Lazy Ballerina Shiraz, McLaren Vale 2005

Ooh what a treat. Nic's boss at Small Gully Wines gave us 3/4 of a bottle of this to taste and it was lovely.

With 15% alcohol one might misjudge this as one of those big boring shirazzes. However, the fruit was smooth, and the tannins as supple as the ballerina on the bottle (ha ha ha).

Garnet in colour

On the nose were cherries, anise, violets, and a woody, minty, forest floor type of aroma.

The palate featured well-balanced medium acid and tannin (smooth, smooth smooth but still there and enough to stand up against some meat), a sweet spice like nutmeg, and on sitting, prunes and slight oaky vanilla.

Lucky us! We had with some pizza with a little spice, went ok. Recommended and drinking well now.

Quilty Patchwork 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Petit Verdot: MUDGEE

My goodness it has been a while! I've been drinking without thinking!

Last weekend we went to Mudgee ( 20 hour drive :S ) for a wedding, and made time to squeeze in a teeny weeny tasting at the Mudgee Small Winemakers' centre. Going down the sandstone steps into the cool cellar was refreshing, and as it turns out the nice Brazilian lady working cellar door once studied at the English school I used to teach at. Small world!

However, the range was rather confusing. I was unimpressed by the heavy sale of 'Rolling' wines (a gross mass produced wine in my opinion since I once had some on a plane once and felt ill), and they seemed to have these strange cocktail mixers and what looked like Henshke knock-offs. However, hubby tasted something he liked and bought it. Being on my Ps I only get to taste it now, so here goes!

Quilty Patchwork 2011 Cab Sauv Petit Verdot
Mudgee NSW
$25 at cellar door
14.5%

Ruby/garnet

Clean

Ripe red fruit
Something perfumey? Could be the violets
Meaty: Salami or something from the delicatessen

Full bodied
Medium acid
Medium tannin

Fruity
Minty
Bitterness: salty, black olives
Dark berries
Spicy herbal bitterness, pepperiness, from the petit verdot?
A little bit chocolatey
Black cherries on the finish which is long.

Warming and light but still full-bodied, this wine is ok. There's not a whole lot of fruit, but there are a lot of things going on in there that aren't fruit, which is kind of nice for a change. There is sweetness, balanced by bitterness rather than acidity. The petit verdot adds weight and I think without it this wouldn't be as smooth. We have been drinking a lot of Barossa shiraz for obvious reasons and it's good to bring the balance back to our palates! Heaven forbid we become those wine wankers who drink the same wine from the same region forever! NOOO!


Here is a picture of the clock tower/roundabout we got lost around. I'd like to go back to Mudgee and go to some real cellar doors!

An interesting read

Check this out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/24/lawrence-osborne-drinkers-journey-review

Someone wants to be Hemingway much?

G

Freezing cold in the Barossa, Riesling from a mountain spring

BRRRRRR!! 10 degrees celsius!
Whatever possessed me to drink a nice cold glass of Riesling on a day like this? Well, it was given to me by a lovely elderly couple who are completely beautiful, and it's local. So I had to try it.


Dandelion Vineyards- Eden Valley
Riesling 2012
12%

Clear pale lemon

Nose:

Mineral, stone, metallic
Green apple
Lemon
Honeydew melon
Almond

Palate:

Light to medium body
High acid
Low tannin
Lemon
Boy choy (Nic reckons there's bok choy in everything that tastes slightly bitter, I think it might be more like grapefruit)
Mineral- water from a mountain spring (granite)

Like a cool refreshing zippy nude swim in a mountain pool. A bit crazy on a winter's day but nice with some Barossa Valley Cheese Company cheese (the Princessa), some mushroom risotto, and a rug.

xo G

2009 Domaine Cavailes Covee Coralie (Carignan/Grenache/Shiraz) AOC Minervois

Appelation Minervois. The vines sit along a valley, near the town of Minerve, which is a pretty special place. It looks kind of like this:

The town is on a big rocky outcrop, and hardly anyone lives up there. Worth visiting though, and the wine was surprisingly good. A little high in alcohol but an interesting blend. They have quite a few different percentage blends, some more Grenachey, some Shirazzy etc.

