News

These five regions combine great wines, luxury accommodations, stellar food, and further adventures that set them apart from the usual tasting room travel.

For Surfers and Beach Lovers: Margaret River, Australia

This 60-mile-long narrow peninsula in Western Australia’s southwest corner, three hours south of Perth, is an irresistible wine paradise. The Margaret River region is known for world-class surfing, secluded coves of wild, sandy beaches, and air scrubbed whistle clean after its thousands-of-miles journey across the ocean. On top of this, its 100 wineries make some of the country’s most sophisticated and collectible cabernets and chardonnays.

You can spend the morning tasting, the afternoon lolling in the surf, hitting the reef breaks, or hiking part of the long coastal Cape-to-Cape track with views of the Indian Ocean. In the evening, dine at a winery on local marron, a succulent freshwater crayfish, and, yes, kangaroo steaks.

The essential estates to visit are Cullen, Vasse Felix, Voyager Estate, Moss Wood,Cloudburst, and Leeuwin Estate, whose sleek, lemony chardonnay is one of the world’s best, and which offers the top daylong wine experience. Though most wineries have restaurants, none offers luxe accommodation. My pick for a romantic hotel is Injidup Spa Retreat in Yallingup, a secluded group of villas right on the beach, with private plunge pools and access to a private chef (rooms from $800 for two nights).

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-14/the-most-fascinating-travel-destinations-for-wine-lovers-in-2016

The 40th anniversary rendering of Moss Wood’s first Margaret River vintage is one of the best.

Moss Wood’s Keith Mugford knows a thing or two about making cabernet sauvignon. Initially as assistant to founder Bill Pannell and then on his own after he and wife Clare bought the place, he has been involved in some of the greatest cabernets to come from Margaret River. The 2013 is the 40th anniversary of Moss Wood’s first vintage and it is one of the best. I have tasted just about every Moss Wood cabernet, including retrospectives of the earliest and have no hesitation in putting the 2013 in the top half dozen. It is quintessentially Moss Wood: beautiful perfumes, not too big, elegant, seductive and so bright, with exquisitely fine lines and palate length. Plus, there’s that essential sense of place and like the earliest of these wines, it has the potential to age for many years.

Moss Wood 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon

Continues the outstanding recent run of vintages for Moss Wood. This is, without doubt, one of the very best in this long and distinguished line. For a wine renowned for its elegance, this is one of the most elegant of them all. Yet the palate has great power and intensity. Bright and brilliant red hues. Beautiful sweet, leafy fruit and silky, fine powdery tannins, all with perfectly weighted oak. Classic red berry and cassis.
98/100
Best drinking: 2020 to 2045.

Moss Wood 2014 Chardonnay

One of the purest expressions of fruit from any recent Moss Wood chardonnay. Has a lovely brioche and vanillin creaminess on the nose, with other savoury smoky characters overlaying the powerful fruit. A little peachy, toasty honey richness. The palate is complex and layered, with a very long finish. One of the best Moss Wood chardies in recent years.
96/100
Best drinking: Now to 2024.

The 2016 vintage is almost completed as we write this newsletter and all the young wines promise good, perhaps even great quality.

For the followers of the weather we can report we experienced the full range of conditions.

After good winter rains, Spring proved to be drier and warmer than average and this prevailed through until mid-November. At this point, the rain returned and the temperatures dropped, making December cooler than November, something we don’t often see. This coincided with the flowering of Cabernet Sauvignon and a number of cool nights led to some indifferent fruit set.

During the Christmas period things returned to more like normal summer conditions until the second week of January when we had a series of wet days that delivered 110mm of rain. At this point we held our breath and hoped that our spray program had been effective and fortunately it was. We didn’t develop any rot and the fruit stayed sound. We were lucky too because most of the fruit was still quite green and firm and able to resist splitting.

We experienced some further rain in February but the vines were well acclimatised by then and this passed without incident.

