To have it wine or no

By Sharen Kaur (Published in NST on January 30 2007)

IF you love premium Australian wines, do try the boutique wines from McLaren Vale, South Australia, produced by Ulithorne, an old, small family-owned vineyard situated in the premier wine region of McLaren Vale.

Its hilly, terraced and contoured vine rows overlook the sea and the custodians of this land are Sam Harrison and Rose Kentish, who aim to consistently produce exceptional quality wine from vines that are more than 30 years old.

Rose was in town recently to introduce five famous wines from the region. At the dinner held at Chynna @ Hilton Hotel KL, she proudly had the wines served and I felt they were better enjoyed before or after dinner, rather than during meals.

Recently, there have been a deluge of wine dinners, pairing vintages with just about anything you could cook. With some wines, however, I feel that a nice cheeseboard would have sufficed.

The wines that evening were paired with Chinese cuisine. For starters, we had a Cabernet Shiraz 2005 with smoked abalone and mushroom roll, wok seared chicken with champagne skewer, and crispy prawn tossed with iceland sauce, followed by Frux Frugis Shiraz 2004, with honey glazed grilled salmon fillet and shaves coconut jelly.

The Cabernet Shiraz is a very elegant drink, the punchy Cabernet fruit dominating and the palate showing great depth from the blend of varities.

The deep plum-purple Frux Frugis meanwhile explodes on your palate offering scents of vanilla, minty blackberries, figs and plums. It has sensational concentration and leaves a slightly vinegared after flavour.

The longer bottled, the more promise it has.

Pairing the salmon with the Frux Frugis just didn't do the trick as the slightly sweet flavours had overpowered the fine taste of the wine. The starter, however, passed the test.

Next we had Frux Frugis Shiraz 2003, a beautiful vintage, lovely deep red with preserved cherries on the nose and a long, silky palate with heaps of flavour, paired with stewed beef strip loin with rum and red
coarse rice.

The Frux Frugis 2003 unfurls in the glass beautifully; at first a liquoricey, dense spice slinks around dark plumy-prune characters, with hints of cedar, and then the plum becomes more plush and aromatic with
time.

The wine exhibits a complex nose of ripe berry, spice and fine oak notes. The palate has intensity and length with ripe fruit flavours giving the wine a slightly sweeter taste. Not a beef person, I had the wine on its own but was told that pairing with the stewed beef gave a strong vinegared aftertaste.

Moving on, we had the Frux Frugis Shiraz 2001, which had been paired with pan grilled lamb cutlet with crushed pistachio and assorted vegetables in black pepper; not too bad except for the sauce, which again
was sweet and had offsett the taste of the wine at the start.

The Frux Frugis 2001 is near perfect in balance and concentration. I was impressed with the wine as it had heaps of rich, black berry fruit, a touch of pepper and smoky oak. The palate has intensity and length with
ripe fruit flavours, balanced acidity and well integrated oak flavours.

For dessert, we had sweetened custard cream stuffed in rabbit-shaped dumpling and bird's nest tart and black sesame ice cream, served with Flamma Sparkling Shiraz 2005.

Mix and match is an acquired taste for sure. The Flamma is harmonious, its aroma vivid and uplifting with mulberry, dark plum, coffee bean and nutmeg. The palate offers lovely fruit flavours that have real length and
structure.

Kentish said this is a great celebration drink in Australia. "We deliberately produce the Flamma to be a drier style of Sparkling Shiraz, that lets the fruit shine through and offer powerful flavours for food matching without any overt sweetness."

The wines were presented by The Red and White Vintage Sdn Bhd, a fine wines specialist, together with Hilton Hotel KL, which is currently promoting the Ulithorne wines at its outlets.

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