malo.
This has a ‘long lean line of acid’ according to Shaw & Smith’s David LeMire MW, and even he was a little apprehensive about releasing this wine so young ‘maybe October 2014 is when we really need to bring it out!’. TA 8.1, pH 3.1, 13% alc.
Very delicate nose – lean and just slightly nutty with a real Shaw & Smith house style to the lees. Long and lean palate moves between being too lean and a little oaky when cold, and then a story of acid-driven freshness and balance as it warms up. Is it too lean? Maybe just a little, but you’d expect that to improve with more time in bottle, and the palate feels perfectly ripe, even and long otherwise. Classy stuff. 18.5/20, 94/100
Tolpuddle Vineyard Pinot Noir 2012 (Coal River Valley, Tas) $75 RRP
‘The problem with so many Australian Pinots is that either they are too stemmy or too dry-reddish. We don’t want either.’ says Michael Hill Smith. Again handpicked, the grapes transported to Bay of Fires where they where fermented in barrique and then transported in barrel to Shaw & Smith. 25% whole bunches utilised, open fermented and hand plunged. 30% new oak. TA 6.1, pH 3.42, 13% alc.
This has lovely redcurrant and just a little spearmint on the nose, with quite a round and generous palate, almost soupy in its red fruit thickness, and a little light to finish. Vital, if not profound, this is very primary in it’s fruit ripeness and quite round through the middle, the style just needing a little more detail to be sublime. Still delicious, juicy and seriously tasty. 18.3/20, 93/100
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