Things finally got under way with Sauvignon Blanc on 8th February, roughly 2 weeks early. Yields are down 20-30% but as a measure of compensation, for all varieties it’s a good year for full flavour ripeness at lower sugar levels, so expect really bright and lively wines. In the reds and especially Cabernet Sauvignon, the smaller berries associated with the low yield have produced concentrated, powdery tannins, very much in the mould of 1995. This puts us on track to make one of our finest ever wines. We’re all doing our best to make sure we don’t stuff it up!

Helping Alex, Gina, Clare and Keith during vintage 2016 we have 3 willing assistants in Seb Mugford, Simon Nankivell and Manon Dhabit. Seb is doing his second vintage with us – he’s either a slow learner or fast forgetter! Simon is here on his industry placement as part of his 4th year in the Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology at Adelaide University. We forgive him that he’s a Port Adelaide supporter. Manon is a

graduate of Agricultural Engineering, specialising in Viticulture and Oenology from the Bordeaux School of agronomy and also holds a National Diploma in Oenology from the University of Bordeaux and is expanding her knowledge of winemaking by coming to see how proper Cabernet Sauvignon is made. Or so we tell her.

Serendipity has dictated that our eldest son Tristan finished his 4th year Adelaide Uni vintage placement, at Petaluma, in the Adelaide Hills, in time to join us for the last half of our 2016 vintage. Soon enough to see all the Moss Wood and Ribbon Vale Cabernet Sauvignon and Ribbon Vale Merlot picked and will probably still be here long enough to be involved in all our final pressings.

We are now excitedly in the grip of our 2016 vintage, which started with us picking Sauvignon Blanc last Monday 8th February, in 39 degree heat, a rare extreme heat day for us! The next day we picked our D4 Clone Pinot Noir and then on Wednesday headed into the west block of our Ribbon Vale vineyard and picked the remainder of our Sauvignon Blanc and on Thursday our D5 clone of Pinot Noir, so that is now all our Pinot Noir picked and safely in fermenters, too. These Pinot Noir vines were planted at Moss Wood in 1977 and we are, we think rightly, very proud of them.

So now we have had the inevitable lull, it has been busy in the winery, the Pinot is in its open fermenters and has had its cold soak and has been seeded to commence its fermentation, which it is doing enthusiastically. The Sauvignon Blanc has been settled in its tanks and rack off its gross lees and seeded to commence its fermentation, which it is also dutifully doing. However, things have quietened down in the vineyard and we have waited until yesterday to decide to go in and pick the first of out Semillon today.

Both our Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir are roughly 2 weeks ahead of average. Yields are down slightly but quality is very encouraging, with particularly vibrant fruit flavours. We’re hopeful the mild to warm weather continues for all the other varieties and if it does, 2016 will be a good one.

We can report that the 15/16 growing season has been a good one, although somewhat variable. Rainfall during the flowering period was low and conditions were generally warm and favourable. The only disruption occurred with some cold nights in late November that caused problems for Cabernet Sauvignon. January gave us a surprise by delivering just over 100mm of rain. We haven’t had rainfall on that scale since 2000 and it did bring with it some concerns about disease. Luckily it came early enough that we didn’t get any splitting and managed to avoid any problems with rot.

For our followers in Singapore and Amy’s lovers, Bread Street Kitchen at the Marina Bay Sands is pouring Moss Wood 2013 Amy’s magnums.

Read Moss Wood 2013 Amy’s wine notes and reviews

Diamond Award for Bjorn and Johan Monard of Ad Bibendum.

The Wine & Food Association of Holland awards this distinction annually to persons “who have made an outstanding contribution to gastronomy throughout the Netherlands”. It is the first time a Belgium company has received the award.

Moss Wood wines are distributed throughout the Netherlands and Belgium by ad Bibendum Fine World Wines

Congratulations Bjorn and Johan!

Picture from Ad Bibendum