2009 Domaine Cavailes
Covee Coralie (Carignan/Grenache and Shiraz)
AOC Minervois 15.5%
4.50 euros

Took a while to open up, but has complexity. Initial bitter nutmeg finish was taken over by raspberry and cassis. It was great to identify the three varietals moving in and out like a dance. It lingers well.

Deep ruby

Nose:

Clean
Nutmeg
Black pepper
Raspberry
Blackberries
Cassis
Red cherries

Palate:
Dry
Low acid, high tannin, full body
Black pepper
Nutmeg
Red cherries
Cassis
Raspberry
Dark chocolate

G

2009 Caveau Lerac AOC Vouvray (demi-sec)

Now I've got some time I'm going back through ye olde notes to the wines we had in France while driving around, listening to Nostalgie (though obviously not driving whilst drinking, that would be silly).
haha http://www.nostalgie.fr/

Anyway, Vouvray is a lovely wine, made from Chenin Blanc grapes, from the Loire region where we started our mad old road trip.

2009 Caveau Lerac AOC Vouvray (Demi Sec)

Pale lemon in colour
Long finish, very satisfying wine. I thought it was beautiful and a welcome change from drinking the whites we usually get at home in Oz and Nz. We had some ashed chevre with it, and boy. Mmm.

Nose:
Clean
Pear & citrus

Palate:
Semi-dry
High acid, medium to full body
Lychees
Pineapple
Honey
Lemon rind.

Chenin blanc is naturally high in acid but it keeps longer because of this. I guess it tasted similar to an aged Semillon; you get more of the richer flavours which come with an aged Semillon. Yum yum yummmmm.


g

Sequel (Long Shadows) Columbia Valley Syrah 2007

This was a nice little package from an apparently brilliant winemaker.

Sequel (Long Shadows) 2007 Columbia Valley Syrah

This had great complexity when we first opened it, heaps of spices with a nice undertone of fruit, Nic said it was meaty like deli meat but I wouldn't really be the best on judging that one (as a vego). Mushroomy, leafy tones developed later but weren't overwhelming, as the fruit began to come out more. It hasn't hit its peak yet and could do with another year. Subtle, long lingering finish.

Colour:
Deep ruby
Clear

Nose:
Cedar (lots)
Mushroom
Smoked salami
Dusty
Leafy forest floor

Palate:
Dry, full-bodied, with low-medium tannin
Medium Acid
White pepper
Nutmeg
Black cherry
Black olives
Anise
Redcurrant
Meaty
Vine leaves

Yum with spinach, potato and tomato stew. The only thing left to note is that it had a moderate amount of sediment towards the end of the bottle.

g

Thorn-Clarke Malbec 2009

Whoah, hey, what? People make Malbec by itself? I've only ever seen it blended. But hey, anything's possible.

Nic and I just moved to the Barossa (oh well, Hi Maggie Beer, will you be my friend?) and the other day we visited the cellar door at Thorn-Clarke to do a tasting. I was pretty impressed by the Shotfire shiraz, however when we tasted this one we decided it was just a little bit spesh and we'd better get a bottle.

Thorn-Clarke
Malbec on Truro Volcanic Soil 2009
St Kitts Vineyard, North Barossa
14.5%
Cellar door price $35

Nice clear, deep ruby colour.

On the nose:
cedar
black plum
cherry jam
perfume-y violets
tobacco (cigar box)
and, I insisted but he didn't agree- mint.

The palate was complex and well balanced, dry and full-bodied, with medium acid, and medium-high tannins. We tasted:
cherry jam
sour cherry
cedar
black olives
cigar box
plum

The finish was medium in length and quite smooth.

I have to say I really liked this wine, we decanted it for about 20 mins and drank it with pizza. Probably not the best possible match, but you know me by now, I have funny little tastebuds. We managed to finish the bottle, which is a good sign.

G

Earthworks Barossa Shiraz 2011

I just wanted a nice glass of red wine. Is it that hard? I don't know, but my, the tannins on this were tough.

Earthworks Barossa Shiraz 2011, 13.5%

Garnet in colour

Chocolatey/oak, plums and prunes on the nose.

