This mystery wine is Mount Pleasant Anne Semillon 2006 - $19.99 @ WineStar:
As McWilliams do with all of their premiums that undergo bottle aging, this wine was made and bottled unlabelled under screw-cap in 2006 with the plan to release as a Lovedale Semillon after five years bottle aging. Yes Lovedale. Ordinarily, it would be the follow up release to the 2005 vintage we featured in this weeks The WineStar Journal @ $39.99 (with a ridiculous retail price of $65). The same 2005 which has 2 Trophies, 4 Gold Medals and recently a 95 Point review from James Halliday and inclusion in his Top 100. Anyway, back to the 2006 saga.
A small amount of this wine was released as Lovedale to the cellar door club as an early release. I present Exhibit A: http://www.mountpleasantwines.com.au/pdfs/MP_newsletter_summ… which shows the wine offered in dozen lots as an early release for $34 per bottle. Presumably the wine would be held for 5 years beyond that and released at 'full tote odds'! This is not unusual practice; in fact it is a very similar scenario over at neighbour Tyrrells.
Last year the decision was made not to release the wine as Lovedale as McWilliams believed it may not quite have the cellaring potential expected from the Lovedale marque. They deemed that 10 years under screwcap was not enough cellaring potential. I suspect the thinking was that 95 points is an excellent score and great value for a $30 - $40 wine but the ambition for Lovedale is to be truly world class (97 Points) and hence only released in exceptional years. (Although Halliday "only" gave the 2005 95 Points and that has been selling off the handle for $39.99! So what is the bottom line? We have secured a decent chunk of the McWilliams Anne Semillon 2006 and are offering it for $19.99 - which is a fraction of the retail and one-half what the early release was offered for. I wouldn't be falling over to drink this as soon as it arrives either as I think the inclination may be after reading this. This is an excellent early drinker but will cellar in the short term, especially under screwcap.
Besides Tyrrell's Vat 1 and Brokenwood ILR Reserve, McWilliam's Mount Pleasant Lovedale is considered Australia's best Semillon :)
Yay a new vinomofo poster.
Seriously though tonester 837 posts all up, forget the $25 referral we should all send you $25 cash for the hard work.