Waverley Estate Wine Tasting

Let me first declare an interest. The managers, Di and Peter Daniell, of this Hunter Valley Winery are very old friends. In fact Peter and I go back even further than the 40 years of my marriage as we first met as 18 year olds when we roomed together for our first term at the Sandhurst, the UK Military Academy. Actually, I am going to digress here, and go over the circumstances of how we got back together again.

After we were commissioned in August 1962, we both went our separate ways. Peter was joining the Sappers and I was joining the Royal Signals. It was always theoretically possible that our paths would cross at some time but I chose to leave the Army after 5 years and so even that possibility became very unlikely. I did hear occasionally of Peter via mutual friends but even that was running out as I progressed in civvy street.

Fast forward to 1991 when I had recently joined a new software company and was responsible for their International Operations. I was doing one of my trips to Singapore where we had an office. I had finished there and was about to fly to Sydney when just prior to leaving to catch my flight I fell into conversation with a couple from Australia. As I was talking to them, someone reminded me that I had a plane to catch and must leave. I made my excuses and turned to leave and as I did so I heard the wife say to her husband, “ Doesn’t he sound like Pete Daniell” . Bells rang immediately and I turned back questioned them about “Pete Daniell” and decided he may THE Pete Daniell and got Peter’s telephone number , which happened to be in Sydney. Of course I called when I got into Sydney and ever since then we have been in contact. In fact we actually did some work together and we were instrumental in bringing the our direct associates from Sandhurst together for several reunions over the succeeding year. Funny old world isn’t it?
Let me get back to yesterday which turned out to be a pretty exceptional wine tasting. Of course I am going to be accused of bias but here is why I use the word exceptional. This is the first tasting, and we did the tasting available to everybody, where I was offered vertical tasting and we did four of them and secondly it was the first tasting where I was tasting wines older than 2000, the oldest being a Cabernet Sauvignon 1991. In fact we tasted nine wines out of 14 that were older than 2000. This was great fun as we were able to see the development of the wines.

We tasted four varietals from the Waverley range; Semillon, Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, three wines of each from three different years, from youngest to oldest. The wine tasting was led by Sandra who has been in the Hunter Valley wine trade for some time. We also tasted a new label wine, “Birds of the Valley”, which was a Verdelho 2007. This is the brand which will allow Waverley to add a range of wines that can be sold earlier than the Waverley range which is uniquely, or almost uniquely, aged for 6 to 7 years before being offered to the public. We also tasted a port type wine.

The last 2 wines are significant because I think they herald a new strategy for the Estate and one that is more obviously commercial. The new wines were good and I think will sell well and will protect the Estate and allow it to capitalize on its USP (unique selling point), the sale of aged wines.
However, that USP doesn’t matter if the wines are not up to it. In spite of the age we did not taste any wine that was “off”. All were good. I am not a great lover of aged white wine, I rarely taste it, I am talking about non dessert wines, and find that the fresh fruit taste that you get from white wines has gone in the older wines. I thought that the best wine was the 2000 Chardonnay which was fresh and lively and all in all a very good wine. It was the reds that really got my attention. I found all six be very good with the three Cabs being en masse better than the Shiraz, but I would be happy with any of them in my cellar.

www.waverleyestate.com.au