Wine Words

Veraison Chef's Hat Award

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:32:00 GMT

First of all I would like to say congratulations to our team at Veraison. We have received a chef's hat award from the Australian Good Food Guide. This is an exceptional accolade for our team, all the hard work is paying off.

I particularly enjoy matching the wines to incredible food coming from the kitchen. This week I have been particularly enjoying a little Pinot Noir from Veneto in ITALY of all places! A truly exceptional match with the quail. Customers enjoying the degustation at Veraison are particularly commenting on the combination.

Once again congratulations to all the team who are aiming to keep Veraison as one of the best restaurants in Toowoomba. Keep up the good work.

Sparkling Christmas

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:02:00 GMT

With Christmas only a few weeks away I am already looking forward to Christmas dinner. Normally the roast dinner in the middle of summer accompanied by red wine leaves me sweltering. This year I am going to be a little different and pour out sparkling shiraz. You get the same lovely deep aroma & flavour of a good shiraz with the advantage of it being served chilled. The fizz in the glass adds to the cheer of the moment of course.

Here are a few of my favourites to try.

Barossa Valley Estate - E&E Black Pepper Sparkling
Bleasdale Sparkling
Penny's Hill - Black Chook Sparkling
Seppelt - Silverband Sparkling
Peter Lehmann - The Black Queen
St. Hallett - The Black

We have a number on the wine list at Veraison. Why not drop in and try some for yourself? Even order some with our Christmas party specials.

Merry Christmas!

-Andrew

The Reinvention of Chardonnay

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 03:54:00 GMT

I was fortunate enough to be invited to “The Mornington Peninsula is Coming to Town” wine trade show in Brisbane last Monday. Of course the show featured predominantly Pinot Noir & Chardonnay. Both of these grape varieties thrive down there as they enjoy the cold ocean breezes blowing across the vineyards. Across the board their Pinot Noir was exceptional but I was particularly taken by the Chardonnay.

It seems that the lovely folk of Mornington are moving right away from the typical peach, nectarine & stone fruit flavours. They are moving more toward the leaner & tighter grapefruit-like flavours. This is a deliberate move to bring their style of Chardonnay closer to the French Chablis style. To me the difference was so stark that I thought the first wine in our master class had something wrong with it. As an avid Riesling & Semillon lover I happen to quite like it. That slightly sharper, zippy flavour & linear behaviour on my palate is something I quite like. My offsider for the day wasn’t so convinced. I will be interested to see if other regions will move in a similar direction.

Will it catch on? I guess only time will tell.

Buy a bottle of Mornington Peninsula Chardonnay from the 2009 vintage or later & see if you like the difference.

-Andrew

Pinot Gris. I just don't get it

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:03:00 GMT

This year I was fortunate enough to be an associate judge at the Mediterranean Wine Show here in Toowoomba. This was my first time and I found it a very rewarding & educational experience. However the one particular 'class' of wines which I found most difficult to judge was the Pinot Gris/Grigio class. I had read James Halliday's statements "judging this class is like judging different shades of white". I couldn't agree with him more! We had about 15 different entries to distinguish & they seemed to have the variability of a box of matches.

I have drunk both Gris & Grigio a number of times before & found them to be somewhat bland & uninteresting. This is more of a personal preference statement & hardly something you would base your show judging on. Nevertheless, I thought that in my wine drinking time I just hadn't come across some of the better quality drops yet. But a week after the wine show when I was notified of which wineries had entered the Mediterranean Wine Show that year I was blown away. There were some very big interstate wineries in the mix who had been making wines for a very very long time. These people who would have access to very good fruit and there would be no question about their winemaking skill. I had been scoring some quality Pinot Gris & Pinot Grigio all along.

For me now, I have stopped looking for the Holy Grail. Although one of my wine show companions said he would show me a great Australian Pinot Gris, I am happy to wait for that day. I now understand that this is all Pinot Gris & Pinot Grigio are: Certainly clean and crisp, probably refreshing after mowing the lawn, but for me, lacking in pizzazz. If I wanted that I would still reach for a Riesling. If Pinot Gris is the next big thing in white wine, I just don’t get it?! -Andrew

Wine on the Web

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 03:35:00 GMT

For a long time I have been looking for a website that offers me ratings & price comparisons on international wines. There is a plethera of these websites for Australian wines, winecompanion.com, jeremyoliver.com and many others. Now, finally, I have found a website that does this for international wines as well as Australian.

If you are into your French, Italian, German, South African & US wines you need to check out www.vinopedia.com It's free and it's fantastic.

