Byrne Chardonnay 2013
Alex Byrne is the assistant winemaker at Lethbridge and also has his own label out of Ballarat. From what I've seen, he has some very interesting wines at a great price. I had a chance to re-try his 2013 Chardonnay...
A bit of oak on the nose, a tad bit of salinity seems like..peach..a bit of lemon....Palate has nice fruit, but the oak is quite obvious....I believe these go through malo as well but the acidity is really quite nice and it keeps this nice line within the wine and balances out the oak and malo quite nice....I will say, this is very Burg like in structure and mouthfeel. I think the only thing I wish was the oak was a little less up front although it looks like this only uses 15% new oak and the rest 1-3 years old...Still very enjoyable and great value...I'd like to see this with a bit more time to integrate the oak better but the wine is still very enjoyable, very well made and utterly fantastic value. 92 points.
Ruggabellus Archaeus 2012
Sort of the new wave of Barossa wine...there is a significant movement to change how people think of Barossa wine and Ruggabellus is one of those making that charge.
The Archaeus is their Shiraz dominated Southern Rhone blend...Mostly Shiraz with some Mataro and Grenache as well...
The first thing I notice is, the wine has very good acidity for a Barossa....I am really liking the earlier picking and I think what was considered underripe in the past is looking like the right time to pick. You still have the beautiful clean fruit but you're retaining better acidity and any slightly green notes are coming across as savory rather than fruit that wasn't suitable. The weight of the wine is relatively full bodied but definitely lighter than what you would have seen out of the Barossa 10 years ago..and for a blend with some Grenache, I think that is a real accomplishment. Texture on the wine is very nice..tannins are quite soft for such a young wine...brighter red fruits, great acid....Something is not quite blowing my hair back and I'm not sure what it is but it is still a very good wine and was even better after some time in the glass. 90 points
