Seppelt St Peters Grampians Shiraz 2004
I’d guess that this as all been snapped up by now at retail but a sample bottle arrived this week, which is great, as it saves me opening one of my two bottles. Opps. I wish I had bought a few more now. I think this is the bestest St Peters ever.
Deliciously savoury aromas of blackcurrant/blackberry, pepper steak, spice, white flowers and licorice. More complex than Westfield. On the palate a medium bodied spicy little number with meat, spice, pepper and subtle dark berry fruit. Slinky fine grained tannins. Perfect weight and balance and excellent length of flavour. This could be one of the greats.
Tasted : Sep06Alcohol : 13.5%
Price : $60
Closure : Screwcap
Drink : 2006 - 2022
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Double Take
Next Double Take :
Howard Park Abercrombie Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Jeremy O rates it no 1 in the Top 10 shiraz in his 2007 wine annual too.
Our local Dan says it’s selling poorly :~
Wrong market for this sort of wine I suspect.
GW
“Wrong market for this sort of wine I suspect.
GW”
No, I meant overall sales, not just sales in Dan Murphy outlets.
$48 bucks at my 2 nearest Dans Stores and they have loads of the stuff.
I might have to go and get another 6
Arthur O’Connor deserves Grand Cru status for this.
Not in the class of Grange so its a bit hard to do
Grange often comes from more than one vineyard, and often from more than one grape variety, so this would preclude Grand Cru status.
Don’t know if you can so easily say this wine is not in the class of Grange.
Neither do I. It’s every bit as good.
GW
Single vineyard wines are ultimately the future for Australia if the sophisticated international wine market is to view us seriously. Its called terroir !
This is amazing: Not 24 hours since GW reviewed the 2004 St. Peters, now most of the Adelaide stores are out of it, and the distributor (Fosters) is out of stock too.
Way to go GW, you started a stampede
And yes, it IS good.
JP
Last week apparently one bloke went around to all the Vintage Cellars stores in Perth and bought every bottle that they had. Evidently there wasn’t much seating space left in the back of his car!
Neither do I. It’s every bit as good.
GW
They are completely different - can’t compare them.
The statement was - ‘It is not in the same class as Grange’ (and while they are different) I think the St Peters is every bit as good.
GW
I agree with GW and Jules on the point of St Peters being every bit as good as Grange. Grange has a lot of hype, marketing and history, but it’s not worth the asking price. After going to the Penfolds Single Bottle dinner at the Hilton and trying many vintages, it gave me the feeling that in great years it’s a great (not necessarilly the greatest though) aussie shiraz. In other years its hit and miss.
St Peters has been consistently great for a number of vintages now, is a 1/10 of the cost and hit’s all the right spots as a wine goes.
Why may i ask is it not in the same class as Grange? Wank value aside that is.
PH
Depends on your Paradigm Hip. I’m guessing Mike likes his wines a bit bigger than you, so for him Grange may be a class above St Peters (which is sort of at the other end of the Shiraz spectrum). My paradigm is that Grange is a bit one dimensional and monolithic and I’d prefer to drink several St Peters at that price differential.
I just think Grange gets bagged a lot because of its high price and wank factor in knocking the best. Come time to put Australia up against another big gun wine producing country and Grange is the wine that seems to do us proud more than any other along with its siblings “Special Bins”. In 20 years or there abouts it will be getting towards Seppelt St Vinegar Shiraz while Grange will only just have lost it’s baby fruit. Of course St Peters is greater value its just not the greater wine!
MM
Grange is great. St Peters is great. St Peters 2004 will not be vinegar in 20 years.
GW
For me, after trying most of the Penfolds classics, none of them held up to Lindemans 1965 bin 3110 Hunter River Burgundy. I tried quite a few Grange vinegar wines at the Single Bottle Dinner, it’s not immune.
And i think you are paying St Peter’s enormous disrespect saying it will be vinegar when grange is just shedding it’s baby fat. From my experience the longer lived granges were in the minority not the majority of the wines i’ve tried, many of which have come straight from Penfolds cellars.
Yeah but even I will admit as a massive Grange lover that there were not that many “great” vintages of Grange years ago. There will be bottle variation with any wine even a bit with stelvin in some reds but grab a 71 Grange thats not an off bottle and its purely gorgeous. Wait until the 86,90,91,96,98,02 are 35 years old and they will make some of the current mature Granges seem lacklustre. Dont forget that when scoring a wine ad up to 10 points on top of the wines score if the wine has excitement. This is where Grange smashes St Peters, or in 30 years its St Vinegar.
Different wines. Different tastes. Different prices. Different production.
If the current trend in our dietary habits continue, cool climate Shiraz will be the winner (along with Pinot Noir), Grange may just be headed for dinosaur status, unless it can embrace change like some of the others.
Ahhhh Yeah right :>, Re Grange That is.
I bet your waiting for 2006 St Poison?? Should be a classic vintage with classic charachters.
No wonder Arthur left. The 06 vintage depressed him that much:) Watch the wine quility drop even further now hes gone.
I’m sure that Emma Wood is suitably qualified to continue the fine wine tradition.
She did a damn fine job with the 2003 and 2004 Chalambars
2003 Chalambar was ok, 2004 was good, I mean bad, I mean good, I mean bad, I have never found so much variation under screwcaps so cant blame them it seems alot of others have found the 04 Chalambar to be one and then their next bottle to be the other. The goods are Very good the Bads are Very undrinkable.
Not only is the 06 not going to be to flash but GRAMPIANS is already on fire this year with massive fires predicted for later on this season. Enjoy the 02,03,04,05 because it may be a long time between drinks and out of young Emmas hands
I am sure the 06 is safe…cheerful bunch you lot!
GW
That does it.
I’m heading over to Magill estate with a jerry can full of petrol.
There won’t be any more Grange’s EVER
So there!
Pfft
Grampians 06 was a cracker of a vintage (and not the fire kind). Damn hot, and early, yes, but flavour was there early so fruit was picked with good acid and ripe tannins. St. Peters should be a knockout.
I tried the first of 3 bottles of this (bought following JO 96 and JH 97 - in addition to a GW 96!). I must say that the wine is fine, but doesn’t exactly give much bang. Nobody who sampled it really thought of it as more than the vinous equivalent of ‘background music’ - not what you want from a $60 wine.
I appreciated the medium body and 13.5% ABV (a big tick for me there), but thought that the 40% new oak made it somewhat confectionary, and with the luscious fruit, oddly raspberry like. In short, it was most un-Shiraz-like. The new oak seemed to hold the true fruit characters, which might have been very subtle, in check. This drank ridiculously smoothly straight out of the bottle (thankfully no reductive elements under screwcap) and, though I had expected to let it sit in the decanter for a couple of hours, I saw no point waiting longer than 30 minutes.
I’m a bit puzzled by this Shiraz.
While you can drink it now (hence the drinking window), I tend to think it’s one of those wines that need to be old. I have tried it blind and given it less points - although still high. I also understand it’s a wine that can leave a lot of people cold - like Giaconda shiraz.
GW
Perhaps it was just expectation not being altogether fulfilled on this occasion. Then, again, it was a most pleasant wine. What do you think will change with bottle age?