Dinner with Mrs. Aussie at local French Bistro. Had a bottle of '96 Tarrawarra Pinot not consumed at last weekends birthday celebration, so decided tonight would be a good excuse. Lighting is a little subdued at this bistro, so the colour was difficult to gauge, but seemed to be a clear garnet with little browning. Initially quite subdued on the nose, and very angular and bitter on the palate. This took a good hour to really hit its straps, and strangely seemed to close down after half an hour to then open up again later on (never experienced this before). When it did open, though, it was a thoroughly delicious pinot. Sour cherry, plum and clove on the nose, with a touch of earth and game. The palate developed into an intense and long pinot, with good acidity for its age and smooth, fine tannins.

The Lindemans was an interesting story. We noticed a large party on an adjoining table. They had just decanted a bottle, and a member of the table had given the bottle to a waitress to clean the sediment from. It was Grange, so I asked the guy what vintage. He replied '90. Soon after, he brought a 1/4 full bottle of the '86 Lindeman's Sparkling Burgundy (that's a Sparkling Shiraz) to our table and said 'enjoy'. Very generous !!! The wine was also very generous. Not for the faint hearted, this was brimming with Brett, which is typical for Hunter Valley shiraz (often referred to as a 'horse saddle' aroma). Strangely, though, it worked for the wine. Not a wine for the technocrat, but full of character. Ripe plummy shiraz fruit, very earthy with mushroom and meaty charachters. The 'sparkling' component of the wine had subdued with 16 years in bottle and was more Spritzig than anything, but it gave the wine the vitality it needed to offset those gamey qualities.

Hmm, a French restaraunt serving something called Lindeman's Sparkling *Burgundy*? Something very wrong about that..

Thanks for the notes.

Eric,
This restaurant was BYO only, so the Lindeman's was brought along by the guy with the Grange. They only charge $2.50 a bottle for corkage, and the food is excellent and cheap.
'Sparkling Burgundy' is old terminology now for Australian sparkling shiraz, a distinctive style of wine made with ripe shiraz that has a touch of residual sugar. They age incredibly well. This bloke also had a line up of four vintages of Seppelt show reserve sparkling shiraz from '82 to '87, probably the best of its kind in the country.