White Wine
Heggies Vineyard Riesling
“There’s no beer left”. It was a movie moment. You know one of those scenes when there’s an explosion or something happens and there is no sound just the actor’s hard breathing, and then slowly all the sound rushes back to them? It was like that, I heard the words but I didn’t believe them….“There’s no beer left!” Probably the most dreaded sentence a man can hear, closely followed by “I’m l...
Best of 2018
With the year nearly over its time to look take a good hard look through the bottom of the empty glass at the year that was. There’s been a few noticeable trends this year, some of which have actually lined up with my predictions from the end of last year – that rosé will continue its steady rise and broaden its flavour profile to make wines that men will happily drink during summer, and that beer...
Botham Wines
I’m a bit of a cricket tragic. I’m one of “those” people that can sit there and watch a five day test very happily. I think what I love about the game so much is that it’s one of the few, if not the only game, where everyone will sledge the opposition player, but then applaud that same player loudly for a well-played shot, or when that person rockets a near unplayable ball down the pitch and you h...
Real World Tastings
I often remark on here about how when we taste wine around at our regular “Wet Wednesday” sessions that its quite different from how we judge a wine, or beers for that fact, at competitions. At a Wine Show you are taking a sip of the wine, aerating it a bit, and spitting, you’re looking at colour, flavour profiles, tannin and acid structure, mouthfeel and finish to name just a few points. Jotting...
Serve Sparkling like a Pro this Christmas
The warm weather signals two things …Christmas is just around the corner, and the inevitable Battle of the Bubbles is about to hit its stride. It’s also the time when everyone starts to look at their budgets for the upcoming Christmas, and starts trying to work out how they can afford it after dropping all their cash at the nags during the spring racing season. Sparkling wine has always been...
Wine Fridge 101
Summer is just around the corner and it gets anyone that has a wine collection, or is thinking of starting a wine collection, or heck, even just wants to be able to save a few bob and buy their wine by the carton, starts thinking about how to store the collection. Not all of us have a wine cellar, in fact what I refer to as my cellar is actually a spot under the stairs that has a three wine fridge...
Pewsey Vale – some of the most reliable Rieslings
Every year I write an annual “Year in review’ column, commenting on what I thought were the best red and white wines of the year, plus the best beer I had tried that year. Two years ago the white wine of the year for me was a toss-up between the ’15 De Illius Semillon and the ’15 Pewsey Vale Riesling. I ended up going with the Pewsey Vale at the time, simply because of its perfect drinking, the fa...
Aussie Chard
Australian Chardonnay is going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment. Some of the best wine writers in the world are comparing our most exciting chards to premier grand cru White Burgundy. During the 80’s chardonnay was all the rage, then suddenly everyone got bored with the same buttery, oaky “sunshine in a bottle” that we were getting. It fell from grace so quickly, entire vineyards were...