QPR-Tower Estate Shiraz

[Brian K Miller]

I've posted notes on this before, but since we are doing QPR this month I just gotta post my kudos again.

2001 Tower Estate Hunter Valley Shiraz $23.99 at Corti Brothers.

The first bottle was quite light and lovely, almost Saint Joseph in character, with white pepper and light berry fruit and good earthyness. Delcious, but...

the second bottle just had waves of flavor, rich berry, cherry, plum fruit and tons of leather and a beautiful, balanced, plush mouth feel. Captivating-it stood up to the Beringer Private Reserve, imho. One of the wines of the year, definitely.

Two more bottles to go.

[Marc Kahn]

I'm curious how to explain the big difference in your tasting between 2 bottles of the same vintage. Here are some possible explanations:

- The wine in different bottles went through some different changes, neither of them going bad, just different.
- Even though the same label, perhaps they were from different batches.
- The subjectivity of the taster could be at play. Do wine aficionado's taste buds change from day to day?

Someone please explain. Is this kind of variability common?

Marco

[Bob Parsons Alberta]

Maybe the first bottle was tasted a year ago! See my note on the `04 Drouhin Morgon posted 2 days ago.

[Ian Sutton]

I suspect Bob is correct, but even for wines tasted a week apart, I'm a firm believer that I'm pretty variable in how I judge wines, depending on setting, mood, temperature (ambient and of the wine), drunk with food & if so what food, ...

and yes bottle variation does exist.

and yes batch variation also exists, though I understand Tower estate produce the wines in relatively small quantities, so on this occasion, I'd discount that as a low probability.

On a recent TN (Arlewood Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2000) in this month's wine focus, I posted 3 TN's all taken within a year of each other, and each significantly different, though with some commonality. Might be of interest to observe those differences.

regards

Ian

[Jenise]

I suspect Bob's correct...

and yes bottle variation does exist.

Perhaps we should explain both? That 1) the difference Brian explains sounds, to me anyway, like his first bottle was experiencing a classic case of travel shock (a bit mixed up after it's journey from warehouse to store to Brian's table) and that his second bottle was nicely knit-together after a good rest. And that 2) there are other causes of bottle variation, common enough to have a term like "bottle variation" coined but not not at all so common that it's an everyday occurrence--if you buy a case of wine, you can expect every bottle in the case to be alike--including the occasional bit of bacteria that finds it's way in on the bottling line.

[Jenise]

Who is the importer on your bottle, Brian? An old friend of ours was going to be the importer on this stuff, I think, but we've never seen the wine at retail.

[Brian K Miller]

I suspect Bob's correct...

and yes bottle variation does exist.

Perhaps we should explain both? That 1) the difference Brian explains sounds, to me anyway, like his first bottle was experiencing a classic case of travel shock (a bit mixed up after it's journey from warehouse to store to Brian's table) and that his second bottle was nicely knit-together after a good rest. And that 2) there are other causes of bottle variation, common enough to have a term like "bottle variation" coined but not not at all so common that it's an everyday occurrence--if you buy a case of wine, you can expect every bottle in the case to be alike--including the occasional bit of bacteria that finds it's way in on the bottling line.

I think you nail it, with the caveat that I LIKED the first bottle quite a bit (at least enough to go back).

The second bottle was better...but...the travel shock was not all bad. The wine guy at Corti Brothers (not Daryl himself but an older, Europeanish gentleman who I think has been there for years and years) thought it was indeed the eight month time difference. My poor storage cannot be "blamed" as I did not have either bottle for that long a period (and it was winter and fall, anyway).