Wayne Direct

New Italian Wine Imports
Our Italian Imports have landed!

We tasted hundreds of wines earlier this year at the massive German Trade wine fair, Prowein, at the Italian wine expo Vinitaly and throughout various Italian wine regions. Overseas we tasted and reviewed the wines at least twice and then we did it all again as a panel back in Australia, tasting and reviewing the best wines from those shortlisted for consideration. We settled on a very select few - just the 17 superb wines which are now in stock. Drum roll please…

Here’s a little info on each of the wineries from which we have chosen to import these beautiful wines:

Ca’ de Lion is a boutique producer which has been based in the Piedmont since 1655, making wine for many, many years. We’ve chosen to start with two of their brilliant Barberas from Asti. These are exceptional examples of Barbera and we

Read more

Published in Events , Featured

on November 8, 2019

By Wayne Direct
Pindarie Wines
Pindarie first produced wine under the Pindarie label in 2005. They have 100 acres planted on their 750 acre farm situated on the Barossa Valley’s Western Ridge. Fruit from the Western Ridge inspired the genesis of Spinifex Wines and forms the backbone of JJ Hahn, Murray Street, Kalleske and many other top end Barossa producers besides. Warren Randal of Seppeltsfield fame has also been snapping up vineyards in this part of the Barossa of late.

Tony Brooks from team Pindarie is a 6th generation pastoralist. He restored the stone buildings on site by hand, in the process earning for Pindarie a coveted and difficult to get Barossa Trust Mark…

Viticulturist Wendy Abrahart spent 12 years at Penfolds, becoming their senior viticulturist in the process before setting up and continuing to manage the 100 acre Pindarie vineyard.

Read more

Published in Wineries

on September 3, 2019

By Wayne Direct
Wallaroo Wines
The Wallaroo Estate, located in the Canberra Wine District only 25 minutes from Parliament House in Canberra, comprises 300 undulating acres in the Hills of Hall area, with views over the Brindabella Mountains. Wallaroo Wines has about 100 acres under vine, yet make only about 800 dozen themselves from their best fruit. The balance of their fabulous cool climate fruit is supplied to several wineries rated 5 red stars by James Halliday, including Clonakilla, Nick O’Leary and Gundog Estate. The vineyard was established in 1996, with plantings of shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and riesling. It sits at an altitude of 560 metres, and includes plantings on a northern slope of decomposed granite. Climate conditions in the vineyard are similar to those in the vineyards of the Adelaide Hills and Clare Valley wine regions. Their winemaker is Dr Roger Harris, who with his wife Fay, established another successful local winery, the Brindabella Hills Winery. While Wallaroo Wines produce both still and

Read more

Published in Wineries

on September 3, 2019

By Wayne Direct
A Weekend in the Barossa Valley
With so many wineries to choose from, views to take in, shops to visit and generally "things to do" a weekend hardly seems enough time to take in what the Barossa has to offer.

Read more

Published in Featured , Tasting

on November 22, 2018

By Wayne Direct
Kate Laurie and Deviation Road - Champagne is never far away
A winters drive through the Adelaide Hills on a sunny afternoon is something that any Adelaide local should treat themselves to.

Read more

Published in Featured , Tasting , Reviews

on October 16, 2018

By Wayne Direct
Urban Wine Walk 2018 Wine-Down
Done and dusted for another year, the Adelaide edition of the Urban Wine Walk proved solid success as thrones of vino fiends trampled through the East End of Adelaide to experience a range of current wines on offer from some of the country's finest, including plenty of local talent. One of our WD family members Elspeth Love walked a purple stained mile on behalf of us at winedirect.com.au sampling a variety of wines. Some boutique, some well known, some less known, most of them excellent. El's pic for the day: Ministry of Clouds 2017 McLaren Vale Tempranillo Grenache Here are some snaps she took on the day. Don't be jealous.
Read more

Published in Events , Featured

on October 8, 2018

By Wayne Direct
Ali's Fondue Recipe
Read our last article on Fondue? Here's the recipe! It was the Seppeltsfield DP 117 Dry Flor Apera Sherry which won out on the evening - We tried the 2013 Sidewood Mappinga Fume Sauvignon Blanc which worked well and while we had Yalumba’s 2016 Eden Valley Viognier on the table we didn’t even open that because the sherry had already established itself as the perfect accompaniment.
Read more

