To my opinion, winemaker, weather, soil plays equal important parts of making good wine. I only tasted 99 and 04 which it is before 05(last vintage of Dr Max), after 05, I don't think Lakes cab is an exceptional wine. But its chardonnay is far better, no matter the original char or the 3 hills from WA.
I saw you mention these couple times about buying wynns or Meshach or others at a very low price. Please share it when you buy it at that low price. I just wonder where and when.
I opened Thompson cab last night. It tastes spoiled, like Clarendon hill shiraz 14, very disappointed, may return the rest.
A good news story about the Thompson Estate. I will try to keep it as short as possible.
I decided to buy a dozen bottles of the Under wraps wine and got it down to low nines after egift etc. When I went to checkout it showed as being in stock just down the road so I could do a pick up, therefore I decided to do this. So, in I go and sure enough ready to go so pick it up and off to car and have a quick check, oops, it is Cab Shiraz.
So, back I go and the girl is most apologetic and off she goes to find the right wine and returns after about 10 mins with two six packs, checks they are CS and hands them over. I am just about to walk out and she asks if it is okay if she just does the transaction through the till to adjust the stock levels. Sure, no problem, so starts scanning and puts in 12x and scans and the amount pops up about $1080. We look at each other and I say it should be about half that and explain about the Under wraps (I get the feeling this doesn't show in their system.)
So, off she goes again as we decide it is the wrong wine, on closer looking it was 2015, but I couldn't see that it would make that much difference to price. Ten minutes or so later she returns empty handed with the Manager and I am thinking, this isn't going to end well. After a bit of pondering and explanation as to what I was expecting the Manager says to me that this all they have and was the year that important to me, to which I replied that I wasn't concerned as it had been a bit of a gamble anyway. With that she says something along the lines of 'Well it's not your fault we stuffed up so I am happy for you take these", which I was happy with. She helps me out to the car still apologising and off I go.
I get home and check out my prize and a bit of googling shows what I actually have is a 2015 Thompson Estate The Specialist which is $90 a bottle and is very very nice. Have to say I was surprised at the service, both girls were excellent at handling the situation, not that there was any great problem apart from the time involved which was about half an hour.
Happy customer.