Coldstream, VIC Australia
Boutique or Commercial?
Tasting in March 2015
By Sean Overpeck
I like to classify two kinds of wineries in this world, no matter what region the wines are from. They are called the Boutique and the Commercial. Which of these brands does Oakridge Winery fall into? To me Boutique is a small winery, but also can be a bigger one. A winery that focuses on the customer as an individual instead of just a number. Also it is a winery with a wine maker that produces grapes for his wines that are in large portion are not bought from other grape growers. Now these rules are not set in stone, because I have run into small places that treat you like a number, and don’t care as well. So I have been known to label boutique wineries as commercial and too big for their britches. A commercial winery is just that. Their label is available in every restaurant or store as a house wine, and they produce more cases per year then can be imagined. Their customer service sucks, and they are an example of a large corporation versus a small mom and pop operation. Some Large Commercial wineries can be good like Castello di Amorosa in Napa Valley or La Motte in Stellenbosch, South Africa, but most are not. This labeling that I do is not good or bad, it is just based on your personal preference. For Americans, some like the labels of wines like Acacia, Sutter Home, and Beringer, but these wines are all large corporations, lacking the finer qualities of customer service, and the art of wine making, by producing millions of cases per year, purchasing grapes from up and down the western coast of the United States.
Then you have boutique wineries that are the exact opposite. They are hard to find, not in every store, and produce a much finer quality product then the big names like Ghost Block Vineyard, Silver Oak Cellars, Hoopes Winery, Mirror Winery, Blackbird Vineyards, and Pahlmeyer Jason just to name a few. Just to show that it's not just the big boys, but the small ones that can be jsut as bad, you have two other boutique wineries, where one acts like it is a big to do and a large commercial style winery. Chateau Montelena Winery in Napa gained fame for wining the 1976 Paris blind tasting for the best white wine, which was also fictionalized in the 2008 film Bottle Shock. They let it go to their heads. When I visited them, the customer service was awful, the wine tastings were outrageous in price, and the quality you were tasting was not their at all. Then you have a small boutique called Gustavo Winery, also famous from the Bottle Shock movie, as Gustavo worked for Montelena before later opening his own winery. Very personable people, great quality wine, and Gustavo himself stopped working in the field and came to the tasting room when his wife called him and told him I was there. Good luck seeing that at Beringer Winery. So what is Oakridge Winery? A Boutique or a Commercial, lets see shall we…
Scroll down to read the main review
The best wines or wineries, based on the
Wine, Dine, and Play’s Favorites
That have been visited and reviewed on this site…
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Stellenbosch, South Africa
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Santa Barbara, California, USA
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Penner Ash Winery
Willamette, Oregon
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Rutherford, California, USA
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Asheville, North Carolina, USA
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Stellenbosch, South Africa
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Alexander Valley, California, USA
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Napa, California, USA
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Yountville, California
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Bergström Wines
Willamette, Oregon
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Yarra Valley, Australia
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Constantia, South Africa
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St Helena, California
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Napa, California, USA
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From vineyards home page:
At Oakridge we craft our wines using traditional methods and local knowledge built over 30 vintages to bring out the best of every season. Our Oakridge house style delivers wines known for their subtlety, elegance, freshness, purity ,balance and length. Our award winning wines consistently outperform their price points and are approachable and food friendly – in short, table wines in the true sense.
Main review:
Day two of the wine tasting at Yarra Valley was coming to a close. After doing two tastings in the morning after driving in from the southern end of Melbourne, eating lunch plus a tasting while enjoying that meal, it was on to the second to last stop at Oakridge. I was on a quick one week tour of Australia, and had just completed an eight month working tour at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. We were flown back to New Zealand, and from there to be switched over to a commercial flight to the United States. I changed my ticket up a little bit so I could enjoy some time in Melbourne and Sydney. This was day four and I would be flying to Sydney the following day. Melbourne is a wonderful city, full of great history, and even better dining locations such as Vu de Monde and Attica to name a few. I reserved two days of my trip for wine tastings here in the Yarra Valley, and only wish I had more time.
