Events

Matt based himself in Epernay during his tour of Champagne. It’s certainly a pretty place and one of the major hubs in the region, along with Reims. As you might expect, lots of architecture from eons ago and pretty streets to boot.

Since the 1960’s the vast majority of Champagne has been produced without any use of oak. Most Champagne begins its life in stainless steel, where the juice is fermented, becoming a still wine. Stainless steel allows for easy temperature control and is much easier from a hygiene perspective than managing oak.

After the initial ferment in stainless steel, the wines undergo tirage, being mixed with an active yeast culture and sugar, which creates the ‘sparkling’ fermentation inside the bottle. After 14 months in bottle on lees (the dead yeast cells) the lovely biscuity, nutty toast characters we love begin to emerge.

That said the last 20 years has seen a slow return to the use of oak for about 100 producers, some simply ageing some of their reserve wines in oak, others maturing entire wines for a period in oak before tirage. Some use oak because it allows a gentle oxygenation of the wine, producing flavour and texture development, others looking to

We’ve been hinting of late of great things to come, namely the Champagne we have ordered from the prestigious Côtes des Blancs subregion. While we are not yet ready to reveal details of the Champagne itself, we thought it might help whet the interest of the Champagne lovers amongst you if we revealed the international Wine Expert we referred to in a previous post ‘Champagne is en route – and picking up resounding endorsements!’ To recap: we’re very chuffed to have discovered that an international Wine Expert selected one of ‘our’ Champagnes right up there amongst her Top 10 favourite Champagnes in a list published in an overseas magazine. Janna Rijmpa is a Dutch viticulturist, wine writer (for Decanter and Mundus Vini), wine consultant, international wine judge and self-professed Champagne Lover. Janna’s list of Top 10 favourite Champagnes includes many a prestigious Champagne and features Vintage Pol Roger Winston Churchill (which

The first shipment of ‘our’ Champagne is on the water and will be with us in about a week. We are not ready to unveil to you which particular Champagnes are soon to be hitting our shores, and more importantly, our warehouse, however we can tell you that we are very, very excited and can’t wait to chill and pop the cork of ‘our’ newly arrived French bubbles to ‘wet the head’ so to speak. We’re particularly tickled that since we placed our order an international Wine Expert who lists Champagne as their favourite drink, has given one of ‘our’ Champagnes a wonderful endorsement. This particular Champagne lover - not naming names as yet, however...

The Côte des Blancs, or ‘hillside of the whites’ is named for its predominance of white grape vineyards. It is one of 5 wine producing districts within Champagne and is planted primarily to Chardonnay. Along with the Montagne de Reims, the Côte des Blancs is considered to produce the best Champagne grapes and these 2 areas have the highest concentration of vineyards designated Premier Cru and Grand Cru. The Côte des Blancs has a reputation for producing the best Chardonnay in Champagne, allowing wines of great complexity, finesse and age worthiness. It provides the Chardonnay for many vintage Champagnes and prestigious bottling from the larger houses. The slopes of the Côte des Blancs face south east and east, situated on a bed of chalk which is very close to the surface, covered generally by just a little soil. Topsoils are generally only 30 centimetres deep so the vine roots into chalk at less depth than almost anywhere else in Champagne. This allows

We packed Matt up and bundled him off to Prowein in Dusseldorf and a few Champagne houses in France on a mission to find us some seriously high quality Champagne. There’s plenty of good stuff available from the bigger brands in Australia but we wanted some of the good and great stuff from the smaller, boutique Champagne producers to offer you. Prowein is the biggest and best organised wine event in the world, with 50 countries showing their wares and over 50,000 trade visitors from around the world coming to swirl, sniff and spit their way through 17 halls of magical, miraculous and mysterious refreshments. [caption id="attachment_1461" align="aligncenter" width="645"] Where to begin?[/caption] Matt spent 4 solid days in meetings

