The 100-Point Wine You’ve Never Heard Of

This is the best Shiraz being made in Australia and potentially the world. I think this wine will last forever. These bottles sold out before people even knew that they existed. This wine isn't just rare, it's impossible to buy. There is zero of this on the market. Now with so many wineries out there, why on earth would we spend so much time focusing on this particular brand? I can smell it. Really, really violety and purple flowers. And that's without even putting your nose in the glass. A lot of people think that we just get scent wine. No, I pay for it. To get the Andalmonde, you have to buy the range. That's crazy to think that fairly rare wines that sell out immediately. Less than a bottle of Grange. If I was to bring a bottle of Standish Lamella, the people at my friends and my tables, they'd be like, okay, cool, beautiful wine, thanks so much. But if I was to bring a bottle of Penfold Grange out, people are like, are you sure? It becomes an experience. Well, let's find out why we have two 100 point wines. It's one of those episodes where a glass of wine has been sitting in front of me for about five minutes. And I'm just like, can I speed my conversation up so that I can drink this wine? Welcome back to Got Some, a wine podcast with the Master Sommelier taking us through some of the best wines in Australia and around the world. And also still trying to find the best budget wines in the country as well. I actually made a note in my phone for a $28 bottle of Chardonnay that I thought tasted like 60. Maybe wait for wine of the year at the end of the year for my best value pick. There's a little tease, make sure you're subscribed. But Carlos, this is our third take on the same wine. Now with so many wineries out there, why on earth would we spend so much time focusing on this particular brand? And I am going to say it's because it's my favorite Shiraz in Australia. Rightly so, because it's like the glass is sitting there on a table, as you said, for five minutes and I can smell it. Like it's really perfumed. But I think it's also by the fact that it's not as pricey as one would think it is. Production is fairly small. I think between $12,000 to $28,000 across all the range. Of course, they declassify some fruits. They let some, you know, they probably sell some away if it's not up to the standard. So, you know, it is pretty special. And it's the third year, as you said, so it's nice. I think we made it a thing to keep going back to this wine every year. So it's pretty cool. So without further ado, we are talking about the Standish Wine Company and their range of wines. Last time we spoke about this wine, we actually tasted all of them blind and we tried to pick our favorites. I think you have the Theorem as your favorite and I think mine was the Lamella. And we're back again with two bottles, this time a little bit different. So we do have the Lamella in front of us. It will be the third year running that we are tasting the Lamella. The first year being after Aaron Larkin for Robert Parker named it as a 100 point wine. And this year, just because I just love the wine and I wanted to buy some and try it. That was it. I knew it sold out quick. I'm on the mailing list. But the second bottle, Carlos, is arguably the most special. And this is, you know, shocking to come out of my mouth. I'm more excited to try it than the Lamella. And it's nothing we've tried before. No, that's right. I mean, it's, yeah, it's tiny. The last time they produced this was in 2018. So it's not produced every year. It's only when it's exclusively good here. It's a Barossa wine, but also some fruit from higher altitude Eden Valley. So a little bit fresher, a little bit cooler. So bringing that sense of freshness. But of course, that reflects in the wine as floral and fragrant and like this really, really violet-y and purple flower. And that's without even putting your nose in the glass. You're getting that just from 12 inches away. So that is the Anne del Monde. Yes, like you said, it's been six years since it's been released. You can't buy this wine. How did we get it? A lot of people think that we just get sent wine. No, I paid for it. And to get that bottle and clever marketing by the Standish Wine Company, I appreciated it when I saw it online. Because you can buy each of the four bottles individually. But to get the Anne del Monde, you have to buy the range, of course. So all of them are $125. So it doesn't matter what bottle. So for the four wines, plus this special edition, which we're about to try with shipping, I think it's less than $600, $550, something like that. Well, that's crazy. That's crazy to think that those fairly rare wines that sell out immediately at 100 points. I mean, as we know, don't really care about points too much. But for its worth, it's 100 points and Robert Parker. Yeah, it's the price of one bottle of... Less than a bottle of Grange. ...of Grange or Hill of Grace. I mean, Hill of Grace has its finesse. I mean, Penfold Grange has its character. I mean, that's why they're so renowned and so world-class. But this is pretty special. I think the difference there is you're tasting a true icon and history. Yeah. And I think you're opening up an experience for others. If I was to bring a bottle of Standish Lamella, knowing the quality in the bottle, the people at my friends and my tables, I don't have like super wino friends. I've got a few, but they wouldn't understand. They'd be like, okay, cool, beautiful wine. Thanks so much. But if I was to bring a bottle of Penfold Grange out, people are like, are you sure? Yeah, exactly. My God, thank you so much. Put it up on Instagram. It