It’s a wine tasting format that I wish more Australian winemakers would embrace.
Winemaker A, usually from the New World (or a less fancied producer/appellation), puts their wines up against global icons in a taste-off. Usually, it is a tasting done blind, so you have no idea what the challenger wine is vs the icon. But other times it’s an exercise done with icon bottles on the table, loud and proud.
This sort of ‘challenger tasting’ isn’t new – back in 1976 at the Judgement of Paris, it was wine world-changing (and a great yarn too), and now it’s just good business for provocative new fancy wines. Yet, curiously, it’s a format that we don’t get to see anywhere near enough here in Australia. (except for someone like Voyager). That’s a huge miss, especially with grapes like Chardonnay, Shiraz/Syrah, Grenache, or Cabernet Sauvignon, where the best local wines are just as good as the icons (and cheaper).
More to the point, challenger tastings often remind us of three things:
a) Lots of iconic wineries trade on legacy and hype/scarcity rather than raw quality.
b) The Old World doesn’t have a monopoly on greatness.
c) The most grand wines are often on another level altogether.
That also brings us neatly to a lineup of wines from Xavier Bizot & Lucy Croser’s Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard.
Brian Croser, Xavier’s father-in-law, absolutely loves putting a few global wine benchmarks in his tastings (even if it’s just an excuse to drink something delicious), so it’s entirely unsurprising that Xavier threw a pair of curveball wines in this tasting of current and mature releases from the Crayères Vineyard.
The Crayères Vineyard deserves some spotlighting, too. A close-planted (1.5m row spacing) block situated directly across the road from Brian’s Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard in Wrattonbully, this is every bit a challenger block, too. First established in 2004, Crayères is devoted to Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Shiraz with a very un-Australian 50cm fruiting wire that has earned the plot a nickname as the ‘low vineyard’ and plenty of pickers and pruners with sore backs (maybe).
It’s been fascinating to have seen these wines from some of the very early releases, and especially to witness the evolution from the early Wrattonbully takes on Bordeaux blanc and rouge, into what is now a range with much more of an Aussie accent.
Xavier isn’t shy about sharing different perspectives either, which makes these tastings even more fun. On this occasion, we touched on his organic wine scepticism (organic certification is apparently just for marketing purposes) to his affinity for traditional Aussie Cabernet Shiraz blends, and beliefs about cork ageing superiority (which feels a bit defunct in the modern Australian context). Loads of times during this tasting, I found myself shaking my head, but I quite like it when a winemaker lobs up some challenging opinions – much more fun than the same bullshit. Xavier is also typically honest about his own wine’s challenges, and how much the Terre à Terre reds (in particular) need years to show their best (and they really do).
Let’s look at some wines:
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2024
The kick off point for the range, and this wine has progressively become a bit more juicy in recent years. This 2024 vintage release is hardly fruity, though – fermented in old oak and tank, this is both ripe and yet wound up tight in a way that is more Bordeaux Blanc than ‘I’ve been to Marlborough and have the t-shirt’. Lemon and passionfruit with a little texta and blackcurrant on the nose, it’s an intense, lemony thing of firmness. I like the line; this just needs a little more time to show its best.
Best drinking: would be worth revisiting with a bit more bottle age. 17.5/20, 91/100+. 13.5%, $35. Would I buy it? Later.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve Fumé Blanc 2023
Barrel fermented and kept in oak until early 2024. 1050 6 packs produced. Sancerre all the way in this style, and gee, it’s serious. Preserved lemon, dried herbs and lemon juice, a flash of orange. It’s quite ripe, really. Tangy, a nice citrussy flesh, still a transitional wine though – it’s shedding its youth and not quite into complexity. Nice dried herbs and lemon intensity, though it feels unformed and taut. Patience required.
Best drinking: two to three years as well. 17.7/20, 92/100+. 13.5%, $59. Would I buy it? A glass.
Pascal Cotat Les Monts Damnés Sancerre 2023
Of a style. That’s the best way to describe the Pascal Cotat wines. They’re always interesting takes on Loire Sauvignon, but I find them pretty divisive things. This, too, feels more like a product of reduction and winemaking rather than an expression of place and time. It certainly smells a bit shy, save for mothball and matchstick reduction, creamed apple and taut acidity. There are flashes of creamy tropical fruit and preserved lemon, accompanied by an unquestionably long palate. However, I struggled to overcome that winemaking edifice – it’s a bit too much for this to be great.
Best drinking: patience. Several years in bottle will help (or just dial up the winemaking character even more). 17.5/20, 91/100+. 12.9%, $230. Would I buy it? No.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2017
Easily the most drinkable wine in this lineup, which is pretty wild for Sauvignon Blanc. As you can see, this is a style that was always intended to be drunk with bottle age and now in a zone. There’s a little wool, wheat biscuit and lanolin bottle age creeping in, which all adds some softness and layers to the core of intense lemon grapefruit. Certainly interesting, if not exactly easy drinking.