Their database is huge and access both the Winespectator & Robert Parkers webpages for further tasting notes & ratings. If you are subscribers to these pages you will have further access to more detailed information.

But the most usefull tool on Vinopedia website is the browser extension. This is a small download that interfaces with your web browser. Once installed, you can select any wine on any webpage, 'right click' on your highlighted selection & select 'Find on Vinopedia'. This will take you straight to any information they have for that particular wine. A mighty helpful tool.

There is a demonstration on how this works on the Vinopedia webpage. Simply click the icon below to have a look. Definately worth checking out.

-Andrew

What Wine From Where?

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:26:00 GMT

It has been long noted that certain grape varieties are suited to growing in particular regions. Perhaps the hardiest of all grape varieties is chardonnay. It will grow almost everywhere. However I don’t see too much chardonnay on the market that comes from the Northern Territory. Although this is an extreme, it highlights the point that there are grape varieties that grow well & make great wine in some places and not others.
Some wines are so temperamental that they can only be grown in very specific regions of Australia that offer the ideal growing conditions. Others are a little less fussy & will be found in a number of different regions. Below I have assembled a list of wines primarily broken down by variety. Under each variety, I have listed regions around Australia that are noted for producing some of the better wine from these varieties. This list is put together in broad brush stroke terms and is not the be all & end all of who produces good wines. As I have already mentioned above, some varieties are quite hardy and will grow well in a broad range of places. In fact one of the most exciting thing about trying wine is finding the diamond in the rough, the wine that defies the odds and comes up trumps under unfavourable circumstances.

Chardonnay

Although growing almost anywhere, the majority of the better chardonnays come from cooler climate areas. Adelaide Hills – SA
Geelong – VIC
Margaret River – WA
Mornington Peninsula – VIC
Yarra Valley – VIC
Tasmania

Riesling

Originating from the border between Germany & France where it is quite cool & mountainous. Look for Australian riesling from…
Adelaide Hills – SA
Clare Valley – SA
Eden Valley – SA

Sauvignon Blanc

Once again it’s cooler climate areas that provide better fruit for wines. It is little wonder then that the New Zealand sauvignon blanc are doing well.
Adelaide Hills – SA
Margaret River – WA
Mornington Peninsula – VIC

Semillon

A hugely underrated wine that loves the slightly warmer climates. The Hunter Valley has ideal growing conditions for this variety, season after season.
Hunter Valley – NSW

Sparkling

Given that most Australian sparkling wine is made from both the pinot noir & chardonnay grapes, go for cooler climate area.
Mornington Peninsula - VIC
Macedon Ranges – VIC
Tasmania
Yarra Valley – VIC

Verdelho

Originally from the island of Madeira off Portugal, this is a warmer climate grape that doesn’t mind a slightly wetter summer.
Granite Belt – QLD
Hunter Valley – NSW

Rose

Predominantly made from Grenache, Cabernet or to a lesser extent Pinot Noir. Look for regions that tend to grow these varieties well.
Adelaide Hills – SA
Barossa Valley – SA
Margaret River – WA
Yarra Valley – VIC

Pinot Noir

A temperamental grape that almost needs ideal cool climate growing conditions to set fruit. Cooler areas of Australia are by far the best.
Adelaide Hills – SA
Geelong – VIC
Mornington Peninsula – VIC
Tasmania
Yarra Valley – VIC

Shiraz

SA boasts the largest reputation for this variety. SA & some areas of VIC are similar in climate, soil type & terroir to the Rhone Valley in France.
Barossa Valley – SA
Clare Valley – SA
Coonawarra – SA
Grampians – VIC
Heathcote – VIC
McLaren Vale – SA

Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot

Heralding from the famous Bordeaux region in France, these varieties are quite well suited to regions which grow good shiraz.
Barossa Valley – SA
Coonawarra – SA
Great Southern – WA
Margaret River – WA
McLaren Vale – SA

Saluté,
-Andrew Smith

Rediscover Reds

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:26:00 GMT

As the weather starts to cool down again, I particularly enjoy rediscovering deep, dark & brooding red shiraz & cabernet. These are the wines that command time to sit and pondered over, rather than the glug & chug wines which generally make their appearance at barbecues over spring & summer.

There’s nothing I like better than to sit in a lounge chair, after a long night at Veraison and gently swirl something intense & red in my glass. The more things you can smell & taste in a wine the better. This is what is referred to as a complex wine. It becomes an adventure unraveling the flavours & bouquets of these beauties. I love the golden moments when trying to describe that familiar flavour in there that I just can put my finger on. Even more fun after you have had a couple.