becomes an experience. And I think you're paying for what that marketing and what that experience of iconic wines brings. All right, well, let's try it. Thank goodness. About time. I mean, this is a super deep purple, right? I was just going to say that. Like super purple, a lot of staining tears. Like if I pick this glass and I have no idea where this come from, I would be like Malbec every day. Like a super young, youthful Malbec. Or yeah, well, Barossa Shiraz. I mean, but like an initial visual, it's Malbec, deep staining purple. Then on the nose, this really floral, really, really perfumed. Like that fresh, actually really fresh violet and fresh floral. Like I said, it climbs out of the glass. It's so expressive. Yeah, a lot of fennel and then chocolate. Like really a mix of red and black fruits. Really like vibrant, jammy, all quite ripe. Sometimes you have this sort of character, but like really like stinking heavy. This is like really, really elegant. Spicy, peppery, lavender. The more you swirl, the more herbal, floral character. Acidity is great. It's the first striking thing, which in a wine like this, you know, big, bold, ripe, jammy, quite intense. The alcohol is really well balanced, actually. You have the alcohol at the ends, but the acidity is so high that, I mean, not nebulous high, but it's pretty high. That really balances it out. And then after that, you have all this fruit, like the layers, fruit, spices, herbal, oak coming more on the palate as well. And that comes with the tannin as well. I think it's reflected in chocolate. The tannin is firm, but it's quite velvety as well. Yeah. Almost like suede, sort of like really velvety, really, really fine grained. Yeah. So I've got a little example there. So I had a Calamina Penfold Shiraz. Calimna. The Calimna, yeah. Calimna, yeah. About four or five days ago. And it was super tannic. And just, that was the last Shiraz I had. And this is such a different experience on the tannin profile, but yeah, it's just such a well-balanced wine. It's really long. It's more savory on a palate. And yeah, I think this wine will last forever. Like, you know, if you think about- I would say minimum. Sweetness, acidity, body, alcohol, and tannin. It's like, yes, everything. The sweetness comes- From the oak? The ripeness, but not overly ripeness. No, the sweetness is obviously the unfermented sugar, but it's dry, obviously. But he has that really strong sense of sweetness. The ripeness is there. And yes, sweet character. Dry, of course. The people listening to this, I don't want them to think that this is a sweet wine. It's not. But then the alcohol is there. It's warming at the end. The tannins are firm, silky at the same time. Body is quite full, quite warm, quite brown and generous. And the acidity, it's, I think, a very, very strong point in this wine because it will hold things together for a very long time, I feel. So 20 years, no problem. Always surprises people when they hear the process of how we brought this wine to the studio. I opened it up yesterday. I flew back in from Sydney. I landed, dropped my bag. At 9.20 at the front door. And I cracked the cork on this at 9.35 p.m. And I was annoyed because I would have preferred to have opened it about 9 a.m. But I'd flown out earlier in the morning. So people are like, hang on, you popped the cork and just left it. No, you pop the cork, you put it back in just to give it. And it changes the experience. We've done this three years in a row. How tight it is when you open that cork. Now, a lot of people say like, well, you can just decant it. Yes, you should definitely decant this wine if you don't have a time to pop the cork and put it in 24, 30 hours beforehand. But it's just that wine and it's that brand. And every year the experience is the same. So I tried the wine last night when I got home and it just felt really enclosed and tight. And then I smelt it this morning, could hear it and I smelt it, it opened up a little bit. And then yeah, to try it now, I still don't think it's at its best expression. I think it probably needs a bit more air. I think next year we can bring Dan and Nicole to the studio and taste it with them. Or go to the Standish beautiful winery. Go to the Standish winery and taste the wines. South Australian tourism, come on, get us over there. Exactly. I think it would be really, really interesting to open something, as you said, like last night. And you know, my philosophy with opening wines to head in advance, because I feel like we miss like a lot throughout the tasting, the evolution of the wine. So I think it would be cool to, yeah, to have another pair of bottles and one open instantly there. And maybe 48 hours, a 24 and a instant. That would be amazing. And if we have the winemakers, great. We'll do that next year for our fourth edition of the show. Done. I'll buy three bottles of Lamella. Fourth edition of this. We own, yeah, exactly. Because we own what, five years now? Yes, it's year five. Let's move on to the Anne del Monde. As a little bit of a tease, we had some celebrity friends in the studio recording before us here at the studio, Session in Progress. And we gave them a taste of this wine. They love wine. Could we reveal who they were? Yeah, you can. I don't know. Oh, you don't know? I don't know. Oh, well, you're going to have to wait around and so will you. So I gave them a taste of both of these wines, their reaction coming up in the next five minutes. Let's move on to this limited edition, once in a blue moon, or in this case, six year wine. I'm excited, Carlos. Take me through the difference. So yeah, I just feel like this Anne del Monde, it's a lot less floral, fragrant, perfumed