Craiglee Sunbury Chardonnay 1996

Stonkingly. Good. Stonkingly good. Stonkinglygood. Doesn't matter how you say it. The Craiglee Sunbury Chardonnay 1996 was today's knock off beer at Bindi. But no, beer is really good after a hot day in the vineyard. But anyway.

Who would have thunk it that in 2012 a 16 year old Australian chardonnay would be this good. And youthful. And awesome. In the glass the wine still has a youthful white wine look about it, with just a touch of colour age about it. The nose smells very 1996 with crème caramel with some orange and grapefruit pith. The palate however? 1996 no way! A massive mix of soft butterscotch, creaminess, citrus in the way of pithy and taste, and above all fine and persistent acid. With a wine, and espicially chardonnay, at this age the acid would have pretty much been swallowed up by time. Not here. Acid is all preset here.

One of the best knock off beers I've ever had.

Drink with grilled marron
Drink till 2018
97
Quality cork 13%v/v http://www.craiglee.com.au/

Bindi bottling 2010 - Composition 2009 and Pyrette 2009

Last Saturday I was once again up in Gisborne for a bottling of Bindi; the Composition 2009 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and the Pyrette Heathcote Shiraz 2009.

Once again it was a great day, this time thought there was pretty much a cast of thousands. Once again Gary and Jules were there; neighbours of Michael's. There was Cameron from Randalls of Albert Park, who is a regular up there and also Jason, a Mercedes car salesman who has been stung by the wine bug, and his wife Christina. But it was the the other entourage that made it pretty cool.

Yes Stuart Anderson was there again as he always is, but also up at bottling was Alec Epis of Epis Wines, who was extolling his grand advice on relationships and marriage (never married mind you) to us young folk, and the quiet spoken Pat Carmody from Craiglee of Sunbury.

All in all, about 20,000 bottles were put away; a pretty good day I would suggest. Now I could give the wines a critique here, but that would be wasteful seeing that they just went in to bottle. That and we did not actually taste the wines. This time we settles down to some back vintages of Bindi, with wines like Original Vineyard 2004, 2005 and 2007, and Compostion chardonnay 2006 and 2007. Yet for me the stand out for the wines was the Craiglee 2008 chardonnay - lean, mealy and just super sexxy!

And those who want to know, the lunch put on by Wendy was again too much yum!