This whole process takes time. The wine firstly needs to breathe to allow it to open up. A decanter will help speed up the process but a good wine will still need about an hour. Large bulbous glasses are great for swirling This really gets the bouquet going and allows the wine to open up further in the glass. This is ‘activating’ the wine for those who enjoy using correct industry terms.

For those of you who enjoy shiraz, look for Elderton Command, Peter Lehmann Stonewell, Yalumba Octavius, Penfolds St. Henri, Grant Burge Meshach, Jim Barry McRae Wood. On a local note I was recently particularly impressed with Symphony Hill Reserve Shiraz – gold medal winner at the Sydney International Wine Show

Cabernet Sauvignon drinkers should look for Penfolds Bin 389, Grant Burge Shadrach, Wynns Black Label, Bowen Estate, Vasse Felix Hetesbury. Local Granite Belt cabernet like Boireann Lurnea & Witches Falls Prophecy are certainly worth discovering.

- Andrew Smith

Tasting the Future

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:25:00 GMT

Last month I was able to try what could become the future for wines bottled in Australia. The bottles had been placed on my desk before I arrived at work. In a light hearted “think quick” moment a work colleague picked up a bottle and threw it to me as I walked through the door. With my coat in my dominant hand and my bag over my other shoulder I grasped with my non dominant hand and fumbled with the greatest of ease. The wine literally ‘bounced’ off my shoe and rolled away.

Sirromet are going green! They have released the first wines in a plastic bottle in Australia. Aptly titled ‘First Step’, their range consists of a chardonnay & a cabernet merlot blend. The bottles remind me of the elongated, tall & narrow cans of energy drink you see these days. Under screw cap & made of recyclable plastic. The amount of energy used to create one of these bottles is considerably less than their glass counterparts. The bottles are made here in Australia & weigh a fraction of a glass bottle. The carbon footprint at Sirromet is reducing by the minute!

The wine inside was a real surprise. After assembling a red hot wine tasting team we opened them up. Chardonnay first. We could smell it leaping out of the bottle and our glasses as we poured. This had an amazingly fresh, bright & zippy nose. Abundant stone fruit aromas left one member saying “I could sit & smell this all day”. Looking for more than just smell my wine I took it upon myself to run it across the palate. A very well structure palate & refreshing chardonnay. Interestingly the palate wasn’t as forthcoming as the nose but nonetheless it was well made. The cabernet merlot was a little more the reverse, slow nose & great palate. We worked the wine around & around the glass to loosen it up a little. Then as if someone had flicked a switch at the 3 minute mark the nose came alive. Lots of blackcurrant & tobacco leaf aromas. On the palate it was great. A good solid cabernet merlot with abundant fruit, & refreshingly, not too much tannin. This was a delight with the steak we were eating.

I assume people like to age wines so I was curious about the ‘best before’ stamp on the back of the bottle. This sparked some discussion at our table. We concluded that generation Y and their tendency to want things now won’t having this one sitting in the cellar for long. Who could blame them? These bottles were keeping the wines fresh & ready to go.

The future is looking very green at Sirromet. If this is the first step then I am looking forward to the second.

Let's Decant

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:23:00 GMT

At Veraison, as a matter of course, we offer to decant red wines. It simply makes them taste better. You will never make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but “every wine deserves a chance”, my wine principle always said. He was of course referring to decanting a wine or “letting it breathe”. It’s amazing how letting a wine breath can really make it improve.

Whether you are at a dinner party or in a restaurant, red wine sitting in a decanter always looks great. But it’s not all looks, what is actually happening while it’s in there?

The bottom line is this, fruit juice cannot be stored on the shelf & expected to last. Yet aged wine is the thing that wine drinkers love. So the wine maker adds a preservative, usually sulphur. Sadly though, sulphur tends to mask the taste of the wine. The best way to explain the effect of sulphur is to open young bottle of red wine & immediately try a mouthful. Sulphur is the sour flavour that wants to make your face pucker up. I have a few people at Veraison who open a bottle and think “that’s exactly the same as the last bottle of red that I had.” Sadly they think that this is just “red wine flavour”. Of course it tastes the same, all we have here is a big glass of sulphur flavoured juice. We need to remove this preservative.

Decanting is the answer. Sulphur is removed during the process of oxidisation. As air (in particular, oxygen) is in contact with the wine the sulphur is removed. The more surface area the wine has in contact with air, the more effective this takes place. This is exactly the reason decanters are generally bulb shaped. Pulling the cork out of a bottle does not let it breathe adequately.

You can purchase decanters from most home-maker stores. If you do not have a decanter you may wish to “double decant” your wine. All you will need for this is a clean plastic jug. Simply pour the wine into the jug then pour it back into the bottle. You may wish to repeat this process a number of times.

