Hard to find

Stuck in the bar and sweating a fair bit with the weather somehow hot and wet at the same time I got to try two special wines. One a 'not commercially available' and the other 'available but prohibitively expensive'.

Glenora Estate Merlot Cabernet Franc 2006 from Waiheke falls into the first camp. Certainly not a label I've heard of before and there's something quizzical in the packaging and the liquid inside. A pedestrian label is at odds with the stated intention to produce high quality wine and I can't get a handle on the wine itself as it teases wonderful flavours and then hides them in the next swallow. It has a lovely aroma of plums and berries, mixed up with olive and pencil shavings. The palate is distinguished by extemely fine, mouth-drying tannins that linger long after the fruit has fallen away but as the flavours tease in and out I get the sense that this may be because the wine is too young. The wine is not disjointed, quite the opposite, and it seems to be showing signs of quietly knitting into a rewarding whole.

I also had a bare whisper of the Providence 2002 left in the bottle after someone carelessly threw out the glass I was left to try. I may be about to be unfair as the wine had been opened the day before and it was the last, scraggy end of the bottle but the nose smelt old and was overlaid with mousy brettanomyces. Under this some red plum aromas tried to get out of the glass. It was better on the palate with a sharp burst of mulberry fruit and subtle spice but this feels to me like a fake. Mutton dressed up as lamb. A dowager in virgin frills. A little redcurrant fruit and a dusting of cocoa powder can't detract from what this lacks. Intensity, complexity and breed.