Vintage 2011 was cool and punctuated by regular rainfall.
The long, cool ripening period has given us intense flavours at lower sugar levels.
The Sauvignon Blanc Semillon carries a zesty aroma of citrus fruits, honeydew melon and a whisper of white peach. A bright, light, refreshing palate with a crisp finish.
Perfect with seafood in the warmer months.
2011 Sauvignon Blanc Semillon
Price: $20
Sauvignon Blanc Semillon
Murrumbateman’s cool, continental climate and decomposed granite soils are perfect for Riesling. We have been growing and making Riesling for forty years and we have no doubt the variety is Canberra’s great white grape.
2011 was cool and punctuated by regular rainfall.
This Riesling shows fine, floral perfume with ripe apple notes and a hint of aniseed. A crisp, zesty palate with plenty of mineral acids. Really fresh.
Drink now for its freshness and perfume or cellar for 6-12 years and watch it develop honey and toast characters with age.
Pale straw-green; a floral bouquet of apple blosom and spice
"right up there with the best of them"
yields to a palate with great drive to its lime juice flavours that last long after the wine is swallowed. Right up there with the best of them. 96
James Halliday's Top 100 NSW Wines 2011
Clonakilla riesling does not get a lot of attention but it is one of the estate’s best wines.
This release has a lovely lilt to it – especially once it’s had some air. It tastes of pulpy, sweet, red and green apples with drives of lime running through the finish.
"exquisite purity and elegance"
Tart acidity but sweet fruit, and married nicely together. Exquisite purity and elegance. Riesling to its back teeth. It needs to settle down a little but I’d still think that it will be at its best as a young wine. You could win people over to riesling with this wine. 92
Campbell Mattinson, Winefront, August 16, 2011
The cool 2011 vintage has blessed the Kirks with some of their finest riesling fruit yet.
"pink lady apple, lemon blossom, fresh lime air"
Precise, pretty, and long-lived, with a pink lady apple, lemon blossom, fresh lime air and a fine-boned, structured, taut palate of soft, graphite-like minerality. 94
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 11, 2011
2011 Riesling
Price: $25
Riesling
Viognier Nouveau brings you Viognier at its freshest.
Fermented in stainless steel and bottled early, this wine captures the vibrancy of the Viognier fruit in all its youthful glory.
Heaps of flavour without heaviness. Dangerously drinkable.
Drink it now.
2011 Viognier Nouveau
Price: $22
Viognier Nouveau
2010 was a little cooler than the previous few vintages and punctuated by regular rainfall. The conditions have enabled us to craft a Viognier with pristine, clear fruit and more than a whisper of elegance and sophistication. Not as rambunctious as recent wines under this label: slightly less power and a touch more finesse. Pear, apricot and ginger characters with an authoritative freshness and clarity of purpose across the palate.
Drink 2011 – 2017.
Pale straw-green; the cooler, wetter vintage may have posed challenges for the red wines, but not this viognier; it is tightly folded and structured,
"offering citrus, fresh ginger and apricot nuances"
the flavours achieved without phenolics, and offering citrus, fresh ginger and apricot nuances. 94
James Halliday's Wine Companion, 2012
The cool 2010 season places this among Clonakilla’s most sophisticated viogniers. It’s exactingly put together, contrasting moods of textural and silky, creamy and taut, linear and mouth-filling.
"contrasting moods of textural and silky, creamy and taut"
Apricot kernel, brioche, pear, vanilla bean and custard apple unite in seamless harmony. 95
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 11, 2011
There can be no doubting Canberra's potential to make sublime viognier. And what an elegant, classy viognier it is.
"an elegant, classy viognier"
It has the classic apricot and ginger flavours of the variety, but the silky, fine, rich texture stops short of oiliness.
Chris Shanahan
2010 Viognier
Price: $45
Viognier
Finally in 2010 the drought broke.
The rain started on Christmas day 2009 and fell on a number of occasions through summer and early autumn. The water was a blessing for thirsty vines, but choosing picking dates became a race against the weather. As it turned out, the last of the Hilltops fruit came in just before the heavens opened. The grapes were in excellent condition.
True to form the 2010 Hilltops shows deep colour and a vibrant aroma of dark cherries, blackcurrants, summer herbs and spice. The palate is warm and inviting with plenty of crunchy tannin.
Drink over five to ten years.
By daylight the finest wine to appear under this label, this very harmonious and unusually fragrant shiraz has a heady, floral bouquet of sweet small berries, cherries and restrained, fine-grained oak lifted by alluring hints of spice and black tea leaves.
