No:28 Kreglinger Brut de Blancs 2003

After the success of Kreglinger Vintage Brut 2004, I had high hopes for the Brut de blancs. A year older and just as interesting.

Pale lemon with tiny bubbles showing flavours of ripe pear, apple, brioche and apricot on the nose. On the palate the ripe, full flavours continue elegantly balancing ripe stone fruits with a creamy mouthfeel, lively acidity, toast and biscuit notes and a long finish.

This is definitely another stylish and well constructed sparkling wine which is very sprightly for eight years old. It will be interesting to see how this develops over the next few years but it is an impressive wine with good potential.

No: 52 Kreglinger Vintage Brut 2004

Having given myself a month off to move house, settle in and get to grips with life in Tassie, it would be rude of me not to storm back with a Tasmanian beauty. For the first time in a long time I was able to use the phrase "I've not been here for years" when arriving at Pipers Brook which shares its driveway with another great Tasmanian sparkling wine, Jansz.

Skipping over the opportunity for a gossip with Maxine, the lovely Cellar door manager at Jansz, I wound my way through the vineyard to the Pipers Brook Cellar Door. Kreglinger are a Belgian company which now own the company and produce some very stylish bubbles and a fairly horrible website.

Luckily the smarts are in the winemaking department who produce this delicious sparkler. Pale lemon in appearance and toasty, ripe tropical fruit flavours on the  nose alongside stone fruits, apple and lemon. A blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir the wine is yeasty and rich yet lively in the mouth with a youthful fresh lemon and apple flavour which belies its years.

The Kreglinger Vintage Brut 2004 is intense, complex and interesting, alongside the obvious maturity is a lean and elegant acidity and ripe, fresh fruits. It's always nice to see a big juggernaut of a company making wines like this and getting it so very right.

No.52: Kreglinger 2003

Terrible website aside...http://kreglingerwineestates.com/ I had to have two goes at this wine before something tasty cropped up. The first bottle I tried was at best tedious, dumb is the technical term and it was thus....The second, however, was far more interesting, complex and a little bit more like what you would expect from Tasmanian sparkling wine.

Kreglinger are Jansz's neighbours up on the east side of the Tamar Valley in the Pipers River area and are part of the same stable as Pipers Brook and Ninth Island. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes for this sparkler come from the specially assigned Kreglinger vineyard and are hand picked and whole bunch pressed to produce around 450-550 litres per tonne.

The base wines are fermented in barrel and stainless steel, a small percentage was put aside to age on the lees, blended and then put into bottle after tirage to develop further.

At almost eight years old the wine shows the level of maturity you would expect with mushroom, yeast and savoury characteristics. Although the primary fruit flavours have begun to wane they have been replaced with baked apples, candied peel, almonds and fresh bread.

This is a competent and well put together wine which shows a nicely structured maturity although lacking a little finesse. As a recommendation I would say stuff a leg of pork, roast it serve with apple sauce, roasties and a bottle of this and it would turn your average Sunday lunch into something a little special.

No.22: Ninth Island NV

Ninth Island NV

A blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, the fruit for Ninth Island NV is taken from the Pipers River area of Tasmania. The wine is left for 6-8 months on lees before spending another 24 months in the bottle.

The style of this sparkling wine is fresh, fruity and ready to go. This is definitely not a sparkler that will reward you for careful cellaring it is one to buy (cold ideally!) and then take on a picnic or to a party. Ninth Island is rich and ripe with bags of fruit and a really accessible style but if you're looking for Tasmania's signature style and finesse then I would pick another bottle from my 100 Aussie sparkling wines to try.

No.3 Bay of Fires Tasmanian Cuvee

Of course I was going to start in Tasmania...

Multi-vintage rather than non-vintage this sparkler is made from fruit sourced all around Tasmania in the Pipers River, Coal River, Tamar and Derwent Valley. Peter Dredge is now heading up operations at Bay of Fires but this was made by the dynamic duo of Fran Austin and Ed Carr.

The wine is a hand picked and very specific blend of 48.5% Pinot Noir, 43.9% Chardonnay with the remainder being made up of Pinot Meunier. Use of reserve wines, lees maturation, good quality fruit and great winemaking combined make the Tasmanian Cuvee an absolute scorcher of a sparkling wine.

Pale lemon in colour with a persistent bead the complexity on the nose follows through to the palate showing characteristics of lemon, yoghurt, hints of savoury notes, honey and fresh crisp redcurrants. 

This wine is an absolute pleasure and if you can't sit in the gardens of Bay of Fires with some friends to drink it then I would recommend finding anywhere there is sunshine, great food and even better company so you can create one of life's perfect little moments.