Wines from these estates have finally arrived. There is not a lot from these producers, but the wines are quite appealing and our selection, quite good.

Best's is from the very special area in Australia’s Western Victoria called “Great Western.” This is the area much like our Gold Country, since it was the location of Australia’s Gold Rush. Best's, owned by the Thomson family, is small production, finely made, historically famous, and much sought after in Australia. This is what Best's wines are. They are not: overblown, overly extracted, and overly priced as some notable Australia products have become. They are wines that are balanced, age well, and give great pleasure. I have selected what I think are the most representative and delicious wines from the Best cellar.

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 Tyrrell's Reserve HVD Semillon 1995--an Australian Rarity in the Making 

In Australian wine shows, it is the semillon class, especially the older vintages, which is the plum tasting. Semillons need time to develop and they develop very well (far better than chardonnay.) They are unique with fantastic bottle bouquet, color, and flavor. At 20 years of age, they are still young. Since I find them fascinating, I have bought them whenever possible. There are several vintages that we own from the two famous producers in the Hunter Valley, McWilliams and Tyrrell. These two producers usually vie for the trophy wine in the semillon class.

In our last newsletter I featured Tyrrell's Vat 1 Semillon, an established icon of a uniquely Australian white wine from the Hunter Valley. In my opinion, Semillon is the great Australian white wine. I am not alone in this thinking. Most of the world's renowned wine writers have voiced similar, if not identical, notions. Here is another Tyrrell's wine, a very limited production reserve wine, which has never before been bottled separately. It is Tyrell's Reserve HVD Semillon 1995.

Reserve HVD Semillon is a unique, limited release from a single vineyard, Hunter Valley Distillery vineyard, which was planted in 1908 for the production of distilling material for fortified wine production. Leased to Penfolds in 1932, purchased by them in 1949, and subsequently bought by Tyrrell's in 1982, this is an unirrigated, ungrafted, original vine Semillon vineyard on light sandy soil. The 1995, a cool, dry, light yielding vintage, with a 40% crop loss due to drought, was handpicked in February, cool fermented in stainless steel, racked off lees, and then bottled. Normally entering as part of the blend for Tyrrell's Vat 1 Semillon, only one other vintage, the 1999, has been bottled separately. The 1999 wine will not be released until at least 2006.

Rather than being entirely blended into the Vat 1, due to its very high quality it was almost secretively bottled, Reserve HVD, has now won 8 trophies and 15 gold medals in Australian tastings. Extraordinarily fresh with a green-gold color and lime marmalade and freshly baked croissant scents, the beginnings of complex bottle aged flavor, this is a fruit weighted wine with elegant, clean acidity on the finish. Tyrrell's Reserve HVD is not an inexpensive wine, but an exceptional one, with a long life ahead of it.

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