A night of Aussies in SF last week.....winner takes all

[TheEngineer]

I went to a wine tasting at a Friend's house one evening last week. It was his annual wine "every person has wine to drink" night and this year's theme was Australian wine.....something I know absolutely nothing about. People few in for this event held in SF from as far away as Hong Kong and Boston (Your's truly). This friend is tremendously knowledgeable about Californian wines and has been my mentor over the last year for Californian wines......along with everyone on this board!! [img]http://wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

So the theme this year was sub $100 Australian wines that would wow a Californian wine focused crowd (Every single one of these people loved Californian wines first)...... $20 buy in and winner takes all except for the $5 which would be given to the person with the highest placed lowest cost wine of the night.....(somewhat subjective.....)

Here is our list in order from Winner and then down.

2004 Warrabilla Parola’s Durif Limited Release (Winner!!!) I've never had Durif (varietal) before but I'mn looking out for this one. Very nice textured wine, great complexity but the only downfall was a slight hint candy type of sweetness in the wine)
2003 Kaesler Barossa Valley Shiraz Old Bastard (Close second but the other was showing better but we anticipate that this would ultimately be better and more serious)
2004 Torbreck Barossa Valley The Stuie (My contribution)
2004 Mitolo G.A.M McLares Vale Shiraz
2005 Hewitson Private Cellar Shiraz Mouvedre
2004 Penfold’s Bin 407
2006 Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon (We knew someone was going to do this...but what does it say about the rest....$5 winner here.)
2005 D’Arenberg The Laughing Magpie (we were ALL surprised at this one....)
2005 Domaine Terlato & Charpoutier (Corked...too bad...it felt like such a NICE bottle...the body of this wine was unbelieveable even though it was corked but I will look for a bottle to try again)
2005 Leeuwin Estate Art Series (what the hell were they thinking at WS when they gave it a 91 points.....)
2003 Kilikanoon Clare Balley Covenant (difficult to swallow this one)
2002 Reynella Grenache (Very hard to drink this wine.......)

AT the end of the evening, to let us go away on a happy note:

2004 Caymus Special Selection, Napa Valley Love this ...04's are so much better than 03's

2003 Chateau Angelus: Lovely. not fat at all, low in acidity sure but not fat, great nose but I'm sure that I would have preferred a less atypical year.

I wonder what he is planning for next year? Whatever it is...I'm going....

[This message has been edited by TheEngineer (edited 04-17-2007).]