The Wine Front

2008 Chardonnay - "Fresh as a crisp, summer’s morning. It needs time to breathe, but once it’s opened up it’s full of almond and meal and grapefruit flavours. Love the length. Love those exotic almond tones. Gorgeous, piercing length. Tremendous chardonnay, no doubting it. Both rich and trim at once. Satiny texture, without it being syrupy or excessively oaked. Straw notes. This is up there with the best Savaterre has produced. 95 points."

2006 Savaterre Pinot - "Savaterre pinot noir is most commonly a muscular, tannic wine in need of bottle age to show its best. This release is in that mould, though it’s got a couple of extra tricks up its sleeve this time around.

What impresses me most about this release is the wine’s fragrance. It leaps from the glass with a tremendous perfumed complexity. Far more perfumed than previous releases of Savaterre pinot noir. Stalks, chicory, woodsmoke, cedar and dark. Brooding cherries. Flavours follow suit, with the wine’s acid siting hand-in-glove. Impressive. Gravelly tannin strikes from the mid-palate onwards. Grunt and perfume, with sexy cedary oak completing the performance. Keep it for a year, and then drink it over the following three. Rated: 94 Points"

Campbell Mattinson March 2010


Jane Faulkner

2006 Chardonnay - "A hard act to follow with the '05 so tight and outstanding but while this seems more forward, there's a lot going on in the glass from the plump stone fruit notes to the creaminess mid-palate. It's opulent but not heavy with the nutty, leesy notes adding to its exceptional length."

2006 Savaterre Pinot - "Tight and closed as you'd expect from a young pinot but with a decent decant, it opens up superbly to reveal enticing cherry, savoury nuances to an alluring sage-herbal character. Tangy fruit on the palate with a moreish slightly bitter note that sits alongside smooth, ripe tannins, terrific acidity and a lingering finish. A wine that makes you think."

Jane Faulkner, The Age: May 31 2008_ --LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE - All's care in love and wine


Winefront Monthly

2006 Chardonnay - "This is another beautiful release from Savaterre. It manages to be delicate and balanced at once and while there are tropical highlights it tastes of quality walnuts, grapefruit, white flowers and peach. Lovely texture and acidity - it's a wine that simply feels magnificent on your tongue. Is it a touch more forward than I've come to expect of a young Savaterre chardonnay? Possibly. Or perhaps it's just so gorgeously harmonious that it feels as ready to rip now as it will be suited to the cellar. For mine, I would drink this now and over the next four or five years - and I would expect to be wooed. Drink: 2008-2013. 94 points."

2006 Savaterre Pinot - "I drank a bottle of this with lunch last week and another bottle at dinner at home a few days later, and I'm still stunned by its quality. This takes seriousness in Australian pinot noir to a new level. When you first open it it's rigidly tight, deep, focussed and intense, its flavours a mix of dark cherries, sap, walnuts and cedar. Given time an intense aroma and flavour of dark, ruby rose petals comes forward, though it's offset by a deliciously sophisticated sting of bitterness through the (long) finish. If you have any intention of drinking this in the next couple of years, then you need to decant it for at least an hour or two. What this wine really needs is seven to ten years in a cool cellar - after which it should be magnificent. Big on structure, and big on class. Drink: 2014-2021. 96 points."

Campbell Mattinson, Edition: May 2008


Top 20 of 2007

2005 Chardonnay - "...Savatere - right opposite Giaconda and also planted on a south-facing slope - has joined the ranks of the very best chardonnay producers in Australia. Oxidative juice handling; a natural yeast fermentation in 50 per cent new French oak; 100 per cent malolactic fermentation and a long time on lees has resulted in an extremely refined and minerally wine with aromas of fresh pear, melon and fig, cashews and some complex mineral notes. The palate is restrained yet persistent with excellent structure, meaning this wine should continue to improve for at least another five years or possibly longer."

Campbell Mattinson, Edition: March 2007


Winefront Monthly

2005 Chardonnay - "I've been lucky enough to come across a few bottle of Savaterre chardonnay from the 2001, 2002 and 2004 vintages recently and while the 2004 is still closed, tight, and preparing itself for a long and beautiful future, both the 2001 and 2002 are drinking extremely well, especially given a couple of hours to open up, and not too much chilling. That being the case, it's fair to judge that this 2005 vintage wine will be spectacular in six or seven year's time - it's inordinately powerful and yet immensely reserved, its heart of grapefruit, minerals, chalk, white flowers, fresh almonds and pears kept well away from its sleeve. I have been looking at this wine for a tick over 24 hours now, and it's just starting to show the extreme class of its finish - this is a very lengthy wine, and one of supreme quality. Best of all, it tastes like a Savaterre - at the top of its game. Drink: 2010-2017. 96 points."

