2019 Bull Lane Marsanne Roussanne

Brilliant straw colour with touches of green around the outskirts and a watery hue. Elevated apricot and peach aromatics team up with honeycomb, bees wax, some bacon fat and spice. Rich and texturally luscious in its feel the palate is filled with apricot, ripe peach and honeycomb flavours which are underscored by toasty oak and spice. A lick of fresh acidity provides balance. Finishes dry with a long rich cream tinged aftertaste.
Drink over the next 3-4 years.
Alc. 13.5%

Other reviews...
Simon Osicka is a Very Good Man and we have a bit of banter over the emails about all sorts, mostly about the shared cuisines of our eastern European heritage, but beyond that he just seems to have a knack for honesty, openness and doing things with verity. More so, he shares, so he took responsibility for sending me a little collection of Heathcote ‘Rhone white grape’ wines from a short list of producers, collated the notes by herding winemakers (emails included detailing what’s what in the wines, and I can see his to and fros to make it happen), and got the wines to me with encouragement to take a look at how these varieties are going as a health check for the region. Nicely done. So I did.

Winemaking sees no additions, though there is 24 hours or so of skin contact that seems to have lended some pucker and chew to this wine. The fruit came of McIvor Estate as part and parcel of doing some contract winemaking there, though Simon was enticed anyway having done work at J.L. Chave in the past and seeing the potential of the varieties there – a pretty good benchmark. The other wines submitted were Humis Vineyard Marsanne 2018, Tellurian Marsanne 2019 and Syrahmi La Bise Roussanne Marsanne 2019. The white wine bottle has similar features to the red wine pictured.

Textural white of immense character, quiet power and deep complexity. It weaves a tight path across the palate, lightly chewy, dusted with spice, all preserved lemon, ginger, green apple and green herb characters here. Understated and elegant, showing that in youth there’s freshness but this feels like a wine that needs to spread its wings with some good cellaring. All up though, it feels fancy, delightful to drink now, serious and good. Drink 2020-2035.
94+ points
Mike Bennie – The Wine Front