IT was a heady, wine-filled three days. Wolf Blass Wines came to town with the Treasury Wine Estates top brass in attendance, for a series of wine activities that included a wine dinner, a master class and a tasting session of the flagship Wolf Blass wines. I missed the master class and its highlight—a wine-blending exercise/contest that had the best blend (and blender) up for a WSET scholarship, courtesy of the Wolf Blass Academy. But I made it to the wine dinner at the Hotel Sofitel’s La Veranda and the wine socials a day after at the Makati Shangri-La’s Sage Bespoke Bar and Grill. On both occasions, I had the rare opportunity to engage in wine talk with Stuart Rusted, Wolf Blass Ambassador, and Yodissen Mootoosamy, Treasury Wine Estates regional business manager-South Asia, Indochina, Philippines, Indonesia and the Pacific.
Wolf Blass is an Australian winery under the umbrella of Treasury Wine Estates, the giant wine corporation formed by the merger of Southcorp and Beringer Blass wine groups. Among the many dozens of wineries in its portfolio are big names like Penfolds, Beaulieu Vineyard, Matua and Stag’s Leap, which, like Wolf Blass, are imported and distributed in the Philippines by Premier Wine and Spirits Inc., the host of the three-day Wolf Blass wine events.
The wine dinner at La Veranda was as much an introduction to the Wolf Blass label, as it was a celebration of Chinese New Year for Premier Wine’s clients and buyers in the Chinese community. Red was, therefore, the color of the night, an allusion to the auspicious color for the Chinese, and perhaps also a reminder that Wolf Blass was named International Red Winemaker of the Year for 2016.
But the evening began with white, the Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay 2015. Bright, stonefruitdriven, lightly creamy with a seam of subtle toast. That’s what six months in stainless steel with French oak staves and lees stirring does to the wine, explained Rusted.
The tiers of Wolf Blass wines are designated by color. As an example, Rusted cited the Wolf Blass Gold Label Chardonnay, likewise 100-percent Chardonnay sourced from Adelaide, except that fruit for the Gold Label comes from high-altitude vineyards in the Adelaide Hills. Fermented in small batches with wild and cultured yeasts, the wine then spends nine months on the lees in new French oak barrels with lees stirring—a step up from the Yellow Label Chardonnay.
Gold, grey, black and platinum were the colors of the Wolf Blass reds served at dinner: Gold Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2013, Grey Label Shiraz 2012, Black Label Cabernet Shiraz 2005 and Medland Vineyards Platinum Label Shiraz 2012. Chocolate, mint and tapenade notes marked the Gold Label Cabernet Sauvignon.
There was more espresso than chocolate in the Grey Label McLaren Vale Shiraz. The Black Label Cabernet Shiraz 2005 was muscular yet graceful, with notes of eucalyptus and graphite over dark plums and cedar, and a long, dark-chocolate finish. Complex layers of dark berry, sweet spice, espresso and bitter chocolate were interesting in the Medlands Vineyard Platinum Label Barossa Valley Shiraz.
The Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz-Malbec 2012, the 40th vintage of Black Label, made an appearance in the wine socials a day after the dinner. There was the inevitable comparison with the Black Label 2005. I thought the Black Label 2012 was still shy, hinting of the promise of cigar box, ripe-dark fruit and bitter chocolate. Which one did I like best? I found the wines powerful, yet elegant, with beautiful fruit expression and silky tannins. The 2005 is drinking beautifully now, but the 2012 must be fascinating in another three years.
Wolf Blass is now 84 years old—the man, not the winery. Rusted must have told the story countless times of how Wolfgang Franz Otto Blass arrived in Australia from his native Germany in the 1961 and then established Wolf Blass Wines in the Barossa Valley in 1966. That wasn’t too bad for a runaway from school who then gained a master’s degree in oenology. And still not satisfied with the more than 8,000 awards the wines have won since the winery’s beginnings, Blass and his team are still at it, striving to craft even better wines.
Truly, the quest for the best never ends.