Published in Featured , Food

on July 20, 2018

By Wayne Direct
What to do, with Fondue?
As the weekend closed in we all received an email from the wonderful Ali asking for recommendations on which beverage might make a suitable match for a traditional European Cheese fondue. Well, that set our taste bud imagination. The responses flooded in thick and fast with opinions covering every colour of the drink rainbow. The catalyst for most people's thinking was straight forward enough - cheese fondue, is thick, rich and quite involved, so something with acid is clearly required. White wines are an obvious choice, the acidity is there and a good chilling doesn't go astray either. However, bags of lemon and lime are not necessary the flavours you might be after with a serious dairy commitment (palate dependent, of course!) A few of us weighed in on personal experiences we'd had in Europe itself - and the answer came in one word: schnapps. Many Aussies have the wrong idea of what that word actually means. To cite Cambridge online: 'a clear, strong alcoholic drink made in eastern and
Read more

Published in Featured , Food

on July 5, 2018

By Wayne Direct
Wine supplied by winedirect.com.au for Everyday Gourmet Season 8
Here at winedirect.com.au we're more than chuffed to announce that we've supplied the wines for the 8th season of 'Everyday Gourmet' featuring ex-Masterchef and renowned television chef, Justine Schofield! The series is aired on Channel Ten, Australia. To stay in touch with the series, head to the Everyday Gourmet site. [caption id="attachment_2076" align="alignnone" width="625"] Everyday Gourmet with Justine Schofield[/caption]
Read more

Published in Events , Featured

on May 31, 2018

By Wayne Direct
Matt's 2018 Euro Trip
I was lucky enough to head off to Prowein again this year, then to Champagne and Italy. As usual Prowein was nuts, with 6800 wineries showing off their goodies from 64 countries spread out over 71000 square meters... I racked up as much as 14ks a day scooting around to meetings. Plenty of time in Champagne too, catching up with Bernard Remy, Champagne Bouche, Le Mesnil and Roger Brun. Found a spectacular producer in Grand Cru Ambonnay too... stay tuned for more on that front. The big news out of Champagne is the deeply held fear within the region that within 20 years there will be hardly any small producers left... and that perhaps this will also bear out in the Bordeaux, what with the big companies paying up to 7 euros for a kilo of grapes, vineyards now fetching 1-2 million Euros per hectare and recent changes to succession taxes. Now is a very good time to buy small producer champagne...

Read more

Published in Featured

on May 4, 2018

By Wayne Direct
#v18 - Vintage, the most wonderful time of the year.
The annual cycle of a winemaker is certainly a curious one. There's no denying though, that vintage is one of the most exciting times of the year. Organisation of machinery, pickers, transport, staff, barrels, storage, tanks, meals, sleep is key but nothing comes close to the final hours of checking Baumé levels and waiting for the final breath from Mother Nature signalling removal of the wonderful juicy fruit from the vines, often under the cover of darkness. There are those who irrigate and those who don't; those who spray and those who won't, old oak, new oak, French oak, American oak, timing and terroir - and for all of these exciting reasons, each glorious bottle of wine you encounter is different to the one even 100 metres down the road. Where years ago growers would leave the grapes on the vines as long as possible as to yield maximum alcohol and natural sugars from our Australian sun, winemakers are leaning towards fresher, more aromatic blends meaning grapes are lifted
Read more

Published in Featured

on March 23, 2018

By Wayne Direct
Lagrein
We are big fans of Lagrein here at WD and have been ever since we latched onto the magnificent Geoff Hardy 2013 Lagrein. It's taken us until now to find another one which we love as much – the 2016 Silhouette Lagrein…

History
Lagrein is one of those varieties which can produce exceptional wines in a wide variety of different climates. Its home is in the Alto Adige/ South Tyrol in Northern Italy, which is bordered by Austria, Lichtenstein and Switzerland… a properly cold place to grow grapes. In spite of this the fruit also gets some decent pulses of hear in the ripening period … and produces complex and long lived red wine with plenty of tannin and acid, low ph, minerality and huge flavours. They can tend toward rusticity with furry tannins.

In Australia
Lagrein can also excel in the Murray Darling and Riverland which are pretty much at the opposite end of the climate spectrum to the grapes' homeland. Australia’s

Read more

Published in Varietals

on March 22, 2018

By Wayne Direct

Wayne Direct

History

In Australia