A simple premise, a simple plan... To break bread, share a glass and have a good old chin wag with some great people. This was the mantra we set out with when we first said “hey we should have a Grenache dinner to celebrate International Grenache day”. And after a few tweaks and re-interpretations, that is exactly what we ended up with on Friday the 19th September. The back drop to this was the stunning shop front and workshop that is home to The Props Dept and Justin Hermes Design. And a better place we could not have asked for to have our guests, no not guests, our friends, join us for dinner. First drop off the rack was Year Wines 2012 Mclaren Vale Grenache and the words I heard a lot were “SO GOOD” (and not in reference the Delta Goodrem endorsed milk!). A beautiful way to start off the night - Luke and Caleigh make small batch Grenache from vines dating back to 1958 and the 2012 was their debut wine under their own label - and a pretty impressive one at that. [caption id="attachment_1350" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Luke from Year Wines talking us through the process they used to make their delicious 2012 Grenache.[/caption] Kate from Richard Hamilton was on hand to take us through the Burton's Old Bush Vine Grenache story whilst we tried Georgie from El Choto's first treat of the night in the form of some Banderillas Gildas; pickled garlic, white anchovies and Basque pepper skewers. Both the wine and food were delicious - a teaser of what was to come as by now the smell of our Paella cooking away had filled the room. [caption id="attachment_1351" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Kate from Richard Hamilton sharing with us that the Burton's Old Bush Vine Grenache is the staff favourite - it's one of them at winedirect.com.au too![/caption] We ushered our mates through to the dining area where Lino and Nino were the stars of the next course - Andy and Angela introduced their Lino Ramble 'Treadlie' GSM to the crowd who sat down to Nino’s cured pork loin, some La Boqueria Longaniza Chorizo and Black Garlic - the added earth and spice of the GSM complimenting the cured treats brilliantly. [caption id="attachment_1352" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Andy and Angela from Lino Ramble sharing a few chiidhood stories[/caption] Cometh the hour, cometh the paella - and what a paella; slow sherry braised rabbit and morcilla paella with artichokes. The morcilla (Spanish black pudding) gave the paella such a depth of flavour that the 2010 Schwarz Thiele Rd Grenache had a fair challenge on it's hands to match it. But match it did and the combo was definitely a highlight amongst many for the evening. [caption id="attachment_1353" align="aligncenter" width="300"] This was one helluva paella - thanks Georgie![/caption] [caption id="attachment_1354" align="aligncenter" width="300"] 2, 4, 6, 8...[/caption] If Year Wines Grenache was a bloody good start then Oliver's Taranga Banished Fortified Grenache was a brilliant finish. The 20 year old fortified’s sweet vanilla and apricot flavours were the perfect foil for the Gorganzola Piccante and Cave Aged English Cheddar with caramelised figs. A perfect end to a perfect night. Self-indulgently I had set up a dining experience I’d liked to have gone to - sh*t-hot wine paired with sh*t-hot food in an amazing space with a soundtrack that included everything from early Misfits and the MC5 to Nick Cave, Neil Young and Elvis Costello! All with a group of people who seemed to embrace everything that food and wine should be about. Thanks to all that came - we had a blast! A simple premise, a simple plan... To break bread, share a glass and have a good old chin wag with some great people.

Ahh Phil, off on another sales trip interstate, so the rest of the team thought we might open up a 20yo Yarra Yering courtesy of Mark Bracken’s cellar (thanks Markie). We thought maybe we’d taunt Phil a bit, while he was on the road, enjoying chicken dinners and polyester bedspreads. So we sent him off this photo of us drinking a spot of Yarra Yering and munching of a few lovely cheeses (thanks Ali). The wine looked good, if a bit tired, still great acidity and pleasing sweetness of fruit. It had lost a bit of its high strung fruit and settled into its dotage though. Still bloody good for an Aussie Pinot well past being old enough to drink itself without having to show ID. Anyways. We told Phil it was the best Pinot we’d seen in years, and sent him this photo. Ahh, Fridays in the office, can’t beat em! [caption id="attachment_1314" align="aligncenter" width="452"]

I love people who jump in and then find out how cold the water is, people who listen to that obscure concept album from an unknown Swedish black metal act before judging it. And I really love people who put their faith in a wine tasting where there is very little Shiraz and no Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay or Riesling within cooee! In Europe this would have been a wine tasting, here in Adelaide it was a showcase of the less known! And as the many people who rocked into the National Wine Centre on Saturday came with eager faces it was clear that people are ready or at the least interested in something new. With help from some friends at Lino Ramble, 919 Wines, Chalk Hill, Coriole and Geoff Hardy we drew up a set list that included Dolcetto, Teroledgo, Petit Manseng, GSM’s and Rousanne Marsanne Viognier amongst others. For good measure the guys at Chalk hill (in between trying to stitch up Andy from Lino with a very very peppery - literally - glass of wine!) were kind enough