Every week a group of us get together, the number changes each week depending on availability but the group ranges from wine judges to teachers and welders, solicitors and bankers and stay at home mums. All of us have different views on what we look for in a wine, how much of a wine we would consume in a sitting, how long we would keep it open in the fridge for or how much we would pay for a wine....
Growing up on his family’s farm in NSW’s Griffith, John Casella wanted more than just to run the little winery with a hand turned wine press. Over half a century later, Casella now oversees Casella Family Brands (CFB), a vinous empire that sells hundreds of bottles of wine around the world every minute of the day. In fact in the time it takes you to read this article, wine drinkers around the glob...
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...
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...
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...
50 years, it’s a long time to be in business. Most local companies don’t manage it, in fact a heck of a lot of national companies don’t manage it either. Those stats are worse when you look at wineries, especially ones that pop up in, what are thought of, as unusual spots. It’s hard for new wineries to get the label out there, and it only takes a couple of bad growing years for the profits to star...