Can’t remember. 
Couldn’t have been more recent than 2007 though as I’m sure not one bottle was after that vintage that night.
In New Year’s Eve, a 1997 Greenock Creek CS reeked of dill and was hot and unpleasant. By comparison, a 1997 Fox Creek Shiraz was pruny but drinkable.
My tasting group did an Antipodes tasting two weeks ago with mixed results. I was sure that the 2001 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier, tasted blind, was an excellent mid to late 90s Côte-Rotie from a fairly traditional producer. Just gorgeous.
A 2003 Elderton Command Shiraz was very ripe but had a bit of meatiness that helped balance the ripeness. Of a trio of 2005s, the Eldertom Ashmead CS had a crushed evergreen bough aroma and flavor that wasn’t pleasant, the Elderton Shiraz wasn’t bad but was fairly dull, and the Glaetzer Amon Ra was vile, and could be replicated by dissolving cough drops in moonshine and filtering it through a compost heap.
A 2002 Leuwin Art Series CS was the pure essence of raw bell pepper. Nothing but pyrazines. The 2001 Noon Eclipse wasn’t bad. The 2004 D’Arenberg Dead Arm was fine if you like coconut and ripe fruit. A 2003 Penfold’s Bin 389 from magnum wasn’t unpleasant, but was heavy on the eucalyptus. My 1998 Fox Creek JSM was corked.
All told, not a particularly inspiring tasting, and few off any of the bigger wines gained much from aging.
We’ve been surprised and pleased with a number of them. 2000 Wild Duck Creek could have been picked as an aged Rhone wine in a blind tasting. 2002 Trevor Jones, which we weren’t excited about because it wasn’t big and viscous, turns out as a slightly fruit forward syrah that obviously needs more time as it got better and better with time in the glass.
We are going to revisit the 2003 Rusden Black Guts Shiraz. Loved it when we got it even though it was expensive and it was a WA stand out. Four years ago we opened a bottle and it was prune juice with high alcohol, pruno if you will. The drinking window described by WA is still years away. A friend from Australia told us some of those wines will do that and come back. I have my doubts though.
I dabbled/cellared some of the d’Arenbergs, Clarendon Hills, Fox Creek bottlings when I was younger. In general either I got away from that style, or they didn’t age the way I expected them to. Perhaps now I’d impose less dogma on them, and just enjoy them for what they are. I actually thought the Fox Creeks developed ok, shedding their tannin eventually.
One aspect of their relative loss of market share has to be the Oz dollar. 20 years ago it was quite weak, and over time, during the commodity boom, it rallied up and made their exporters much less competitive.
Good topic, thanks for bringing it up. It’s nice to see this being discussed without the rage of an earlier era.
Time-enabled subsidence of heavy oak and high octane, in more ways than one. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Parker gave high ratings to them but it was the other Jay Miller who generally went +5 on all Parker ratings.
STFU, although it has been six days since my last wine purchase.
Great to read this. I got a 2000 Wild Duck Creek Shiraz Springflat Pressings as a throw in on an auction lot and could find out very little about it. I would have paid the entire bid for the two Wendouree bottles in the lot, so I consider my purchase price of the wine to be zero. I wrote to the winery for information and got this response in November:
"Hi Jay
Thanks for your enquirer. The 2000 Shiraz Pressings was never rated by Parker as we only made 60 cases (dozen). The 2005 rated 95, and 2000 was a similar vintage.
It is made by using the last 10L out of our small basket presses. The fruit comes from ultra low yielding vines (2t / ha) and hence has great concentration, and when using the last fraction of wine from the presses, the concentration of tannin and extract is increased again giving a wine meant to be drunk many years from its production date.
I hope this bottle has survived, you have a very rare wine that should be fabulous if the cork has held out.
Regards
Liam Anderson
Winemaker
Wild Duck Creek Estate"
Are the Two Hands single vineyards considered ooze monsters? Do they have to be prior to 2004 for some reason? This is the first i have heard about this and i own and like the shiraz i have. All are two hands but younger than 2004. Including a few Ares
Nothing wrong with the new stuff. I think this discussion is just coming from a revisiting of the very controversial Aussie style of the late 1990s and early 2000s. 10 years ago, Parker went nuts over them and others said he was full of it and they would all fall apart, which resulted in a lot of acerbic back and forth.The question today is whether the predictions of their demise were grossly exaggerated.
Like many here I bought some of these wines and still have a few bottles remaining. It was not my preferred style of wine but I participated in several tastings and enjoyed some of them. I had a partner who was enamored of the wines and had quite a few of them. I need to check in on how they are doing.
Oh. Ok. I wasnt into wine back then so i didnt realize i wasnt supposed to like these.
Yuk. Pitewie. 
Just want to say I loved reading this. That sort of discovery is one of the reason I try buy a lot of weird stuff at auction. I hope you’ll post a TN when you eventually open it.
I’ll help. Do I need to bring my own stemware? ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
This is the kind of thread that makes this board so dangerous to casually browse…please, keep me away from Winesearcher!
Well Parker did his ratings without beeing forced to participate in an Aussie payed river boat cruise. Lucky man.
For the sake of science I enjoyed a small vertical of Kalleske Greenock Shiraz 2003 to 2005 and they were all splendid
(Though … Syrah outside Northern Rhone…is not worth s##t. But theese were delicios anyways. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I had a 2001 Clarendon Hills Old Vines Grenache Blewitt Springs Vineyard in mid-January this year and it was spectacular. I scored it 93-94 points. It was silky, very aromatic, non-boozy, fresh, and a joy to drink. It was served alongside a 2004 Ben Glaetzer Godolphin Barossa Shiraz-Cab, 2009 No Girls Grenache, 2004 Ojai Vineyards Syrah Stolpman Vineyard, and a 2010 Rasa Vineyards QED. The consensus among the table was that it was consensus top 2 or top WOTN.
Conversely, I then popped a 2001 Clarendon Hills Old Vines Grenache Kangrilla this past weekend. I was hoping for the same, but it was undrinkable and went down the drain. I’m not positive it was cooked, but it was all stewed, pruny/raisiny garbage.
I suppose “it depends”. Some of those big boys have held up well and developed nicely. Example being Greenock Creek Shiraz Alice’s. The 04 more so than the 05, in our opinion. And if properly vacuumed pumped and stored theyre pleasurable the next day.
On the other hand, just had 05 Hobbs, good enough, night one, though moving towards one dimensional raison juice. Regressed, not progressed. Night 2, bitter, angry spoiled raison juice.
Over the next few months we’re going to dive in to Astralis, RunRig and a few others. Report to follow, need to get rid of that rancid raison taste for now.
I have both of those Clarendons in cellar and looking back on my tasting notes of previous bottles over the years I have had the same impression. Last few CT tasting notes on the Blewitt sound amazing - can’t wait to dive in! Thanks for the reminder!
Here is one unfavorable perspective.