2005 Savaterre Pinot - "I'm in love with this wine. I've been obsessing over it for the past 24 hours, and to be honest it's been pretty damn amazing from about an hour after it was opened onwards. It's almost an Italianate expression of pinot noir - which is another way of saying that it is 100% varietal, but that it also lives inside its own skin. It's not at all sweet, it's quite bitter and daring on the finish, and indeed it has a sense of dry chocolate there even as a line of minerals crackles through the taut, dry frame of tannin. It's a very tight, ripe, savoury, stalky - and given lots of time to open up - kaleidoscopic wine. A few weeks ago I enjoyed a 2002 Savaterre pinot noir, and the good news is that it's just - just - starting to introduce some secondary characters, and looks like it will start hitting a long peak in about three or four years. This 2005 wine will follow a similar trajectory - and then some. It is top class. Drink: 2012-2019. 95 points."

Campbell Mattinson, Edition: March 2007


Gourmet Traveller Wine - Qantas First, Inflight Guide to Wine, Second Edition

2005 Chardonnay - "A funky wine with lots of wild yeast and biscuity yeast lees characters wrapped around a core of rich baked apple, ripe fig and rockmelon flavours, with a hint of preserved lemon in the background. The texture is intriguing, while the finish is bold and persistent."

2005 Savaterre Pinot - "A brilliant red with a bouquet that is initially of bright cherry and plum with funky forest floor and wild mushrooms in the background - oh, and a touch of bitter chocolate. It slowly unravels to reveal intense savoury richness and a delightful integrated acid and tannin tail."


Gourmet Traveller Wine

2004 and 2005 Chardonnay - "The Savaterre vineyard was close-planted in soils of granitic buckshot and clay in 1997, at 7500 vines per hectare. Its hillside location offers spectacular views over the Victorian Alps. The chardonnay vines have been producing one of the region's brightest stars since 2001, and in 2002, 2004 and 2005 a high standard has been achieved. The 2004 is the perfect Beechworth chardonnay, blessed with flavours of white flowers and hazelnuts, with heady nectarines and pears unravelling if you give it a shot in the decanter (yes, even for a white wine). The soon to be released 2005 is the estate's most reticent, controlled and cellar worthy wine to date; tight, linear and powerful, it's outstanding."

Issue: Apr/May 2007


Huon Hooke

"Some of the most inspiring new wines I tasted last year came from Savaterre..."

Huon Hooke, Good Living, The Sydney Morning Hearld, January 9, 2007


Winefront Monthly

2004 Chardonnay - "The best vintages are the ones that grow slowly in barrel, and that's what this wine has done. I was always confident that Savaterre's 2004 pinot would be outstanding, but for a while this vintage of the chardonnay - and I probably tasted it three times out of barrel - looked better than the 2003 but not by a great margin. Now that it's ship-shape and ready to go, the story is different. There's a special something here. It's not just about the fruit power. It's the crisp clean white flowers, the scent of hazelnuts, the puff of nectarines and pears. It's a very restrained wine. A very beautiful wine. And it finishes with lovely, elegant, sure length. This is as good as the 2002 chardonnay release, and possibly a whisper better. Drink: 2007-2013. 96 points."

2004 Savaterre Pinot - "You have to have a bit of faith here. It's a majestic wine of statuesque proportions, though I guess if you're going to say that about a pinot noir then you have to quickly add that it's nothing like a dry red: this is definitely a pinot noir. It's dark and brooding and intense, with thick black cherry churning and pulling deep into the back palate, the daring, dry, lengthy tannins drawing edgy undergowth-like characters along for the ride. This is a seriously structured, powerful pinot noir, made to brood long before it boasts. Sit it in the glass and watch, given time, the dance of fragrance slowly emerge - it's time will come. From the first time I tasted it in barrel its structure has been superb. It still is. Drink: 2009-2015. 94 points."