Medium body
Savoury high tannin
Medium/high acid
Slight Plum
Cassis? Can you have cassis in a shiraz? Is that just a cab sauv thing? hmmmmm.

Boooring. For a vegetarian.

Recommended for big beefy types who enjoy black charred steak and need something tough to wash it down with before going clubbing and starting fights with weaker lentil-eating-constitution types. And then eating more steak for breakfast before a protein shake of raw eggs and the gym.

And not sleeping cos they're MACHINES and they never stop til Skynet takes over the world!!!

g x

Rosemount Estate Traminer Reisling

Yeah so I'm broke. Don't judge me.

I was making blue cheese, walnut, apple and rocket salad for a friend, and was thinking Spatlese or similar. The man in Liquorland told me to buy this. It was $10. Hopeful, I yielded. ..Yeah, I know. :S

Rosemount Estate
Traminer Reisling 2012

light lemon colour

nose: citrus, melon, rose petals. Promising!

palate: fruity, rose, lemon, apple, fermented fruit.

Not a great balance of sweet and acid- overwhelmingly sweet, and not in a good way. Good quality off-dry reisling can have a lovely playful sour/sweet balance, but it's something that has to be just right. It felt like drinking sherbet.

And as for the traminer part, gewitztraminer is actually my favourite style of wine. However the lovely lychee flavours were absent and rose more like fake essence.

A bit of a fail! But we drank it anyway!

My fiance is back next week and sure to be bringing back oodles of excellently selected wine to taste, yay! :)

Plus, we will be moving to the Barossa Valley, South Australia (home of many many excellent wineries) in two weeks! Many hearty shirazzzes this winter. Hopefully I get a job selling wine and it's all go from there. Blogs galore! ..My poor liver... :)

g x

Wolfblass 2012 Eaglehawk Chardonnay Barossa Valley

Kicking off Easter long-weekend with some cucumber, hummus, and Home & Away. :)

Wolfblass 2012 Eaglehawk Chardonnay

I've been interviewing for a job at Wolfblass (fingers and toes!), and thought it would be a good idea to sample one. Plus, it's $9. :) They do do more premium ranges; this is one of  the 'cheap and cheerful' ranges.

Pale straw in colour

At first it smells like a Sauv Blanc (cats pee)
Grassy
Nutty
Apples and pears
lemon

Fruity, medium to high acid
Slight oak
Sharp citrus balances ok with the oak
Apples
Bitter grapefruit
Nuts (walnuts?)

Easy drinking. Good for a bbq or similar when you want to quaff something cheap. It does taste like they've sweetened it. Nice change from heavily oaked Hunter style Chardonnay, but not great. Fine for a $9 wine (liquorland).

g

Jansz Tasmanian Cuvee Vintage 2007

Jansz Premium Cuvee 07

A lovely little package, great in a spa with someone special.. so nice we decided to put it on the wedding degustation menu! Excitement!!

Based on Chardonnay with a touch of Pinot Noir from Tasmania

Pale lemon in colour.

Perfect acid/fruit balance, with a palate of creamy yeasty biscuity flavours, honeysuckle, lemon and a touch of  rosewater. Medium to fine beads. Medium finish. Summery and not too dry, not too fruity. Just right! Great by itself, no need for food, but you could do some soft brie or similar. Yum yum yum.

This is made in the same way as champagne, though since it's not from Champagne the place we can't call it that. In case you were wondering about the whole thing.

Please comment if anyone's out there..

g.

Yalumba Shiraz, 2011

After a long day, Loz and I feasted on roast vegetables and frittata, and opened this little $20 doozy.

It's easy drinking, with dark fruit like plums, a little bit of black peppery spice, and after opening up a bit we noticed (well, Lauren noticed) lovely brown sugar/muscavado/pascal's chocolate coffee eclair lollies.

The tannins were medium, which I think is good for a wine this age. Acid a little high but dropped away fairly well.

Very nice, I like. Could be improved by another years' cellaring.

g

Cross Country Fruity Lexia... worse than Voldemort

The apple juice of wine, do not let its sweetness deceive you. One can hardly call this wine, however you will get drunk if you drink enough of it. And like the poisonous liquid Dumbledore must consume in order to reach Voldemort's Horcrux necklace, it will make you keep drinking, and drinking, and drinking... until you dry out like some dessicated piece of fruit. The hangover is the worst part- having such a high sugar content makes your metabolism a little nuts. And the sugar headache.. oh my. The wine itself has no remarkable characteristics apart from 'juicelike', and 'grapey'.