This is something you can try at home. Take 2 bottles of the same red wine. Decant one wine for a time, and leave the other wine sealed. Time is important. A young wine (younger than 2002) will generally take longer to lose a lot of the sulphur. Generally 2.5 to 3 hours. An older wine (2002 and older) will generally be under 1 hour. After allowing time, pour a glass from both the decanted & unopened bottle. With the sulphur removed you should be able to taste the juice which the wine maker intended.

- Andrew Smith

When Wine Becomes a Toy

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:13:00 GMT

It is widely known. As a well made red wine ages, it is more delightful to drink. The most expensive wine ever bought was a bottle of 1787 sauterne from Chateau d’Yquem for A$113 500. One would wonder whether a wine made the year before Captain Cook discovered Australia would be any good today. On face value this may not seem like a good value for money purchase, but this is not the point. If offered to hold onto the bottle, we would probably turn it down in fear of an imminent butterfingers moment. Like any collector’s item, the value of a wine is largely determined by it’s current condition & past history.

Penfolds ‘Grange’ is widely considered the benchmark by which all other Australian wines are measured. Whether you like it or not is a separate issue. ‘Grange’ commands attention based on precedence & history. At over $400 a bottle, it is not usually the bottle you open to have with Sunday lunch. It is kept as a collector’s item or drunk at a special occasion.

I met with an associate this last weekend who once owned a bottle of every Penfolds ‘Grange’ made since 1951. Realizing that he was never going to drink any of them he sold the complete set as a collector’s item for a 6 figure sum. Wine at this level is well out of reach for the majority of us. The question is then, at what stage does a wine cease to be a drink and move into the realm of a collector’s item?

The truth is you can collect any wine. If you are looking to start a collection, look for wines that will cellar well & therefore increase in value over time. Ask what other people have. At Veraison we carry some premium Australian shiraz from current vintages, right back to the early 1990’s. Peter Lehmann ‘Stonewell’, Grant Burge ‘Meshach’ & Yalumba ‘The Octavius’ are examples. These wines are robust & made to last at least 10-20 years. Most of them are drinking well now but in another 20 years they may become as sought after as the Penfolds ‘Grange’. However, the bottom line is most of us are limited by our budgets. This will largely determine what we put away as an investment & what will go into our glasses with lunch.

My selection will give a brief idea of some toys for boys available on the wine market at the moment.

Salute,
Andrew Smith

Feel Good with Wine

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:08:00 GMT

We all know that partaking in the odd tipple makes us feel good. Obviously prolonged excessive consumption is quite detrimental to one’s health. But there are a couple of health benefits which you may not know about.

In the 90’s, somebody smart saw the French indulging in high fat foods laden with cheese and thought, ‘why aren’t they all having heart attacks?’ They called this the “French paradox”. It turned out a steady trickle of alcohol was the answer. Below is a list of studies & the health benefits discovered. Those conducting studies were quick to suggest cutting down on excessive alcohol consumption, but hesitant on suggesting commence drinking as a health boost.

The blood vessels

We’ve all heard that a glass of wine is good for the heart, but it seems the effects more to do with the blood vessels. A study of moderate drinking men (2-3 glasses/day) showed a 35% reduction of cardiovascular disease. Wine reduces the build up of smooth muscle cells within your arteries & reduces cholesterol levels, thus reducing risk of hardened arteries. It was also noted that moderate consumption has the greatest reductive effect. Abstainers & abusers both had the highest risk of cardiovascular disease. (Dubbed the “U” curve.).
Fewer kidney stones for wine drinking women.
Studies at Harvard University showed that increased fluid consumption decreased the risk of kidney stones. No surprises there really. But of the 17 different beverages tested (including water, tea, coffee, juice & milk) wine came out on top with a 59% reduction.

Stroke Risk

A Danish study compared non drinkers with those that said they drank monthly, weekly & daily. There was a 16%, 34% & 32% reduction in risk of stroke. Interestingly there was no reduction associated with beer & spirit drinkers.

Prolonged Life

An American survey has shown that moderate drinking prolongs the time until death from any cause by 3%.

Lung Cancer

Male wine drinkers have a lower risk of lung cancer than those who drink beer & spirits. At 2 wines a day, there is 56% less risk of lung cancer than those drinking other alcohol. It appears that the antioxidant qualities in wine offer a protective effect. Which is nice.

Moderate Drinking Reduces “Insulin Resistance”

A New York study shows, moderate drinkers are less likely to develop adult-onset diabetes. Abstainers & heavy drinkers were twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as moderate drinkers.

