1996 Lindemans Pyrus

This was purchased on my trip to the Hunter Valley a couple of years back. I was pretty much fresh out of uni and we had gone up and stayed in a little cabin in Polkolbin. It was a little weekend retreat and drove up there in a couple of cars. We had stopped at a number of wineries, but at the Lindeman's cellar we tried a number of wines and this one had easily topped our list. I believe that almost every one of us had bought a bottle of this one. Perhaps at that stage, I was a cheap drunk so paying a premium on this wine was definitely a big deal. The irony of the purchase was that it was a Coonawara wine!

I enjoyed the fact that it was a varietal blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and malbec so it made smooth as well as being medium to full bodied wine so it was quite nice.

It had sat at my place for a number of years and I had never really cellared in a "proper" environment. I have since purchased a number of different vintages - from 1995 to 1999.

My father had wanted to buy this a number of times, but had been disappointed by the sales person selling an entire 12 cases to someone else. Last year on my trip back to the Hunter Valley, I managed to get another three bottles of magnums.

Over the years, I guess I have grown out of the $5 "special" cask wines (as they were a sorry excuse to drink - but I did hear that red wine has a lot of anti-oxidants, so who said it was bad?) Not by any stretch of the imagination am I a connosieur, but I guess I just want to try different types of wine so that I can fully appreciate the variety of wines available.

So I decided to celebrate and open the bottle this year and see how well it had survived its nine years. Unfortunately, I didn't give it enough time to breathe and settle before the first glasses were poured, but luckily dinner was longer so it opened up and was rather smooth.

Dinner was a scrumptous meal of oysters au naturale as entree, lamb cutlets with garden and potato salads, followed by lemon cheesecake. My stomach is growling just thinking about it!


It was definitely good to be able to spend my birthday surrounded by my friends and family this year and just being able to relax. Sure I had to go into work the next day. Sure I had been working late up until that point. But it was worth it.

I even managed to use my new wine glasses! (I swear I am not an alcoholic!).

Anyway, my birthday haul is below (except a lovely dinner I had at est):


In any case, it was great drinking that bottle and knowing that it kept well. My rating would be a 93/100. Ok, so it not anywhere near the Grange territory, but at least I loved it. Often the company and the occasion make a wine memorable.