Capel Vale "Howecoft' Merlot 1998 (Margaret River)

Damn.

This wine is magnificent. Showing all the class of the Margaret River and the benefits of a bit of age.

Had this bottle with my good friend Ben over in Perth. He was saving this for a special occasion and I'm so glad that he did. It's been a while since I've seen him and he was my tour guide on my recent pilgrimage to the Margaret River. But I'll talk about that later...

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the Capel Vale winery, but while I was over there we drank only wines from the region. That wasn't difficult.  :)

This merlot was quite simply brilliant. It reeked class in a way that I didn't expect from a merlot. I don't mean to sound wanky about Merlot, but it's never really my favourite style.

This had an almost honey and citrus nose, with a very smooth and almost smoky rich mouthfeel.

I'm going to have to try and find more of this. For special occasions.

Rating: 9.6

Price:   not sure yet, but will find out.

Heritage Estate Reserve Chardonnay 2007 (Granite Belt)

My goodness.

This wine has gained a lot of attention following it's win in the blind tasting 'WineState Magazine Wine of the Year' 2008.

For a Queensland wine (and a white at that) to win this is a HUGE surprise. But a great one. 

Lucky for the winery, since they put the price up from about $20 to $55 to cash in. Now you can only buy 2 bottles of it.

But that's ok, they deserve their day in the sun. On to the wine...

Good friends A and N brought round the bottle and we were all quite excited. We drank a couple of other whites first, but this one just blew them all away. It was simply brilliant. 

Beautiful balance of oak and fruit. Quite complex and very easy to drink. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you what flavours came up, since we ended up drinking 7 bottles between the 3 of us that were drinking :)

But the feeling that what we were consuming was somehow 'magical' was quite overwhelming.

Yes, it's a white wine and yes, it was good. Damn good. I ordered another two bottles at $55 straightaway and hope to somehow get another few. 

This is the second wine from Heritage that I have liked, so it's looking good for the rest of the Granite Belt into the future. Go Queensland  :)

Price $55

Rating   9.8/10  ( yes. )