Another one bites the dust...Noon Eclipse 2001

I have been trying sort out the wheat from the chaff in my cellar this year. Down to just a few of the old style Aussie ooze monsters left. Had lamb chops on deck last night and paired them with this wine.

Color is STILL midnight black. Don’t stand too close to the glass as I don’t think light can escape the gravitational pull. Listed as something like 15+% alcohol. In short, just a hot mess. Lots of alcohol and fruit that is way over the top into prunes and boiled down raspberries. Like a bad vintage port. Fortunately almost the last of this type of wine I have left. I have had some luck with older Aussies that have managed to age more gracefully but really found they do not improve much. Have yet to see an ooze monster really develop positively, best is to hope they don’t turn into something hideous.

Contrasted this with a 10 year old Mas De La Dame- Provencal wine from the Les Beaux region. this was 14% and is made from mostly syrah I believe. By contrast this was aging gracefully and had a nice thyme/lavender structure with a hint of blackberry coulis in the finish. well integrated alcohol and decent finish. Superior wine at 1/3 the price I paid for the noon.

Bottom line, down the drain with the Noon. Warning label should read- “Drink this on the way home from the liquor store” cause it won’t get any better.

Maybe that’s how the wine got its name!

I had a similar experience not too long ago with this wine. Fortunately, my wife is immune to its gravitational pull

Totally agree…Found most of the older Australian Shiraz is port like and mostly undrinkable.Just had a similar experience with Greenock Creek,Willows,Draycott and Shirvington.I guess we all bought into this Because it was new and exciting at the time not to mention the thrill of the chase in acquiring these new gems.Also Parker’s influence as well.

I don’t get it. Why buy these or any wines if you didn’t like them? There’s no particular thrill in buying things. I don’t know that they were all that new - Burge, which makes Draycott, has been around since the 1800s, while Greenock has been around since the 1970s.

Plot twist: crappy wine ages crappily

I don’t think anyone said they disliked them at the time but bought them anyway.

I was hypnotized by the Svengali of Parker. he would throw around terms like “The new Marcel Guigal” and other superlatives. In the early 2000’s the hype was irresistible. I also think that this was the era of emerging from the marginal Bordeaux years where in a colder harvest there would be may weedy, underripe, cabernet blends that were touted as great wines (remember Bordeaux 1997?) The Aussies at that point were like new california wines, bursting with sex appeal and energy, real in-your-face-fruit that had not been experienced before. They were promoted, scored high, and “we” (Americans) lapped it up like cats with a saucer of cold milk in front of us. I had not tasted Greenock wines in the early '70s and I think Burge maintained a much more reserved style. (I still have a few of their wines and they are much more balanced).

There is a parable here with Napa and some of the riper fruit Pinot products in California right now. I DO think there is a point where if you push the ripeness too far, there is no coming back to a point where these wines will ever age well. I suppose the wines like the Aussie oozers would be better understood if they came with a warning label “Drink this concoction quickly, it will never age well”. Maybe an expiration date “Best by…” At least there would be honesty in the process.

Posted in the interest of education for others. I have learned. Cannot imagine anyone but a person with a strong masochistic streak could love these concoctions with any age.

+1 re what Jay said…I too went through the Parker influenced throes of Oz red wine buying…to be honest, a few were indeed thrilling but most were overdone, over the top, heavy and cloying

Try a St Henri, or a Kilikanoon Oracle or a Rockfords Basket press.
There’s plenty of Australian Shiraz which ages gracefully. Parkerized over the top rubbish much less so.

Thanks - this struck a chord with me because I was thinking along the same lines for different reasons last night. I’m not American but I too very briefly got tempted by Aussie wines at the time. I didn’t buy the expensive ones, just a few of the cheaper Cabernet-based wines like Lindemann, I think, which I quickly realised were not for me. I also remember all too well the rubbish written about Bordeaux EP 97 - re-reading his barrel scores and notes today is priceless! As for the ripeness question, hindsight is wonderful, etc, but it’s incredible today that all the Bordeaux chateaux I visited in 2001 were frantically planting Merlot, following the gurus’ advice about green harvesting, etc etc to “achieve” “natural alcohol” of 14° and more…

Last year I sat at the bar at Revolution in New Orleans 2 nights in a row just to pop in and eat the Death by Gumbo. I ended up sitting next to the same couple who on the first night ordered a Noon Eclipse bottle from this era. After they offered a sip, I chatted with them about my love for that era of Aussie wines in the early 2000’s making no mention of course of my current thoughts. It did surprise me on the second night though when they were browsing the phone book wine list and finally just exclaimed, Let’s just go for the Noon again! I had thought maybe the first night we were all just being kind about the pleasure of the wine but apparently they really did love it. It certainly Wasn’t cheap either as I think it was $300+, so there is still a market out there.

My last Aussie from this era is 2001 Integrity that I’m scared to death of opening. I’m pretty sure it was the 1st wine I paid $100 for. I really wish I had enjoyed it back then though instead of listening to Parker who probably wrote that it would last to 2050 or something.

Parker did a huge disservice to all of us who were just seriously getting into wine in the early to mid-90s and came across his Aussie reviews. So many people bought these wines only to find out, sooner, or in this case later, that they were horrid. At best, unpleasant; at worst, undrinkable.

Ah, the good 'ol days…so much for that “tremendous upside potential”

94 points Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

The 2001 Eclipse (65% Grenache and 35% Shiraz from 56-65 year old vines) is still closed aromatically, but with coaxing reveals potentially fabulous quality. An opaque purple color is followed by aromas of charcoal, smoke, blackberries, and sweet cherries. This full-bodied, rich, beautifully delineated effort is extraordinarily pure as well as incredibly persistent on the palate (close to one minute). Aged in a combination of new and old large American oak hogsheads for 18 months and bottled unfiltered, it appears to have tremendous up-side potential … (RP) (8/2003)

He gave the Eclipse a 94. He also gave a drinking window of 2003-2013, so we are well past the expiration date.

As for the 2001 Integrity, he gave a drinking window from 2004-2020. Drink up.

I had the 2002 Integrity last year or maybe two years ago, and it tasted like it hadn’t budged since bottling. I suppose that can be a positive or a negative, depending on what you want. No development, but still fresh.

Yeah but he didn’t specify if you drink this in 2020 it will be a horrid, alcoholic mess. Like going to bed with a buxom dynamite 21 year old and waking up 19 years later with an 40 year old pasty makeup hooker who has been smoking 3 packs a day and drinking a fifth of gin daily over the past decade. I’ve had bad dreams like this…usually after drinking too much shiraz. deadhorse

timely post. last sunday i offered one of my last noon reserves to someone who expressed love for those wines.
i’m supposed to share it with her soon and have no real hope for anything but cough syrup. my fingers are still crossed.

I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about those Integrities.

There was some seriously nice fruit in those wines.

And they would not oxidize - you could keep them open for a week or two, and they wouldn’t budge.

I bought 2 2002 Branson Coach House drink window 2005 - 2017 from winebid and drank one in 2011 hoping for a big juicy fruit bomb and was disappointed that is it was fine and restrained. I opened the final bottle 8/2019 and was blown away how well it held up and how approachable it still was. I had half the bottle left over the next day is it was still drinking really well. Still sitting on a 2002 Shirvington that was excellent a year ago, maybe its time to enjoy the final bottle. [cheers.gif]

BTW, serving an aged Integrity as an after-dinner port, with chocolate desserts, is a perfectly legitimate & authentic & prudent use of the wine.