The Oakridge tasting room was surrounded by vineyards, and was in a modern and well designed architectural building, with a large and long second floor red awning with the Oakridge symbol. On a separate building was a labeled number “864” which at first I thought was just the building address number, until I did the wine tasting to discover that the 864 label was their estate and finer vintage wines. It means that they come from the best section or block of vineyards.
Inside the building you had a typical tasting room with awards, history of the winery, and of course a sales room. As I arrived, the winery was a half hour from closing, and there were a few other people inside, who were finishing up there tastings. The gentleman in charge of the wine tastings was doing some cleaning and restocking. I sat at the bar, and waited for him to get done with what he was doing. He walked passed me, saw me, yet ignored me. A few moments went by and I had to flag him down to request a tasting. He continued to his closing duties, and gave me a small brochure for the tastings and did the pours. He did not talk about the wines in great detail, so I relied on the paper tasting sheet as I went along. This lack of customer service was one area that puts Oakridge in that commercial area over the boutique.
Over the course of the half hour I was there, there were six tastings, to which their 2013 Merlot, and two of the 864 wines were my favorites of the group. These wines are listed in the sections for tasting notes below. As the closing time came around, I left and did not feel very welcomed, and very rushed. So is Oakridge a boutique or a commercial winery?
96 - 100
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is Extraordinary
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90 - 95
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is Outstanding
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80 -89
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is Above the Average
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70 - 79
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is Below the Average
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60 - 69
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poor / appalling / “Cac”
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Review basics:
Wine, Dine, & Play’s Rating
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80 Points
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| James Halliday | Oakridge 864 Chardonnay 91 -96 points depending on vintage. |
| All Accolades | Oakridge Accolades |
| Wines Produced | Red: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Meunier, Syrah White: Fumare, Chardonnay, Rose |
| Grape Blends | Red: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, & Shiraz |
| Regulatory | AGWA: The Australian Grape and Wine Authority |
Cases Produced:
Per Year:
30,000 Dozen in 2016
This or these wines remind me of:
James Halliday has high ratings for the “864” brands, and they were also my favorites on the tasting as well. In 2012 they were labeled winery of the year, and have a great number of other accolades. But with those accolades does it make them a wine worthy of boutique even though they are a large winery? The wine was good quality especially the 864 brands, and the tasting room was an inviting location, but the customer service was lacking. I compare Oakridge to Cosentino Winery in Napa Valley and the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Both of these like Oakridge produce good wines, but these wineries are both on the cusp of being commercial, but still nice wineries. So to my rating Oakridge is not a boutique but not commercial either.
Other Yarra Valley favorites on Wine, Dine, and Play:
TarraWarra Restaurant, Healesville
Dominique Portet Winery
Bottle Prices
(excluding taxes)
$£€¥ - Under 50.00
$£€¥ x 2 - 51.00- 99.00
$£€¥ x 3 - Over 100.00
$£€¥ x 4 - Over 200.00
$£€¥ x 5 - Over 400.00
**Currencies chosen reflect the world’s major travelers and restaurant connoisseur’s**
Wine Selction:
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Currency in the top wine producing countries: | Price Chart : |
2013 Oakridge 864 Single Block Chardonnay
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||
$78.00
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Australian Dollar (AUS)
|
$$
|
$58.00
|
United States Dollar (USD)
|
$$
|
£41.00
|
Great Britain Pound Sterling (GBP)
|
£
|
€53.00
|
European Union (EUR)
|
€€
|
$77.00
|
Canadian Dollar (CAN)
|
$$
|
¥377.00
|
Chinese Yuan (CNY)
|
¥¥¥¥
|
R895.00
|
South African Rand (ZAR)