Probably recommended for those who only drink alchopop chicks' drinks but can't drink wine, to drink from a wine glass to look like they are consuming real wine. ( I do this with cider for beer, quite useful til someone buys you an actual beer for their round). Or wine-pong. But students can do better. Hardly worth it!

BEWARE THE FRUITY LEXIA!!!!

g.

Katnook Founders Block Cab Sauv 2010

Rainy Saturday afternoon at ma besty's place, enjoying with some pods and 28 Days Later.

Katnook Founder's Block
Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon
2010

Plums, cherries, cassis on the nose

Palate
low acid
soft tannin
medium bodied
sour cherry
cassis
plum
mint

This was a great drop for $20, sitting around for a yarn and a drink without food.
x g

Bress Heathcote Shiraz

This one's been sitting written on hotel stationary as a coaster for about a month now.

Bress Heathcote Shiraz 2010 14% VIC
Biodynamic/organic

Ruby/garnet

aromatics:

Prune
Raisin
Oak (French)

flavours:

At first, a lot of alcohol comes through and makes it seem acidic but this drops away.
Savoury
Cedar
White pepper
Raisins
Cherry brandy turning to subtle plummynedd

Smooth, medium tannins
Beautiful long finish


The oakiness reminds me of a creamy chardonnay.

This is a quality wine which would be wonderful with some lamb, or maybe even goat. I'm a vegetarian but do remember the taste of meat.. mm. We drank this one without food which I think scarcely did it justice.
Go it!

Wideacre-Phillipa Gregory

Well hello there, internet. How are you? It's 6am and I'm sure you're tucked up in bedsies. Possibly with wine/book related hangovers. Mm nice. Anyway I've finally finished a book for you. Hurray!

So I scored a copy of Wideacre by Phillipa Gregory. She's a prolific historical fiction writer who wrote the well-known Other Boleyn Girl, which was made into a hugely popular film and I believe, spurred the Tudors series.

So there's always a lot of intrigue, sexy men and heavy-breathing well brought up ladies who want to GET IT ON! Woohoo! There is a whole genre of books like this, Historical Romance.. less romance and more Rape of History, however we keep Gregory in fiction, possibly due to her film status. Don't get me wrong though, I do love her, as an escapism master wielder of historical poonjuice. Yes that is what I mean. Or is it?

Wideacre is the story of Beatrice, lover of the land owned by her father, Squire of Wideacre. It's a Utopia, with fields and dark woods for 'doing all manner of things'. This is a racy racy book, however it has a lot of substance. I really cared about the characters (something which is very difficult to achieve as a writer), and there were light-hearted moments as well as tragic ones. (I mean really, really sad.) In fact this book made me feel so strongly about what was happening, it affected my life a bit. Giggling workmates in staffroom? Shuttup this book has made me angry! People on the train, Don't read over my shoulder or... :/ um. Just don't look.

Although some of the literary techniques Gregory uses are obvious, and a little trite (
ooh, a storm is coming...), she is quite good at building tension. Sometimes you can guess where the plot is going, but being so connected to the heroine (just tell the truth! Why make it harder for yourself, Beatrice!?), you're along for the ride, sucked into the vortex that is Beatrice's tragic life.


Sigh, I made that sound horrible didn't I. But it really was a rich, imagery laden, sexy, sad read. I give it 3.5 stars.

Til next time!
G.

Pieroth Serdinand Murfatlar

Pieroth Serdinand
2010 Cabernet Sauvingnon and Merlot Murfatlar
DOC CIB Romania 11%

This is one of those wine club best sellers and it was the last bottle under our couch, a traditional Romanian bortrytised red. I got excited because I love bortrytis wine but have never had a red variety.

I don't know if it was because it was cold, or it's the wine, but I didn't much on the nose. I had to stick my face into the glass. Some red dark fruit like plums and cherries, and what I describe as 'clag glue', a sort of musky-plasticky-blandness.

