Domaine Lucci Spring Red 2015 Adelaide Hills, Australia<\/strong><\/p>\nThis is an unusual wine. It\u2019s made by Anton van Klopper, the talented but eccentric expat South African who\u2019s one of the leading lights in the Australian natural wine scene. He\u2019s based in the Basket Range, a subdistrict of the Adelaide Hills that\u2019s the epicentre of all things natural and authentic in South Australia. It\u2019s a red wine that comes in a Riesling-style bottle, which is a bit surprising. It\u2019s also an unusual blend, based on Merlot and Tannat among other things. This is made without any additions at all, including sulphur dioxide.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m drinking it on a Friday evening, just after finishing some work (tasting ros\u00e9s for a Sunday Express column), and with a bunch of teenagers in the house. Not too many, but enough to prompt a degree of vigilance. It\u2019s a fine balance as a parent: how much freedom do you allow teenagers? Do you remember what it was like to be a teenager? Where do you draw the line?<\/p>\n
Back to wine, and to this unusual bottle. The first thing I notice is the aroma. There\u2019s a sweetness to the fruit: more raspberry jam and blackcurrant, with a bit of cherry. But there\u2019s also a nice greenness, with fresh herbs. Maybe some rosemary, and a bit of ginger, as well as fresh cut grass. And also a bit of rose petal. It\u2019s not Pinot Noir, but it has that sort of aroma, with a bit of cured meat and pepper, too. The aromas seem to dance around a bit, never staying put long enough to be captured.<\/p>\n
The palate is inviting and a bit unusual. There\u2019s supple, vivid blackcurrant and redcurrant fruit, with the two providing a nice contrast. There\u2019s a subtle green herby character adding freshness, and a tangy sort of grittiness, as well. Juicy and vivid, this is a digestible, more-ish wine of real appeal. There\u2019s a crunchy, grainy structure here with vivid, grippy raspberry fruit on the palate. There seems to be a reasonably high level of dissolved carbon dioxide in the wine, giving it some liveliness.<\/p>\n
This wine is natural, but it also has lovely purity of fruit. It\u2019s not completely conventional in its flavour, but nor is it funky. There\u2019s a lovely harmony to this wine, and a summer-pudding intensity to the fruit. I wouldn\u2019t call it particularly elegant – it\u2019s more a sort of vivid, slightly chunky wine with a real drinkability. Above all, this is a wine that\u2019s really hard to pigeonhole. Does it speak of its place: the Adelaide Hills? That\u2019s a good question. I think it does in terms of the brightness and freshness that comes from the cool-ish climate and picking early, but then again these are unusual varieties to be used to interpret this place. It\u2019s a bit like asking the Arctic Monkeys to cover an Adele song.<\/p>\n
How do I rate it? I have to rate it according to its deliciousness: how much I like this. I enjoy it quite a bit. It\u2019s not a perfect wine, and it\u2019s not necessarily a great wine, but it\u2019s delicious and it\u2019s one that I\u2019d often be in the mood to drink. So I\u2019ll give it 92 points. And if I saw it on a restaurant wine list, I\u2019d be tempted to give it a try, as I would any wine made by Anton.<\/p>\n
UK agent: Les Caves de Pyrene<\/p>\n
Find this wine with\u00a0wine-searcher.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I haven’t done an extended tasting note for a while. These are notes that attempt to look a little deeper at a wine, putting the drinking experience in context. This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,59],"tags":[125,366,377],"class_list":["post-14265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-natural-wine","tag-adelaide-hills","tag-australia","tag-natural-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14265"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14270,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14265\/revisions\/14270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"domaine](\"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/domaineluccispringred-500x333.jpg\")
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