Last month I dug out a couple of mature South Australian reds to try – a bottle of ‘94 Penfolds Bin 389 and a ’95 Petaluma Coonawarra. I’ve been struck again and again by the ability of Aussie wines to age wonderfully, not just at the top end but also at the affordable level too [Wynns Black Label Cab immediately springs to mind] though obviously Bin 389 and Petaluma Coonawarra are at the more elevated end of the price spectrum. Australian longevity will come as no surprise to those down under, but there’s little mature stuff knocking about here, despite the importance of Oz wine in the UK. We buy it and we drink it, which is fair enough.

Alfred Tesseron of Chateau Pontet-Canet in Pauillac

I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have had a different agenda. I fear that you might suggest I should rechristen the site ‘wine, hagiography and videotape’ – that’s before you berate me for not posting any videotape yet either – those vast millions of you quietly visiting this site each day! Would I be better writing about the most under-performing estates in Bordeaux rather than the other way round? Say – ‘Five ways to squander great terrior’? That way I could try and answer the question why Chateau Rauzan-Gassies is not a patch on Chateau Rauzan-Ségla, for example. How about a list of the most over-extracted wines in St Emilion – wait a minute I haven’t the space….  How about ‘Slave to labels’ – crus classé to avoid at all costs? This all sounds rather fun, but I’m not yet finished with the hagiographies, though the following property I’m about to describe would have certainly made it onto a list of disappointing estates prior to its purchase by a family of cognac merchants in the mid-seventies.