2004 Savaterre "Les Enfants" Pinot - "Savaterre has a history of holding its vines back until they're ready - the vines that made this wine were five years old in 2004 and yet still their grapes hadn't yet made it under Savaterre - and this year they almost didn't either. The pinot in 2004 looked so good though that Keppell Smith decided he'd make a "pizza wine" off the young vine material, and for a while he just planned to sell it off as a restaurant-only label in exchange for some top tucker. Problem was, the wine kept looking better and better in barrel. He'd used 100% stalks in the ferment but you'd never suspect it and with time it built delicious perfumes of red roses and plums and wood-smoke, the palate following precisely on. It's got lots of smoky, sappy, stalky tannin and a huge amount of interest, and while Keppell made it to drink young, I suspect that it's going to age a whole lot longer than he thinks. Drink: 2006-2011. 91 points."

Campbell Mattinson, Edition: March 2006_ --LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE - winefrontmonthly.com.au


Huon Hooke

2004 Chardonnay - "Justifying all the purple prose about Savaterre, this is a wine of great complexity and elegance; the bouquet nuanced and multi- faceted, the palate concentrated, powerful, rich; the flavours in marvellous harmony. Save it for you favourite lobster dish. Drink for 3+ years. 96/100"

2004 Savaterre Pinot - "Sappy, floral, sweet cherry, complex bouquet; deep, soft, layered palate, with stacks of flesh and fruit sweetness. Serve with duck confit. 4+ years. 93"

Huon Hooke, Good Living, The Sydney Morning Hearld, May 2, 2006


Gourmet Traveller Wine - "Pinot Report - Australia's premium pinot producers..."

"This Beechworth producer has done everything right since it was established 10 years ago. The impeccable site is expertly managed and now produces gutsy pinot noir of form, line and length. Owner / winemaker Keppell Smith designs his wines to reveal themselves slowly, and the 2004 - the best yet - with all its brooding varietal power, seems certain to do just that."

Issue: Aug/Sep 2006


Tyson Stelzer

2004 Chardonnay - "When I visited Keppell Smith, his 2004 wines were in tank, about to be bottled...Keppell describes 2004 as a kind vintage. "I'm really hoping that this might be my best ever, but it doesn't really turn to wine for me until it's at least three years old, so we'll just have to wait and see." Even before it's hit the bottle it's a very complex, spicy wine. Intense but elegant grapefruit, nectarine, lemon and melon fruit lingers amid fig flavours on an unbelievably long finish, perfectly balanced by cashew nut French oak and supported by fine acidity. 95 out of 100 points. (Excellent wine!) Best drinking around: 2006-201. Love it"

2004 Savaterre Pinot - "Savaterre is perched atop one of the prettiest sites in central Victoria, with 360 degree views of the hills rolling into the distance. This same site is also responsible for one of the prettiest pinots in the district. Keppell Smith has backed off a little on the oak in his pinot this year, using some five-year-old barrels in the blend. The result is an elegant but firmly structure pinot noir with lifted strawberry and perfumed raspberry fruits underlaid by big, fine, long, savoury tannins. There is great potential in the cellar here. March/April 2006 release. 92 out of 100 points. (Very good wine.) Best drinking around: 2009-2014. This bottle was a tank sample. Love it! "

Tyson Stelzer, The Top 500 Wines 2005 - 2006_ --LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE - tysonstelzer.com


Australian Sommelier

Savaterre's vineyard has been named in the top 25 vineyards in Australia.

"On the charts with a bullet – this time next year, once the 2004 chardonnay in particular has been released, the rating could easily move even higher. This, it has to be said, is a spectacular vineyard with spectacular potential, and as the 2002 wines show, that potential is sheeting through with a clarity that is shattering. And it’s the vineyard that is doing it. The south-facing slope that fronts into the teeth of the Victorian Alps, the ancient rocky soils, the high altitude, the warm summers and the cold, cold nights. This is a dramatic landscape and the truth is that the wines are all about that: the vineyard was only planted in 1997, all chardonnay and pinot noir, but the near-cinematic quality of this site is already blindingly obvious. The potential of this place is limitless." Ranked 22 out of 25.

