The joy of being back in Tassie isn't just the wine it is the fabulous food that we take for granted. Bruny Island cheeses, quail, venison, Lilydale and Nichols chickens and other goodies are gloriously easy to find making it a greedy girls dream.
My day off rocked around again so with lemons from the backyard and a chicken from up the Tamar in Lilydale on the menu I thought an older sparkler would be just the thing.
Sir James Hardy is the great grandson of Thomas Hardy founder of one of Australia's most famous wine labels. The wine is a blend of Chardonnay 35%, Pinot Noir 55% and Pinot Meunier 10% and the fruit is sourced from Tasmania, Tumbarumba and the Yarra Valley.
After a primary fermentation in stainless steel the second fermentation is spent in bottle for at least 3 years. All this sounds fabulous and I wish I liked it more than I did. I hope I just had a duff bottle as despite an appealing nose of lemons, apples, stone fruits, honey and yeast the palate did not follow through.
Despite some ripe tropical and stone fruit flavours and a little yeastiness it was lacking in intensity of flavour. It didn't have the taste of a sparkler that was over the hill but it had the taste of something that couldn't quite get itself going.
At this point I'm not fully going to write this off as a disappointing wine but I will wait a while before going back for another taste. Like watching a film once the hype has died down, far more enjoyable if one can judge it on its own merits rather than be swayed by reviews.
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