|
R
|
$890.00
|
Argentine Peso (ARS)
|
$$$$$
|
$39,461.00
|
Chilean Peso (CLP)
|
$$$$$
|
$85.00
|
New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
|
$$
|
Oakridge Merlot 2013
|
||
$31.00
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Australian Dollar (AUS)
|
$
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$23.00
|
United States Dollar (USD)
|
$
|
£16.00
|
Great Britain Pound Sterling (GBP)
|
£
|
€21.00
|
European Union (EUR)
|
€
|
2014 Oakridge 864 Pinot Noir – Lusatia Park B-Block
|
||
$78.00
|
Australian Dollar (AUS)
|
$$
|
$58.00
|
United States Dollar (USD)
|
$$
|
£41.00
|
Great Britain Pound Sterling (GBP)
|
£
|
€53.00
|
European Union (EUR)
|
€€
|
Bouquet & Palette:
Wine & Grape:
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Nose (Bouquet):
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Palette Experience:
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2013 Oakridge 864 Single Block Chardonnay
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Pale straw with green hues. White flowers, green skinned nectarine, honeydew, flecks of cordite, preserved lemon, yeast lees. Complex, changing and intriguing
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Elegant, fine, complete, tight, mouth-watering. Integration of flavors, seamless citrus acid line to a logical conclusion of persistence and saline tang. Refreshing, precise and requiring time. Demands time in the cellar
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Oakridge Merlot 2013
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Dark, vibrant, purple-red. Very, fresh, youthful and bright looking. Dense ripe blackcurrant and blackberry, hints of vanilla pod and wet rocks, then poached plums and tobacco leaf.
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To taste, it is very tightly coiled; blackcurrant and cassis, amaro and new leather, tobacco leaf and cedar. Violet-chocolate liquers and rose gardens. Vigorous and fresh. Tannins are gravelly, but not coarse, and keep the fruit flavours in check. Very controlled, almost corseted for the future
|
2014 Oakridge 864 Pinot Noir – Lusatia Park B-Block
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All grapes hand harvested and sorted prior to destemming to open vessels for a 100% whole berry fermentation. Fermentation proceeded naturally and lasted 24 days prior to pressing to French oak barrels.
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The palate is juicy soft and round, laced with black fruit, raspberries, white pepper and spices. Very much medium bodied, this has beautiful line of acidity that adds length and balance to the velvety, gentle core of sweet fruit. A pure, fresh, fragrant wine.
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Head winemaker and CEO:
David Bicknell
Vineyard &Tasting Room Address:
864 Maroondah Highway
Coldstream
Victoria 3770
Australia
GPS Coordinates:
-37.687985
145.457512
Contact Information:
Tasting room:
|
+61 3 9738 9900 |
| Fax: | +61 3 9739 1923 |
| Website: | Oakridge Wines |
| Email: | Contact Winery |
| Social Media: |
Facebook Link |
| Twitter@OakridgeWines1 | |
Tasting Room Information:
Monday - Sunday: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
AEDT: Australian Eastern Daylight Time (GMT + 11:00)
Review by:
Sean Overpeck (CFE)
The Picture below was taken in
About Sean:
I am based out of St. Petersburg, Florida working in the food service industry for the past twenty years, and am currently with the American Embassy as the Executive Chef in Basra, Iraq. Formally I have worked with groups contracting in Afghanistan, Dubai, and Antarctica, also working in restaurants in and around Atlanta prior to the wars. I have also owned a catering company and served proudly in the United States Army food service program. The idea for the Wine, Dine, and Play Blog started in late 2012 after a trip to Jordan, when I was asked by others to write down the experiences from a few Jordanian restaurants, plus the wine from the region that I tasted, and locations of interest such as Petra, and the culture. Since that time, nearly 200 articles have been written on restaurants, including fifteen from the worlds top 100 lists of San Pellegrino and the Elite Travelers Guide; exotic world locations such as Dubai, Petra, and African Safari’s; food recipes & Grand Food Dictionaries; country cuisines such as Afghan and Peruvian; and of course wine from vineyards in California, Oregon, the Carolina’s, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.
TTFN
“I like cooking with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food.”