"the finest wine to appear under this label"
It's not hard to imagine a splash of viognier in there somewhere. Long and supple, it's smooth, gentle and very fine-grained, delivering a charmingly willowy presence of vibrant black, blue and red fruits supported by bony tannins, finishing savoury and slightly meaty, with exemplary freshness and persistence. Rating: 95
Jeremy Oliver - The Australian Wine Annual 2012
Full red-purple, not star-bright; the bouquet is complex, with warm spices threaded through dark cherry and blackberry fruit, the medium- to full-bodied palate with ripe fruit complemented by firm tannins and quality oak. Rating: 94 Drink By: 2024
James Halliday’s Wine Companion 2012
Tim Kirk’s new Hilltops shiraz shows the comparative elegance of a cool, post-drought vintage – following the plumper juicier wines of the warm 2007, 2008 and 2009 seasons.
"the flavour resembles fresh, ripe cherries – with a noted buoyancy and liveliness"
Appropriately for a wine from Young, the flavour resembles fresh, ripe cherries – with a noted buoyancy and liveliness. Kirk says he picked a little earlier than usual, just beating the rain. This, along with a portion of whole bunch fermentation (where the fermentation occurs inside the berries), and a touch of viognier, added to the bright, berry-like flavours. Four stars.
Chris Shanahan, The Canberra Times, August 3, 2011
2010 Hilltops Shiraz
Price: $25
Hilltops Shiraz
Sean O’Riada is one of the heroes of modern Ireland. A talented musician and composer, he is credited with taking traditional Irish music out of the kitchens and pubs of Ireland and putting it on the concert stages of the world. He died, prematurely, in 1971, the year Clonakilla was established by John Kirk.
He was John’s cousin.
The 2010 O’Riada is made from fruit selected from four vineyards around Murrumbateman. 5% Viognier was co-fermented with the Shiraz.
2010 was the year the drought broke.
The rain started on Christmas day 2009 and fell on a number of occasions through summer and early autumn. It was cooler too, producing fruit with classic cool-climate Shiraz notes. The aroma is a festival of spice: pepper, clove, nutmeg and fresh garden herbs flowing on to a medium bodied palate with supple, fine tannins.
Drink over five to ten years.
Strong, bright red-purple; an altogether elegant wine, elegance due in part to the 5% co-fermented viognier, and partly to the balance between juicy fruit on the one hand, savoury tannins and oak on the other.
"an altogether elegant wine"
The skilled hand of Tim Kirk at work. Drink to 2025. 95
James Halliday’s Wine Companion 2012
It was a cooler, wetter year in Canberra – as it was in many areas. The start of the drought breaking. A dicey year, in many respects. And yet this O’Riada Shiraz has marched on regardless.
A fantastic cool climate shiraz. I suspect that I like it more than the releases from the warmer/drier/easier years. It’s gorgeously perfumed, all sweet boysenberry and violet. Though of course spice abounds – peppery, clovey, an assortment of spice boxes delights. Dark, foresty cherries flesh it out.
"gorgeously perfumed, all sweet boysenberry and violet"
And twiggy, tannic notes provide the bones. Highly defined and detailed. Some meatiness too. Balanced and tight. Oh, I could go on. It’s a wine for cool climate enthusiasts – but if you’re one, you’ll love it. Drink 2015-2021. 93+
Campbell Mattinson, Winefront, July 29, 2011
Clonakilla genius for the masses, this year cooler and more pepper-edged than ever.
"generous layers of edgy pepper and crunchy blackberries"
It’s chiselled, angular and honed, with mineral granite nuances, generous layers of edgy pepper and crunchy blackberries. Given time, it will unravel into something profound. Drink 2016-2020. 94
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 19, 2011
2010 O’Riada Shiraz
Price: $35
O'Riada Shiraz
Ballinderry is Irish for ‘place of the oak’ and is named for the great oak tree planted in the top corner of the property when Clonakilla was established by John Kirk in 1971.
The 2009 Ballinderry is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (25%), Cabernet Franc (30%) and Merlot (45%).
2009 was a great vintage in the Canberra District. A warm late summer made for early ripening giving us fruit with great colour and intense flavours.
The Ballinderry has vibrant ripe fruit characters: blackcurrants, dark berry fruit, even a suggestion of aniseed, well framed by cedary French oak.
A product of old vines, low yields, and careful winemaking in a warm year, it has plenty of aging potential if you like to put your reds down for a while.