Australian Sommelier magazine, March 2006



Winefront Monthly

______ "Simply, there's something about Savaterre. The great years boost it, the tough years prove it"

2003 Chardonnay - "Rattle the cage. Give it some air. Take a long look at it and see the aromas of rice paper rolls, pear, mineral and toast before a textured, layered, bitter, minerally-driven palate of extraordinary delicacy given the year...It doesn't taste like a freak-year wine; it tastes like a wine from the Savaterre vineyard; the best compliment. Drink 2006-2010. 93 points."

2003 Savaterre Pinot - "Think on the conditions; this is a year that should have spelled disaster for pinot noir. That it didn't is the biggest indicator of the magic of this vineyard I have seen. It's got the mystery, the magic, the complexity you desire. It's got minerality, flavours of baked earth, forest, rose, toast and tar, together with streams of dry, long, structured tannins...Drink: 2006 - 2012. 93 points."

Campbell Mattinson, Edition: March 2005_ --LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE - Adobe PDF


Winefront Monthly

2002 Chardonnay - "Tremendously austere and yet tremendously intense. Minerally, toasty, lengthy and balanced, it's got everything exactly where you want it. This is a crackerjack wine. This is the mark of a champion. Drink 2005-2010. 95 points."

2002 Savaterre Pinot - "Enough scent to make your head spin. Violets, cherries, dried sweet tobacco, earth and anise and five spice. In the mouth it's terrifically dry and varietal, yet still boasts a rummage of sweet, perfumed, floral fruit - it's gorgeous. Drink: Now - 2008. 94 points."

Campbell Mattinson, Edition: 18/19 November/December 2003_


Divine Food & Wine

2002 Pinot (barrel sample) - "The homage to Burgundy is certainly evident in this stunning wine. Dewy rose petals, reminiscent of a Chambolle Musigny, mix with a distinctive minerality and hints of truffle and leather, to form layer upon layer of complexity on the nose. The palate has elegance and power, with subtle fruit and silky, silky tannins. Stunning."
_
2001 Chardonnay - "All of Smith's wines are made for the long haul, which he predicts will peak at around six to ten years - and this is no exception. Only wild yeasts are used (including malolactic) and it undergoes 100% barrel fermentation in 50% new French oak. The nose has hints of hazelnut, "good" dirt and restrained stone fruit characters. The palate is lean, textured and intense and it tapers elegantly to an impressive minerality on the finish."

Sally Gudgeon, Issue 35 December/February 2004_


Gourmet Traveller Wine

2002 Pinot - "Head-spinning fragrance. Rummages of violets, cherries, dried sweet tobacco, earth, anise and five-spice. There's a draw of flavour through the mouth as shocking as a whip on a bare back, and a crack of pure varietal flavour as it finishes. Will cellar."
_
2002 Chardonnay - "Tremendously austere and yet tremendously intense - it's not quite like liquid basalt, but there's a distinctly stony, toasty, of-the-earth strike to it, and the longer you allow it to relax in the glass, the more it stretches out on the finish. It has a fine, finger-tipping line and length, yet a melt of richness, too, and its best days are well ahead of it"

Issue: Summer 2004


The Bulletin - "Wines of the Future"

2001 Chardonnay - "Keppell Smith quit the money markets aiming to create wines that would rival the very best burgundies. This is the second vintage from his small, close-planted Beechworth vineyard and it is an absolute stunner. Made in the manner of many top white burgundies – fermented with natural yeasts and bottled unfiltered – it is reminiscent of a premier cru Puligny-Montrachet. His pinot is eagerly anticipated."

Colin Climo, Deputy Editor, The Bulletin December 10 2003


The Australian Financial Review - "Beechworth Bliss"

2001 Chardonnay - "Savaterre's first commercial release of chardonnay from vines planted in 1997 is an excellent effort which bodes extremely well for this new, small producer. This chardonnay was made using a natural yeast fermentation, put through a 100 per cent malolactic fermentation and bottled without filtration. The result is a minerally, nutty, long and intense wine which is still quite tightly wound on the palate and so should reward after another three years plus in the cellar."

Philip Rich, AFR January 01 2004


Australian Gourmet Traveller WINE - "hot 100 wine experiences of the year"

2001 Chardonnay - "A relatively new producer from Beechworth, with a complex, elegant 2001 chardonnay, and a pinot that shows promise too"

Philip Rich, October / November 2003

2001 Chardonnay - "The next Giaconda, perhaps?"

Sharon Wild, October / November 2