He's not a man I will ever turn down an invitation from, he's been responsible for some of the best wine moments of my life.
Slatty has a cellar that would be the envy of many a seasoned collector, wines that will never see old age because, for Slatty wine is for drinking. Slatty knows how to live.
I try to always bring something a bit special for Slatty and on this occasion I had dug up a bottle of Coppin Grove Sparkling. Talk about wines with a sense of 'Place', this wine is grown not 1km from my house, in Hawthorn! I had seen a little vineyard next to a pedestrian bridge over the Yarra and sought out the wine. Comprising the traditional blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and made at the Cope-Williams winery in Macedon. The wine has been aged for two years on yeast in the bottle and this lends a lovely complexity to the elegant, dry palate.
Now, this particular bottle of Coppin Grove Sparkling was completely flat and maybe a little oxidised. We TOTES still drank it and it was still pretty tasty, dry, full, minerally with some cool kero flavours, almost like an aged Chablis. I have had it before, with full fizz and it has a lovely creamy mousse and a buttery, cheesy quality that I love in good Champagnes but I must admit, I kinda liked this little rebel. Lots of attitude and a quirky little surprise.We hung out beside the bbq, watching the locally produced eye fillets cook, talking about 'The Big Butcher' they were bought from and my friend in turn produced his first wine of the night, a 2001 Tyrrell's Futures Selection Shiraz. This wine was a mastery of age and harmony. It showed all the earthy, leathery notes you might expect from the Hunter region, with a lovely incorporation of fine-grain tannins which lend a body full and soft and replete with dark fruit flavours and reminiscent of old world wines of very high quality (and price).
With entree we drank 2007 Hanging Rock Members' Reserve JSE Shiraz, this wine was obviously full fruit and alcohol but maybe a little big for me, I wonder if a lack of finesse and complexity could be due to a bad vintage or perhaps this wine is a bit young. It was certainly no slouch as far as great flavour, length and body and certainly a good match for red meat.
When the steaks were plated up our friend presented a bottle of 2006 Chateau Duhart Milon from the Pauillac appellation of Bordeaux and, I believe classified as 4th growth. I think that the varieties involved are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.These wines always amaze me with their ability to balance intense power with pure elegance and this wine was no exception. Far from the overly tannic, disjointed Bordeaux at the cheaper end, this wine has it all, plush, ripe fruit, beautiful structure and an incredible cured meat aroma which is endlessly compelling. Having said that the Hanging Rock might have been too young, I do think a good wine is always a good wine, and I sure am glad I got to see this young beauty.
All this time, there's a decanter sitting on the table, quietly doing it's thing and subtly daring us to guess its identity. It doesn't look weird in any way, not bricky or tawny so I guess that it's not old. But knowing my friend like I do and seeing the way he's been handling that decanter I am trying not to hope that it's in the very highest echelons of wine. I never put it past him to provide Grange, Chateau Margaux or, as on one occasion, a bottle of 1999 Dom Perignon which was consumed in my van in transit from one house to the next.When we're ready to move on to this wine my friend's house mate says that he'll "clean up a little", and moves the decanter a few inches to wipe the table, the decanter taps a neighbouring bottle and, sickeningly, breaks open on one side, its contents glugging hopelessly onto the bench.
Now, my friend Slatty D is a man of great stoicism, a man of pride and integrity and I must say, I was most of the way to guessing the identity of this particular secret wine purely from his reaction. It was a sort of heartbreaking combination of unbridled shock, pure grief and a petite waif on the verge of taking a turn.
So I am trying to assess the gravity of the situation, the housemate KNOWS what he's done, Slatty D is imploring housemate#2 to "please remove the kitchen sponge from that puddle of wine". I figure if he's THAT keen not to taint the wine, even though it's all of a millilitre high and has a circumference of a broadsheet newspaper, perhaps we should save it.
And so the directive begin to fly - fetch the squeegee (they had a squeegee (and they knew where it was)) - Look, here's some muslin (yup, that too) - and before the elixir spread its garnet to the very edge of the bench we were squeegeeing it into a plastic bowl, eversa carefully.
Before you could say "I hope that muslin wasn't used to make some sort of consommé or sumthin" we had approximately 650ml of seriously aromatic red wine in a perfectly respectable decanter in the middle of the table and the heady satisfaction of rescue in our hearts.
So Slatty D pours the wine, we swirl, smell, drink, repeat...
Slatty says, "whaddya think?" and I think it's sublime. The tannins are fiiiine and so well integrate to the braod, long, silken palate of dark cherries, violets and chocolate. It's long, we drink, talk to eachother, eat some steak and the taste of the wine is still there when the next sip arrives. It manages to sit flawlessly almost on the outside of my lip without breaking all the way to the back of my throat, I can almost taste it in my larynx. It's last year's Chateau Margaux all over again. (that story to come soon) But it's not Bordeaux. It's a wine which seems to transcend my ability to recognise variety. It has definite personality and uniqueness. I'm into it.
"I'll give you a hint" says Slatty D. "It's single Vineyard"
"Hill Of Grace" I say.
"Yup".
