Pikes Wines Come to Town

A few years ago we visited the Clare Valley in South Australia and enjoyed the wines there.
The Clare is a cool climate area and is famous for its white wines, especially Riesling.
One of the wineries that took our fancy was Pikes. While there we joined their wine club to take advantage of specials offered during the year together with free freight and have been buying their Rieslings, including some excellent clean skins, and Pinot Gris ever since.
To celebrate the release of their 2012 wines they took their tasting room 'on the road' and we were invited to join them at Revisi's Hotel at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach.

It was a nice venue and I guess around 50 people turned up to taste the new vintage whites as well as some older wines including their reserve reds.
And they served some pretty good canapes during the night as well.
The 2012 "Traditionale" Riesling was of the usual high standard. The reserve "Merle" Riesling, while typically steely dry, seemed to lack something on the middle palate compared to previous years. But this is a very young wine just out of the tank and initial impressions can be deceiving.
The Pinot Gris was also of high standard.

             We have never ventured much into Pike's range of reds although the Clare can produce some good ones as we found out on our 2010 trip.
We thought the reserve Sangiovese and Shiraz particularly tempting and with the rather large discount and free delivery on offer for this night only, we succumbed to ordering a few bottles.
I am happy to say that my wine budget so far this year has not been exceeded.
Am still well within my end 2019 limit.