Best drinking: good now. 17.7/20, 92/100. 12.9%, $59. Would I buy it? A glass.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2023
A pleasure to see Australian Cab Franc smelling like Cab Franc. Red mulberry and raspberry, plus some dried herbs. Herbal, but ripe. A light and simple wine, it’s not; instead, ripe and feels very much in a big boned Wrattonbully mode, with a big, warm-hearted and molten red fruit and ripe plum palate with a background cask note adding ripeness and weight. A wine of two halves, really, both fragrant and a little herbal, but black and bold and dark too. Maybe a bit heavy in the back, but I see this as lively and plenty intense to carry it off. I like it.
Best drinking: Good now, even better in five years. 18/20, 93/100. 14.5%, $35. Would I buy it? A few glasses.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2020
And back to earth. 2020 was a super low cropping year with frosts and heat spikes. There’s a lumpiness to this wine – it’s a forward red that tastes more of warmth and barrels with a sheen of oak hiding everything, before the alcohol and drying tannins rise up on the back. It’s in a bit of a development hole, too, without being secondary enough to be really interesting (and plenty boozy). I wasn’t much of a fan.
Best drinking: likely later. 16.8/20, 89/100. 14.5%, $35. Would I buy it? No.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Cabernet Shiraz 2023
The best reds with a Terre à Terre label are Cabernet Shiraz-based. Always. This wine was my fave in this lineup too – there’s this bitter, coffeed blackness to this red that feels limitless. It’s bold, full-bodied, powerful red wine, but also proudly Australian, to the point you can almost taste how it’s going to look (full of brick dusty red layers) as an old wine. Thick! Maybe a little warm. High-quality wine.
(As a postscript, I put this side by side against the Ornellaia, and though it was very different, it certainly had the fruit concentration to match).
Best drinking: drinkable now, even better in a decade. 18.5/20, 94/100. 14.5%, $59. Would I buy it? A few glasses.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Cabernet Shiraz 2019
Interestingly, this tastes like a much older wine in this context. The oak sticks out a bit too, even though it spent just 8 months in small oak. There’s this bitterness and alcohol and grainy coffee oak that robs it of a little life. Still, that’s dismissing the power – it has density, and will keep on living, even if that finish is very dry.
Best drinking: I’d go sooner. 17.5/20, 91/100. 14.5%, $59. Would I buy it? A glass.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve Cabernet Shiraz Cab Franc 2021
Every bit the reserve wine, and matured in 100% new oak. Oak is the main character too. A dense wine beyond that. You dig below the surface, and this has some gravitas and power, especially the dusty chocolate tannins. It’s bold, swishy, a big wine with a full cabinet of luscious and very long flavour, even if that savoury caramel dust oak is omnipresent. Come back later!
Best drinking: next decade. 18/20, 93/100. 14.5%, $90. Would I buy it? A glass or two.
Ornellaia 2021
Ornellaia. The myth, the legend. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot from Bolgheri with a huge rep and a huge pricetag. I’ve had a few vintages now, and nearly every time it’s a wine that is a force unto itself. Xavier straight up acknowledged that he ‘can’t make a wine like this’, which I get (he just wanted to open it). It’s a wine that feels extra, monstering the rest of these wines, and especially this 2021 vintage release, which is monolithic (and every bit the 15% alcohol). It’s a dark, brooding red that you would probably never pick as a Tuscan wine from the early aromas that jump out of the glass. It’s not until you get to the tannins that the shape changes – it’s like a tannin powder coater has gone to work with a chocolatey sand blast, the tannins a separate wave that feels grainy, nutty, thick, and persistently impressive. Wow tannins. I can’t shake the feeling that this is as much of an attack of a wine – something trying to punch you out (and the alcohol is unmissable). But a cut above, unquestionably.
Best drinking: good now, and not going anywhere. 18.7/20, 95/100. 15%, $550. Would I buy it? I don’t make enough to drink Ornellaia. I’ll drink yours, though.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve Cabernet Shiraz Cab Franc 2018
From a very warm vintage, this feels like a classic Aussie red too, in an open-knit, warm, and oaky mode that feels rather old school, but inviting. Caramel, brick dust, leather and some red berries. Reminds me of early noughties Coonawarra reds. The structure here is still great – it’s going to live for ages, even if the nose makes it seem much older. Very solid drinking.
Best drinking: good now, and will no doubt still be kicking in 15 years. 17.7/20, 92/100. 14.5%, $95ish. Would I buy it? A glass or two.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve Cabernet Shiraz Cab Franc 2016
In a good place, this red looked fresher and better balanced than the 2018 (which is as much about the more moderate vintage than anything). Lots of dark chocolate oak, a bit of mint, fine-grained powdery tannin, a little bitter blackness, but otherwise some of that dark chocolate cedar and dark fruit power that marks great Coonawarra reds (yes, I know this is Wrattonbully, but the mode here is closer to top-shelf Coonawarra, really). Has a welcome modesty and charm to it, even if the warmth and intensity are hardly mid-weight. Easily the most drinkable Aussie of this bracket and a pretty satisfying wine.
Best drinking: good now, good in another decade. 18/20, 93/100. 14.5%, $95ish. Would I buy it? I’d share a bottle.