In the mouth it's sweet and sugary like grape juice. There is a general 'red fruitiness', as well as stewed prunes and figs, brown sugar and plum jam. The porty-ness of it is nice, and it's definitely easy drinking, and the low alcohol content means even though you chug it, it won't get you smashed immediately like some closer to the 14.5% mark.

We had it with a fish curry and the sweetness of it stood up well against the spices of the food. It kind of reminds me of sangria so it might be very nice made in to one of those.

All in all, a nice wine, not extraordinary as I had hoped, but... nice.

Next blog: review of 1st DOA book- Neverland by Neil Gaiman

La Prade Mari

This blog won't all be about France, I promise. However I did want to share the best rose I've tried.

It was a very hot, dry day and Nic and I were travelling around the town of Minerve, which produces the appellation Minervois. It was just after one in the afternoon and we realised any cellar door merchants would be closed for lunch. A great habit to have! This is how the French are so relaxed, I believe. We drove into this tiny vineyard and parked next to the cellar door, planning to have a look around. The next thing we knew, this stinky, scruffy guy with messed-up hair, sweating profusely, half asleep, jerks the wooden doors open.

Us: Ahh, hi! Bonjour!
DrunkenFrench Guy: Eeergh? Englese??!
Us: Australian. No Englese *shaking heads and making no no no hand gestures*
Dfg: ah. ughxgsydhfkbl#/^* in French.
Us: ah, *getting visual phasebook* degustation silvuplaayyt?*
Dfg: oui oui le vin!

and he pulled us inside.
We sat at the little bar and did a tasting, sam as anywhere, but with pointing to pictures of fruit in our little book. " le fraise!" "oui, le fraise!" and much smiling.

The vigneron tried to explain his biodynamic principles (fortunately the word is the same in English) and we decided that this wine took its deeper colour from that.

We got a couple of bottles, including this one drunk in 2012: (#the presence of tannin was unusual in a rose but gave the wine some fantastic depth. Yumm.

Domaine LaPrade Mari

AOC Minervois Rose 2011
Syrah 60% Mouvedre 20 % Grenache 20%

Deep red
Clean
On the nose:
strawberry jam
rhubarb
red cherry



palate:
dry
medium to high acid
low tannin#
medium body
red cherry
strawberry jam

slight raspberry

How Hemingway Ruined Paris

When I was young, I read 'A Moveable Feast' by Ernest Hemingway. And what an impression it had upon my romantic soul. To me, as I'm sure to many, Paris became this ideal. A wonderous, magestical place where starving writers went to the Lourve to feed on what they saw and be satisfied with a few mandarines. A place where one could stroll in the Tourilise Gardens quite alone with one's thoughts. Where one could spend an afternoon over a cafe creme writing, or reading. I was so excited to go to Paris. Sure, I knew it would have changed a lot since the early 20th Century. But its appeal was still there, right?

So, after driving around regional France camping and tasting vin with my fiance, we unloaded our stuff in our modest single room in a hostel in Montmartre. Probably our first mistake. Known as the home of the Moulin Rouge, it attracts millions of tourists each year, and is about as seedy as you can get. Our first night there, we had a disagreement and I ended up singing Natalie Imbruglia's Torn in a karaoke bar and having flirty conversations with the host about my phrasebook in bad French before stumbling up the rapey looking lanes to find the hostel. Not a great start.

The Lourve is closed on Tuesdays but they still let you in to the shopping mall ( goody), where the loo costs 3 euros and they have fancy toilet paper for sale. By the river tourists swarm and our plan for a quiet romantic picnic complete with Vireclesse were twarted by dumbshits taking photos of us. The ' real ' Paris. Puh! And some bitch of a lady screamed at me when I took a picture. I'll upload it. Hah!! "Take that, Frenchy! Chowder!"

We never found Shakespeares Books but I'm sure it would be disappointing, and the Eiffel tower and Arc- couldn't get a photo without a trillion people in it. Don't get me wrong, I understand large cities are all the same. But really, I thought we might have got a decent glass of wine, coffee or authentic French food somewhere. Alas. Poor Hem.

That said, we loved the Loire, Bergundy, Languedoc, Rhone and Champagne. Cellar door prices!! Woo!