Who is Kim Brebach?
Kim Brebach is also known as the Best Wines Under $20 Guy to those who subscribe to his weekly mailer. However, first and foremost, he’s a wine lover, an unashamed Riesling obsessive and champion of the belief that great wine doesn’t necessarily have to come with a great big price tag.
'Kim is an outspoken defender of truth, justice and value-for-money in wine, and I respect his opinions, his passions and his convictions' - Huon Hooke
Kim's runs a website - Best Wines Under $20 - and sends out his Best Buys Weekly mailer to subscribers, finding the best deals from around the country at the best prices - a one stop weekly wine catalogue if you like. Kim prides himself on his independence, and his reviews reflect that: they're direct and forthright, so much so that some retailers have complained that they're 'brutal', and some wineries refuse
Read moreWine Talk
Read moreJust like great food and bad jokes, we believe the joy of wine should be shared... If you like snapping a pic of your favourite glass of vino, all you have to do is upload it to Instagram, tag @winedirect.com.au and use the hashtag #winedirectpic to be in the running for a free six pack of wine.
[caption id="attachment_2126" align="aligncenter" width="625"]
Instagram: @winedirect.com.au Use #winedirectpic[/caption]
Whether it’s a cracker of a food and wine combo or a snap of your favourite purchase from us featuring your pet donkey, we don’t mind so long as it’s got wine in it! We’ll choose the winning photo based on how much it made us laugh, cry or tell our friends about it in the last week of each month.
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
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 andRead more
We taste all the time and sometimes just for fun. Ali Kerr kindly brought in a 2013 Coriole Chenin Blanc and 2018 Piquepol from her recent trip to the cellar door in SA's McLaren Vale. The Piquepol pique'd everyone's interest.. light, bright, with plenty of complex green acidity and herbaceousness. It's almost a 'best of' of Chardonnay, Riesling and quality Sauv. Blanc. Our first thought was 'oysters' but sadly the instant food gods didn't deliver. (I swear we pay some sort of subscription fee?!) Alas, for a wine of the current drinking year, it showed bucket loads of promise. Who doesn't love a Chenin with a few years on it? Coming up to room temperature, this stuff is regal. It's clean and lingering, showing briny green apple skins, but also flinty stone fruits but unlike the sweeter versions found in WA's Swan Valley. Ali'sRead more
Read moreThis recipe comes as a Chinese whispers via a small kitchen in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA where some friends of mine brought it back to Aussie soil.
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"]Read more
Everyday Gourmet with Justine Schofield[/caption]
Feijoas. Love em or hate em? We found a mature tree out back of the office this week which was dropping ripe fruit and Elspeth Mark B and I got busy harvesting them like a threshing machine and shoving them in our heads as fast as we could chew. One of us may have spent sometime afterwards with our head literally jammed into a box filled with Feijoas. While the ‘harvesters’ love em, the office score line is about 50 50 – 50 in the love column, 50 in the – ‘urgh, that tastes like medicine or deep heat’ column. Either way, there’s a ‘kinda’ wine connection in as much as feijoa flavours can be found in some white wines, especially Riesling. Flavour wise Feijoa’s are a study in unusual contrasts, from both a flavour and textural perspective – tropical aromas with guava and maybe a hint of pineapple, then with strawberry and something decidedly green … the atavistic brain senses delight mixed with caution –Read more
Read moreQuite unlike like Miles Raymond in the awesome film ‘Sideways’ … if anyone orders Merlot, I’m staying. I am very happy to drink f%^&ing Merlot!
Merlot doesn’t get much love here in Australia – variously accused of being thin and reedy (region too cold) or soft and fat (region too warm) but rarely awesome, refined, structured or fruit intense. Much of the blame for Aussie Merlot being ‘crap’ has been ascribed to our clonal selections of Merlot – the most widely planted being D3V14, sourced from UC Davis in California in the mid 60s. It can make superb wine but it needs to be planted in the right sites and requires a lot of work in the vineyard to produce quality fruit. Historically most Aussie producers simply haven’t treated Merlot with that level of care. ‘Proper’ varieties, like Pinot, Shiraz, Cabernet etc have more time and money spent on them in the vineyard and winery because they yield a better return
Read moreI first visited the Cotswolds 5 years ago whilst on a music tour to London and all over Germany. We stayed with our good friend, Victor (Vic), who is everything you could ever hope for in a faux country England grandfather.
Read moreThis minestrone is dead easy and will make enough for you to keep revisiting over a busy week. Of course, the process is all the more enjoyable with a glass of vino in hand, but that's up to you. Ingredients: Glug of olive oil 1 brown onion, diced 2 carrots, diced 2 sticks celery, diced 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 large rasher bacon, chopped (bacon bones can also be used) 1 tin cannellini beans, rinsed 1 bunch kale, roughly chopped 2 fresh tomatoes, diced 1 tin diced tomatoes 200mL red wine 500ml vegetable stock (if you prefer a different stock, use it - I use vegetable for less salty interference) A couple of bayleaves Salt and pepper [caption id="attachment_2064" align="alignnone" width="625"]
Tuscan Minestrone.[/caption]