Reduce Dementia

There is a link between moderate drinking & maintaining mental capacity. While this may seem amusing to some, there is studies that show appropriate levels of alcohol stimulate the release of Acetylcholine. (A chemical that affects learning & memory.)

Prostate Cancer

While moderate drinking showed a direct effect in reducing the risk of prostate cancer in men, wine was also noted for it’s ability to keep cancer cells from proliferating.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Surely there’s a catch. Yes, moderation (2 glasses per day) is the key. And no you can’t save them all up for the weekend.

So let’s feel good about raising a glass to good health.

- Andrew Smith

Local Produce

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Reading my newest wine magazine I was keen to find out who won the wine of the year trophy. To my surprise it was a chardonnay that was given the honour. Typically this award has been dominated by red wines. Then came a real twist, it was a Queensland wine grown right here on the Granite Belt. I was blown away. Having never tried this particular wine I couldn’t comment whether I agree with the judge’s decision or not but nevertheless this is an outstanding step forward for the Queensland wine industry.

There is no doubt about it, the Queensland wine industry is definitely moving forward in leaps and bounds at the moment. Winemaker skill & knowledge are ever increasing as is the quality of the fruit grown in the vineyards. I remember reading an article by the president of the Queensland Wine Association that commented that Queensland wines will soon be comparable to the historic Margaret River region in Western Australia. Other wine writers have read the same article & shunned the idea claiming that Western Australia even has better surf than Queensland! Regardless of who you listen to, the point is not that one wine region is better than another, rather they produce wines different in style. Certainly Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra in South Australia will be different to that from the Granite Belt, but the point is we can appreciate wines from all regions.

Certain grape varieties grow better in our Queensland climate than others. At Veraison we stock Merlot & Verdelho particularly. However Veraison also has Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc & Pinot Gris. Barbera, Tempranillo & Sangiovese all grow very well in Queensland. These are Italian & Spanish varieties whose climate is similar to ours. If you enjoy these varieties why not take a look at the wine trail through the Granite Belt called “Strange Bird”. It tells of the lesser know varieties and which wineries to visit that have them. A link to this website can be found on our Veraison homepage www.veraison.biz.
- Andrew Smith

Cork v’s Screwcap.

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:02:00 GMT

With spring fast approaching it will soon be time to crack open some refreshing whites. One thing is a given this coming season, you will be seeing less of the cork & more of the screwcap (Stelvin closure) on your favourite whites.

In the 90’s most wineries were still experimenting with stelvin. It was usually the cheaper end of the market that came with screwcap. You couldn’t blame the wineries for not putting them on their best wines, but it did create an aura of ‘cheap’. Now slowly but surely, we are seeing more premium products under this very useful tool. Is one better than the other though? Well it depends what you are looking for.

I have mixed feelings about this issue. Sure, having wines under screwcap saves me about 30 seconds per table at Veraison. But, call me ‘old school’ if you like, I love the sense of ceremony in pulling a cork. The need to get the cork screw in straight, the slight struggle to remove it, need to smell the wine making sure it’s not corked, the small taste to make sure the palate is still desirable. It is this theatre that adds to a dining experience! However, perhaps we should consider the winemakers view. There is no denying the longer aging potential of a wine that is sealed under screwcap & the freshness it maintains. Surely having your label perform better for over longer periods of time will increase your reputation. There is now no risk of having whole vintages & your ruined due to dodgy cork quality.

I was talking with somebody from the St. Hallett winery in the Barossa Valley about his riesling. Now that they are sealing this wine under screwcap, they do not need to wait for the riesling to lose all of the carbon dioxide (naturally occurring during fermentation) before bottling. Why is this important? Carbon dioxide is a natural preservative within the wine which means there is now an even longer shelf life as there is virtually no risk of oxidation. They couldn’t do this in the past as excess carbon dioxide gas would blow the cork out of the bottle. You may notice a slight hiss as you open your favourite white under screwcap. No the wine is not carbonated like a bottle of coke, rather this is the release of the naturally occurring carbon dioxide.

I was reading a series of articles last month about a 2005 sauvignon blanc that was sampled under cork 2 years ago. The wine writer then found the same vintage wine earlier this year under screwcap. After finding his notes on the wine under cork, he was surprised to find that even though it had been 2 years the wine under screwcap was found to be maintaining it’s crisp brightness a lot more balanced than the early release under cork. He rated the wine under stelvin a better wine than that under cork.

This proves to be an interesting experiment. Try to get your hands on exactly the same wine, one under stelvin, one under cork. This may take some hunting these days. Open them both at the same time & compare notes. It seems that wines stored under cork tend to age faster than those under stelvin.