than the La Mela. It just feels a bit more subtle overall. Maybe a little bit more concentrated though. Like it feels a bit riper. It feels a bit bigger. But yeah, I mean, would be interesting to perhaps, yeah, I would say that this maybe need a bit more time oxygenating, you know, maybe just a bit more swirl, maybe just double decanting. The La Mela was really expressive and it was really like broad and floral, fragrant and really that spice and herbal that I've mentioned. Here feels a bit closer, a bit tighter. I would say if I was to do a percentage, 30% less expressive on the nose. And just the one thing that I love about Dan's Wine Making and the Standish Wine Company is we are talking about a patch of vineyards, single vineyard expressions, so uniquely identifiable between the four main choices and then this in its own right. I'll be honest straight off the top. I probably prefer the La Mela, but you're making facial expressions like you're in When Harry Met Sally. No, no, I like it. I prefer the La Mela as well right now. Down the line and evolution, I think there's crazy huge potential in this wine. Like it's insane. I feel like the complexity is very deep. I know pencil shaving is a Cabernet Sauvignon thing, but I feel a little bit of that graffiti, pencil shaving, like a lot of minerality. That here, it's really like there's also minerality, don't take me wrong, on the La Mela, but this wine, I think there's a certain complexity that it's harder to find. And has it yet expressed it for age? And he hasn't really expressed. And I think with the time in the bottle, we'll be expressing like a lot, a lot more. That, yeah, graffiti, pencil shaving, it's a lot harder to describe, I think. This is like so pretty and so aromatic that you're like, wow, yeah. This, it feels a bit more, the Andelmonde feels a bit more obscure somehow, you know, a little bit tighter as well. Maybe more time, maybe just really needs actually, you know, to stay in the bottle for a few more years and let it evolve. Initially, it's more of that chocolaty for me, more black fruit, but then that layer of minerality that I didn't pick as much on the La Mela. Well, that's our thoughts on these two wines. Let's find out from our good friends from the Studio Session in Progress who were recording just before us what they think. Let's let them introduce themselves. It's Elliot and Isaac from No Utes in the Valet. We've got someone's on after us and so we're capitalizing on the free booze. There was wine. Yeah, there was wine and it's Thursday. So like, come on. That smells good. Smells amazing. It's got a big nose. I don't know what it is. Much like Isaac. I would like to use the words full bodied. I was going to say a bit heavier than I thought it was going to be from the smell. If I've learned anything, I would say it's quite forward facing on the palate. I can feel it less back here and more up here, but maybe I swirled it around wrong. If I was going to pay for it and I don't know what the price of this bottle is, I reckon I'd be happy to pay $75, $80 for that bottle. So let's try the one on the right. Okay. There's a hundred point wine here, so you're going to have to... Okay, so immediately I like the nose on the right hand side. It feels thinner. It definitely feels thinner. If that's a word. Not as heavy, not as full bodied. Thin is in. Yeah, okay. It's got way less hectic on the schnoz. I don't know if that's a hundred point wine, but that's a good one. I'm not a big Shraz fan, but that's leaning in and I don't know much about wine, but it's giving me more Pinot vibes. I'm saying that's the hundred point one. It tastes like a half blend of Pinot. That's stunning. Yeah. That's actually divine. Angus, are we right? They're both hundred point wine. No. Yup, cheers. Cheers. When in Rome. Boom. There you go, Elliot Garneau, celebrity stylist and Isaac Smith, multiple premiership player for the Hawks and the Cats and of course, famous Norm Smith in a wonderful Geelong Cats grand final win and now retired football player. So No Utes in the Valet is their podcast. If you want to check it out, we'll have it in the show notes below, but yeah, I don't think we can play some of the stories that Isaac was telling us off the mic, but he's got a beautiful wine knowledge. He knows what he likes. He loves Jordan Lewis's wines. He loves Mount Mary. So he drinks a lot of good wines and Elliot's family's got a really good cellar. So they both know their wines and they're both really like these. In fact, Isaac texted me and said, can you actually get a bottle of that and on one day? Nice. Are they subscribers to the Godson podcast? Yes, better be. We'll be back again soon on another episode of Godson. I'm going to put a little tease out there. Speaking of celebrities, Gary Vee is going to be on the podcast. I mean, I love Carlos did a reaction face. We recorded that three weeks ago. The Gary Vee, who you might know just from the internet, but who started his career with the wine library and is a huge wino reached out to us and came on the show. So he's going to be on the next episode of Godson in two weeks time. We'll probably have a blind wine tasting in the meantime to get you through till then. But thank you so much for watching Godson. If you're not subscribed or following on Spotify video or Apple subscribed, please make sure you do. And we'd love to hear from in the comment section, wherever you're consuming this, what you want to see from us next. So would, or as we say in Australia, cheers copper. No one says that. If you're watching this in America, no one says that. That's like shrimp on the barbie. Cheers. 25% below if you live in Australia, New Zealand.