South Australian Wine Options League
Round 4 Recap
Bar Septimus, 220 Grenfell Street, Adelaide East End
Eleven competitors, six wines, an average of 27 out of 60. Round 4 was the most demanding night of the series so far, and the scoresheets confirmed it. The lineup ran sparkling through two whites and two reds before closing on a sticky. Nothing came easy.
The selection this month was built to keep people honest. We opened with Croser’s Piccadilly Valley sparkling, which most of the table filed under Tasmania and moved on. Incorrectly. The two whites sat at opposite ends of the aromatic world: Grosset’s Polish Hill Riesling, all chalk and citrus pith, followed by Rockford’s White Frontignac, which smells like someone tipped rose water into a bowl of lychees and somehow made it elegant. Then the reds. Chateau Musar Jeune arrived from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley without a name badge, and fewer than half the room placed it anywhere near the Middle East. The Wynns Black Label Shiraz was twelve years old and well into its secondary phase, a genuine test of whether you have spent time with aged Australian reds or whether you have mostly been drinking young ones. We closed with Rockford’s Mayflower Cane Cut Semillon, dressed up with Sauternes and Tokaji as decoys. Most of the table thought European. They were not right.
Fine persistent mousse, green apple, white peach, and brioche toast. The Chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend reads as Blanc de Blancs on the nose, which tripped most of the table up on variety. The region was actually the bright spot: nearly half the field correctly placed it in Piccadilly Valley and resisted the Tasmania trap. The vintage was the hardest question of the wine, with NV catching most of those who went wrong.
Just over half the field picked the variety, that lime-juice-and-slate combination cutting through despite distractors including Gruner Veltliner and Aligote. The vintage landed at the same rate. The region was harder than expected: only 27% correctly placed it in Clare Valley, with Eden Valley taking most of the wrong answers. A forgivable call given how close the two sub-regions sit stylistically, but a meaningful separation on the leaderboard.
Listed under its traditional name, Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains, rather than the Rockford proprietary term, which would have given it away immediately. 55% still got the variety, driven by the unmistakable rose water and lychee on the nose. The vintage was the best-answered question of this wine at 64%. The region was the hardest single question of the entire night: only 27% placed it in the Barossa, with the aromatic intensity reading as cool-climate to most of the table. A wine that rewarded knowing the producer and confounded everyone else.
The night’s biggest curveball. The Cinsault/Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend was identified by 45% of the field, and four out of eleven correctly placed it in the Bekaa Valley. The vintage was the hardest single question of the round: only one competitor correctly identified 2020, with most significantly overestimating the age. Musar releases wines late and ages them well before release, which makes any guess at vintage largely unreliable. The reveal generated the best table discussion of the evening.
The hardest wine of the night. At twelve years old, the Black Label had moved deep into its secondary phase: leather, dried herbs, and a magnolia floral note that had people calling Merlot and various things that were not Shiraz. Only 36% correctly identified the variety and just 18% placed it in Coonawarra. The Terra Rossa signature is distinctive but only emerges with age, and most of the room had not encountered it at this stage of development before. The vintage at 27% was the one relative bright spot.
The closer was deliberate misdirection. With Sauternes, Mosel, and Tokaji as region options, the intent was to make people think European. It largely worked: only 27% placed it in the Barossa, with Sauternes the most popular wrong answer, which is understandable given how closely the honey and marmalade richness of a Cane Cut mirrors a young Sauternes. 45% got the Semillon variety, and 36% got the 2018 vintage. The Cane Cut method, dehydrating the grapes on the vine by cutting the canes before harvest, is largely unique to the Barossa. Rockford’s Mayflower is one of its finest expressions and a fitting way to close a round.
Leaderboard after Round 4
SAWOL is a monthly blind tasting at Bar Septimus, a wine bar in Adelaide’s East End. Six wines, three questions each, with points going to the people who can back their palate with an answer. The format is competitive because competition focuses the mind. You taste differently when something is at stake, even if that something is just your own credibility at a table of people you see every month.
The wines are chosen to take the room somewhere it wouldn’t normally go. A Lebanese red that most people placed in southern France. A Barossa sticky wearing Sauternes as a disguise. A twelve-year-old Coonawarra Shiraz that nearly nobody picked as Shiraz. The point isn’t to be cruel about it. The point is that you learn more from being wrong about a Musar than from being right about a Penfolds.
The league is open year-round. New entrants join at any round, scores accumulate across the season, and the wines are blind until the bottles come out at the end. If you think you know your way around a glass, come and find out.
The South Australian Wine Options League
SAWOL is our monthly blind tasting championship at Septimus. Five wines poured blind, points for guessing grape, region and vintage, and prizes on the night.
Catch up on the season
Book the next SAWOL roundSAWOL meets monthly at Bar Septimus, 220 Grenfell Street, Adelaide East End.