On the 2023 Mount Pleasant red releases
I once wrote a book about Maurice O’Shea. Today, it’s his birthday, or it would be; he died in 1956. I probably should have stopped thinking about Maurice shortly after I finished writing the book but nearly 20 years later I still think of him when I go on walks. We never met, but we’re close. He was born into an era when all Australian wine was high strength fortified wine. His dad, essentially an alcoholic, died young, of liver disease. Maurice set about turning the Australian wine tide from high strength fortified to lower strength, ‘healthier’ table wine. In the process, Maurice, at Mount Pleasant in the Hunter Valley, became the birth of quality Australian wine. He didn’t just make table wine; he made great table wine; some of it, 70-odd years after he finished, is considered to be our greatest.
My relationship with Maurice is not special, because I share it with all lovers of Australian wine. We are all close to him. If there’s a flame in us, he lit it. Knowing this, today, I woke nervous, because I was scheduled to taste the latest releases, all nine of them. I knew that they were meant to be good, that it was a special vintage (2023), but also that the lands of Mount Pleasant had finally found themselves in a good place again. Maurice’s lands are being tended and loved in the way they deserve to be tended and loved. I was nervous because I was worried what I would feel if I didn’t like the wines, and even if I did, what I would think if they left me cold. There have been years in the past when this has been my reaction. I don’t want, though, to be ‘over’ Mount Pleasant. I don’t want to be ‘over’ Maurice. I want to taste the wines and fall in love - with the wine lands of Maurice - all over again.
Today was not about reviewing the Mount Pleasant wines, because my Winefront colleagues have already done so. Today was about saying yay or nay, to myself, in my heart. I wouldn’t have to think much about my assessment; I’d feel it.
I tasted a few, they were lovely, the Old Hill shows a little too much oak but is magnificent, or will be. Both the Rosehills are gorgeous. I moved along the line of wines, all in glasses. And then I got to the Mountain C Light Bodied Dry Red release.
I’m glad no one was there to watch.
Involuntarily, instantly, I broke down, or I did as much as you can over a wine. I often ask myself what I’m doing, why I’m here, why wine. And then this. This is a wine you want to take back in time, and serve to Maurice, and say Mate, look what they’ve done, look what you did. The concept of ‘home’ has always been important to me. For most of my life I’ve known where home is, though somewhere along the line I lost that knowledge; I’ve lived in different houses for long stretches, and places change, and now I don’t really know where home is, or where I belong. What I’m saying is, you bring a well to the table with you. The older you get, the deeper the well. I lifted the glass of this old vine Mountain C shiraz today and the contents of that well were suddenly up at the surface. It was because there, in my mouth, in the form of a wine called Mountain C, was a bloke named Maurice, and the feeling that I’d come home.
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REVIEWS
Mount Pleasant Mountain C Light Bodied Dry Red Shiraz 2023: The Wine Front
Mount Pleasant Rosehill Shiraz 2023: The Wine Front
Mount Pleasant Rosehill 1946 Shiraz 2023: The Wine Front
Mount Pleasant Old Hill Vineyard 1880 Shiraz 2023: The Wine Front
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“Its history as the birthplace of fine Australian table wine makes Mount Pleasant Australia’s most important wine estate. ”
On re-tasting the wines, maybe 36 hours later, I drew other conclusions. Its history as the birthplace of fine Australian table wine makes Mount Pleasant Australia’s most important wine estate. The best place to start on its range this year is the $45 Mount Pleasant Mount Henry Shiraz Pinot Noir 2023; this wine is the perfect blend of structure and oomph, perfume and delicacy. I tasted all the latest releases without knowing the prices, and the biggest surprise was that the Mount Henry Shiraz Pinot is one of the least expensive wines in the range; it was one of my favourites. Another wine that I perhaps missed on the first pass was the $100 Mount Pleasant Mountain A Medium Bodied Dry Red 2023; this is a wine with the tannin, balance and perfume to drink beautifully with some years under its belt; cigar box tannins are a highlight. It rocketed so far up my ‘most preferred’ list on this second tasting that it may well have topped it. The $65 Mount Pleasant Mothervine Pinot Noir 2023 is the interesting one. It doesn’t scratch the Pinot Noir itch. It’s one of those low(er) points, high(er) pleasure wines; it tastes more like nerello mascalese than pinot noir. The tannin profile of the Mothervine Pinot Noir is exceptional though, perhaps the best tannin profile of any of this year’s releases, and both as a drink and as a point of difference, it’s a beauty. It’s the wine that I’ll be buying.
“O’Shea bought an established 40-year-old vineyard in the Old Hill but it was only once he’d lived and tasted through his Hunter Valley region for over twenty years did he give birth to his own vineyards: Lovedale and Rosehill. In the world of Australian red wine therefore Rosehill is our Rosebud; it’s the vineyard destined for our dying lips, or it has the chance to be”
At the other end of the spectrum, arguably, is the latest edition of the historic Old Paddock and Old Hill line, formally known as $65 Mount Pleasant O.P. & O.H. Vineyard Shiraz 2023. If you called this wine the most traditional of this year’s releases, or the least traditional, you’d be right either way. The coffeed, creamy toastiness of the oak here, coupled with the extra bloom of shiraz fruit flavour, exudes gutsy Aussie red vibes. It turns to size where the other releases turn to execution. There’s spread to the tannin and ample stuffing; in a decade or two it will look the goods, though I doubt that this one will ever match my personal taste preferences. The headline acts of the O’Shea legacy are the wines that he created. Some of these wines were produced in recycled bottled, courtesy of bottle shortages in WWII. Great table wines hadn’t yet then been produced in Australia, and even though a small band of astute wine enthusiasts - very small, given that Mount Pleasant never turned a profit during O’Shea’s tenure - recognised the exceptional character of his wines, it wasn’t really until the 1980s and beyond, when the wines started turning 40 and 50 and 60 (and older) that the clouds really started to part, and the true majesty of the O’Shea legacy shone through. O’Shea’s wines weren’t just the best of their era; they were among the great wines of the world, beautiful in their youth, and exquisite in their dotage. In the (increasingly frenzied) hunt to experience the wines of O’Shea, the more beautiful and enduring detail is sometimes forgotten. This detail is the land O’Shea chose to plant to vines. O’Shea bought an established 40-year-old vineyard in the Old Hill but it was only once he’d lived and tasted through his Hunter Valley region for over twenty years did he give birth to his own vineyards: Lovedale and Rosehill. In the world of Australian red wine therefore Rosehill is our Rosebud; it’s the vineyard destined for our dying lips, or it has the chance to be. I returned to the Mount Pleasant 77-Year-Old Vines Rosehill Shiraz 2023 therefore with special interest. This wine is grown on the vines my mate Maurice planted with his own hands in 1946. You can’t drink a price tag and you can’t drink someone else’s point score; a good story, on the other hand, will enhance the taste of any wine, and this wine has a story. I didn’t drink any of it;I wanted to remain clear-headed. But I did sit and taste it, repeatedly, over the course of a couple of hours. It’s a wine that feels both refreshing and flavoursome; it’s a knowing nod, with a glint. There isn’t a lot of oak in this wine, it’s beautifully balanced and measured, but even so I’d love to see less oak again, and a whisper less toast. I’d love to see more tannin teased out somehow too. I say this because: in this 1946 Vines Rosehill Shiraz 2023, gorgeousness lives. You take a sip and wonder what wine can be, and what it might mean. You take a sip and you’re no longer lost; you’re connected.
Campbell Mattinson writes for The Winefront.
The Wine Hunter book. Published in 2006, 2007, 2016, 2017 and 2021.
