barefoot
Look on the lager side of life
Strewth it’s been warm in FNQ the last few weeks, even with the rain we’ve had its still been stinking hot. So hot in fact that I’ve found it changes my beer drinking habits. I’m on record as saying that I prefer the fuller flavoured beers, which in Australian beers generally means the beers in the ale spectrum, but it’s been so hot of late that I’ve found that I can only have one or two of those ...
New Wine Varieties
For some years Australian growers and winemakers have been leading the world with trialling new varieties, taking varieties that were almost facing extinction or had been pushed out of favouritism in their own native country and trying their Aussie hand at them. A lot of these have been varieties that our winemakers have gone onto use extremely well and that have created outstanding, individual an...
Kronenbourg 1664
It’s funny how you can look back and put your finger on a time when you started to enjoy something. When I took French at high school it started a bit of a lifelong enjoyment on most things French. The country is well known the world over for its food and wine culture. It has produced some of the best wines, cheeses, dishes, and chefs. I love the food, I love to visit the country, and I love the w...
De Bortoli “Top Summer Drops”
I’m often asked which wines we drink at home, and the short answer is a lot of everything, and it’s always changing, either because of seasons, changing tastes or the quality of a particular vintage of wine. Over the last few weeks we’ve been getting back into our summer wines; crisp and zippy whites, spicy pinots and reds that are best when chilled. However when I say chilled I don’t mean cold, w...
Nanny Goat Vineyards
With the weather heating back up again recently, it’s been time to start looking at those wines for the warmer months. Gone are the days of being able to pull out a bottle of big, bold Barossa red. I find that we start to drink more of the whites, rosés and pinots. Any regular reader of this column will know I’m a huge fan of Pinot Noir, it’s a wine that I drink all year round, from the light drin...
Giant Steps Yarra Valley Syrah 2015
Giant Steps Yarra Valley Syrah 2015 – a great example of what can be achieved with Yarra Shiraz, grown on the Sexton and Tarraford vineyards. It’s a big flavourful wine, dried herbs, dark cherry and plum, black pepper, very light notes of eucalypt and clove. This is a pretty classy wine. RRP $35.
Yalumba’s Little Brothers
Back in 2009 the lads at Winefront nominated the 2007 Yalumba Scribbler Cabernet Shiraz as their #1 in the Top 100 under $20 in the 09/10 Big Red Wine Book. By the time that Gourmet Traveller Wine had decided to jump in and give the 07 Scribbler a pretty solid 94 points, I’d already bought a few bottles and put them away in the cool dark lonely spot. Last week I finally cracked the cap of a couple...
Mike Press Wines
I’m often asked what the best value wine is, and it often has me stumped. It’s the idea of value that gets me, for example I hardly ever go past $15 for an everyday wine. These are wines that may have an RRP of $24-$29, wines that are 95 points but have a real world price point of $15 -$20. I go to around $30-$50 for something that I want to put away, I can find great value in different labels at ...
Bridge Road and Bright beers
Well I’ve finally been able to look at a beer again after he huge week that was beer judging/king for a birthday week! Looked at a few interesting beers this arvo. Bridge road are easily a viable at most bottleos the wheat was good but didn’t float my boat. Think for the price point there is better out there…like Burleigh hef. Bright pale great nose that doesn’t follow onto...
Longview and gartleman
So end of school holidays means back to work! This week the samples were the offerings from Longview and gartleman. I was super excited about the gartleman after seeing their semillon perform so well with only just a few years of age on them. This 2016 is super young, light low flavours of soft green fruits, probably not as good as previous vintages right now, but for $20 it’s worth putting ...
Giant Steps Yarra Valley Range
I seem to be on a bit of Yarra roll at the moment, there must be something in the water down there as the wineries just keep knocking out great wine after great wine. Giant Steps is one of those wineries that’s always reliable, and always knocking out award winning wines. Whether it be in any of the three brands, Giant Steps, Innocent Bystander or Mea Culpa. And that’s in no small part to hard wor...