Best drinking: 2014 – 2028.
2009 Ballinderry
Price: $45
Ballinderry
Finally in 2010 the drought broke.
The rain started on Christmas day 2009 and fell on a number of occasions through summer and early autumn. The water was a blessing for thirsty vines, but did present some challenges as vintage approached. Careful viticulture and good timing enabled us to pick ripe fruit in fine condition from our Murrumbateman vineyard.
Following three warm vintages, the cooler conditions in 2010 produced a more elegant wine. Aromas of violets, rose petals, raspberries and cracked pepper. Classically cool-climate in style, it has a gentle, spice-laden, medium-bodied palate with feather-fine tannin.
5% Viognier.
Drink over five to ten years.
Put this in a blind tasting with top–end Cote-Rotie wines of the Rhone Valley and it would be a bargain, easily outpointing wines costing far more. It is due for release in September, and will sell out immediately.
"put this in a blind tasting with top–end Cote-Rotie wines of the Rhone Valley and it would be a bargain, easily outpointing wines costing far more"
Light, bright crimson-purple; a highly fragrant bouquet of red fruits and subtle spices leads into a medium-bodied palate; here more savoury characters join the fruit, lengthening the finish. Drink to 2025. 95
James Halliday, The Weekend Australian Magazine, August 6-7, 2011
"If you're going to follow up a Wine of the Year, you may as well do it with another classic. Beautifully measured, balanced, perfumed and textured,
"another classic"
this remarkable wine truly underscores the international quality of this label... 97 points."
Jeremy Oliver, Australian Wine Annual 2012
An elegant, cool, spice-laden Clonakilla that I adore! Beautifully floral, swimming in violets, exotic spice sarsaparilla, tiny dark berries and white and green pepper.
"beautifully floral, swimming in violets, exotic spice sarsaparilla"
Taut and edgy with beautifully honed, fineground, granitic tannins. Sensational reflection of a cooler season. Drink 2015-2020. 96
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 11, 2011
2010 Shiraz Viognier
Price: $85
Shiraz Viognier
Every year at Clonakilla we fill a single fermenter with pure Shiraz from our T and L vineyard. In the past we blended it into the Shiraz Viognier just prior to bottling. Now we bottle it separately.
The winemaking as kept as simple as possible. Whole berries were fermented warm by their own native yeasts. A month macerating on skins and fifteen months in French oak, a third new.
A cascade of wild Syrah aromas: red and black berries, summer herbs, grilled meats and rose petals. Riotously floral and not a grape of Viognier in sight. Black cherry, spice rack palate, intensely savoury with tannins aplenty. A stunning vintage, 2009.
I’m not sure quite how this will age, but I suspect, brilliantly.
Bright crimson; wild yeast fermentation of whole berries, one month maturation on skins and 15 months maturation in French oak, one-third new;
"a gloriously fragrant and pure bouquet"
a gloriously fragrant and pure bouquet, then a silky smooth palate with spiced blackberry and black cherry fruit supported by fine, persistent tannins. A very great wine. Drink to 2040. 97
James Halliday’s Wine Companion 2012
A striking, pure and very compelling wine that has more detail and light/shade than any of Clonakilla’s other 2009s. There’s fine red fruits, plums, blue fruits, pepper and citrus peel here, plenty of savoury black minerals and some graphite – all class.
"A striking, pure and very compelling wine"
The palate has detail and definition – really layered and savoury lacy tannins. Liquorice and black-fruit flavours, and an elegant build through the finish. Bright, juicy resolve – a real star of these Canberra ‘09s. 97
Nick Stock, The Age/Sydney Morning Herald Good Wine Guide 2011
Tasted this from barrel just over a year ago and was stunned. Sensational quality. Clonakilla has long since made this wine – a straight shiraz, sans viognier, from the estate – but until last year it was blended into the famous Shiraz Viognier that is the estate’s star. The review below is not from the barrel tasting; it’s of a bottle of the wine opened earlier today.
"simply a classic wine from a classic estate"
It’s just starting to shy off but the quality is exceptional. It’s effusively aromatic but it’s clearly a different wine to the shiraz viognier release. This has notes of coffee grounds and roasted meats – there’s a touch of the famed ‘pan juices’ to this wine. It’s darkly and weightily cherried and plum-shot. Volleys of spice ricochet confidently about. Terrifically fine tannin – it feels hand woven. Simply a classic wine from a classic estate.
Campbell Mattinson, Winefront, July 29, 2011
2009 Syrah
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Syrah
