G'day fellow wine-lovers,
We're getting off to a quick start this month in writing about the new month's "wine of the month". Mrs Ozzie and I enjoyed the most delicious Vietnamese meal at one of the better restaurants with friends today and for the occasion we selected a merlot. We found it more to our afternoon palate to complement the asian meal with its soft and subtle tannins. It's labelled as "Tempus Two 2001 Hunter Valley Merlot" This wine comes from the "Tempus Two" winery in the lower Hunter Vallet region of New South Wales. The winery has the distinction of bearing the well-known winemaking name of McGuigan, but it's the daughter of the family, Lisa McGuigan,who has established her own boutique winery.
She's received some very favorable media attention for her efforts.
Like the owner, the winemakers are all young women:
The personalities behind the brand make the brand. Veronica Lourey, graduate of wine marketing from Roseworthy College, joined Lisa in the early days, and the pair lead a formidable team producing quality wines, and hand selling them to increasingly receptive markets in Australia and overseas. Winemaker Sarah-Kate Dineen joined the team in 2003 with assistant Liz Jackson. Dineen, a Kiwi with local tenures at Brokenwood, McGuigans and Wandin Valley Estate to her name, has been earmarked by pundits as one of the most exciting new winemakers in NSW.
So, how did we find it? Well, the label claims that it has "ripe mulberry fruit characters" and it certainly has!
The winemaker's tasting notes are:
The fruit for this wine is from the Hunter Valley. A soft full bodied wine with fine grained tannins, fleshy fruit and good persistence. Showing perfumed cherry and tomato bush. Some toffee cinnamon charred oak give additional complexity.
Go get a bottle. It won't disappoint.
Cheers, Ozzie