barefoot
Forgotten Labels
Over the last few months, especially over the Christmas and New Years break I’ve noticed something amongst our friends, it’s the idea of “forgotten labels”. And by that I simply mean the idea that there are some wine labels out there that some of us swerve past, as we’ve had a bad experience or that we somehow associate with being sub-par. Those labels that we say “geeze I used to drink that all t...
De Bortoli Cask appeal
Australia has lead the way in many inventions over the years. From Spray-On Skin, the winged keel, the black box flight recorder, the ute even the humble Hills hoist and petrol lawn mower, the list is as long as my kids Santa wish list. But there is one thing that is having a massive resurgence in Northern Hemisphere, that Australia can lay claim to: the bag-in-a-box. Whether you call it goon, cha...
Voyager Estate
Since its creation in 1991, Voyager Estate has gone on to become one of Australia’s leading wineries. Set just a few kilometres from the Margaret River coastline, in Western Australia, the winery has gone onto win an incredible amount of awards over the years, both here and abroad, and has cemented its place in most cellars by gaining a Langton’s “Excellent” classification, the yardstick by which ...
Huntington Estate 2013 Red release
Sometimes it’s very hard for me to work out how wineries make money, especially the ones that decided to make excellent wines, but hold them back for aging. Not just for special or cellar aged releases, like a lot of wineries do, but they age their wines as their standard practice. Tucked away in Mudgee, north-west of Sydney and over the Great Dividing Range, lies Huntington Estate, a winery that ...
Shaw + Smith – Australia’s best SB.
I don’t drink a lot of Sauvignon Blanc, I struggle a bit with its flavour profile most are just too sweet, some too acidic, and some just down right smell like a tom-cat has taken a wee on a passionfruit vine. However with the weather warming I thought it would be a good opportunity to go back and look at one of the few Savvies that I will happily reach for, the Shaw + Smith Adelaide Hills Sauvign...
Seabrook Wines
The name Seabrook Wines will ring a bell for a lot of wine drinkers, or those with long memories at the least, having been part of the Australian wine landscape since 1878 when the family started WJ Seabrook and Son. Since then they have been involved in many forms – wine brokers, wine judges, exporters or negociants (the French term for a wine merchant who uses the fruit of smaller growers ...
Canny mooves….
A few years ago Tassie’s Moorilla Estate decided to branch out, and in a massive way. The winery was established in 1958 by Italian-Australian Claudio Alcorso, and in 2001 current owner, David Walsh, established a museum (MONA) on the wineries grounds in 2001. He decided to add a micro-brewery to the site in 2004, aptly named Moo Brew, under the guiding hand of then head brewer Owen Johnston. Th...
MoCu (terrible name good idea)
Towards the back end of last year Lion, the brewery behind names such as James Squire, XXXX and Tooheys, launched their own e-commerce platform, called MoCU, which stands for Modern Curations Gallery, as an external retail channel for single batch/limited release beers from their range of breweries, both here and the beers they import. I think the move has been long overdue, from any of the Austra...
The Lord Nelson Brewery
The Lord Nelson pub is possibly Australia’s oldest hotel, and is definitely the oldest continually licensed hotel, still trading on its original site. On 29th June 1831 Richard Phillips obtained a liquor licence for the Shipwright Arms on the corner of Kent and Argyle Streets, changing the name to the Sailor’s Return the next year after the continual trade from seafarers and dock workers. The pub...
Coriole Vineyards
Just over thirty years ago a little winery in South Australia’s McLaren Vale, decided to take the extraordinary step of planting out a large portion of their vineyards with traditional Italian varieties. The family owned Coriole vineyards were founded in 1967 by Hugh and Molly Lloyd, on a site with vines that were planted just after World War I, and home to several original farmhouses that were bu...
Boag’s Epicurean
Craft beer snobs and Hop Heads can either make or break a beer, especially with the use of modern media like Facebook. Earlier this year, in April to be exact, the team at James Boag’s Brewery released a new label simply called “Epicurean”, two beers that were created to match with food. I have to admit it was pretty hard not to have a go at them immediately as they seemed to have flooded my Faceb...
ring.bolt
A few years ago, 2006 to be precise, Yalumba released a wine crafted by their winemaker Peter Gambetta. It was a cabernet sauvignon with the fruit coming from a cigar shaped parcel of vines inside Yalumba’s Menzies estate in Coonawarra. Unsurprisingly the wine was named Menzies The Cigar, which over the subsequent years dropped the Menzies part off the label to become The Cigar to avoid confusion ...