The Northern Rivers Times
November 9, 2023
42 WINE
Grape Expectations by Max Crus
Max Crus is a Clarence Valley-based wine writer and Grape Expectations is now in its 26th year of publication. Find out more about Max or sign up for his weekly reviews and musings by visiting maxcrus.com.au
Phone fatale.
Max Crus
he problem began exactly two years ago which I know because a friend told me a new one comes out every year. They’re up to number 15. Back then a mate rang, excited, “Mate, get the new iPhone13, the camera is amazing”. So I ditched a decade of dedication to ‘Droids and did. Later we were chatting on (what I thought were)
T
our iPhone13s. “Mate, you were right, the camera is amazing but it’s a crap phone”, I opined. “Oh, I don’t use it as a phone”, he replied. I got the same feeling once when chatting to another friend - “Don’t tell me the score”, to which he replied, “Sure. Swans by ten goals”. Strictly speaking he didn’t and strictly speaking it was a good camera too,
but I wanted something else. Namely a phone. So, after two years of enduring a phone devised by marketing types for people who want to show off their packaging and couldn’t give two hoots about functionality unless it was weirdly eccentric and well, sometimes downright silly, I swapped back to the conspiratorial world of Bill Gates and Google, got myself
unvaccinated and a Samsung, again. Okay, I am no longer welcome at book club and trendy wine bars and can’t be in a text group-chat with iPhone types, and okay, I could probably still use an ‘airdrop’ thingy, but I don’t know what it’s called, and anyway, I only used Apple’s twice in two years. Okay, the face recognition was better, and the reception, but apart
from that, Mrs Lincoln, the play was pretty good. Yes, my battery now lasts for days and calls and texts and anything associated with them is a cinch again, yoohoo, and I’m no longer under the spell of Apple High Priests who made my music, purchases and, well, life difficult…hey, is that coercive control? Yet all is not as it seems. In my absence, Samsung have changed a few other
things in their phones that used to be good, but they don’t tell you that when you buy it, do they? Mate, you thought changing banks and electricity providers was fraught! Can’t go forward, can’t go back. Why can’t someone just make a phone with the best bits of both? Struth, winemakers invented rosé with the best bits of red and white, how hard can it be?
Greenskin Margaret River Rosé (Grenache) 2022, $25 ($150 per six pack). Who doesn’t like a best before date? Oddly, the Greenskin syrah does but this doesn’t so will live forever. The packaging says it’s unbreakable and who doesn’t want to test that? Very slurpable lunchtime, light, Provencal style rosé too, before the fun begins.
9.1/10. Greenskin Margaret River Syrah 2020, $33 ($198 per sixpack). Okay the packaging isn’t as sexy as some unless you are a die-hard greenie (like us), and you need to be careful when first opening the pack but once you have cleaned up the mess you can feel good about yourself while making yourself feel
good indulging in very respectable WA syrah. 9.3/10. Miss Zilm Clare Valley Fiano 2023, $28. As soon as you think there’s not enough interesting white wine around, you experiment and before you know it, you’re spoiled for choice. You can happily experiment with this one. 9.3/10.
Miss Zilm Clare Valley Watervale Riesling 2023, $28. Some rieslings, although lovely, are a bit too dry and acidic to encourage another glass. This is not such a riesling. Sharp enough but soft enough to over indulge if you’re not careful. Perhaps they could put a Goldilocks Zone on the riesling scale. 9.4/10.
Hinton’s Hundred Coonawarra Sauvignon Blanc 2023, $19. The fragrant grassy, passionfruity palate of sauvignon blanc is staging a proper come back and we should all get on board the Pullman carriage as we head into summer. It’s so much more fun than any of the pinot greys. 9.3/10. Hinton’s Hundred
Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2022, $19. Pretty sure ‘Hundreds’ are some kind of land notation somewhere between a block and a district, although in the modern vernacular is perhaps a gambling term. If the latter, spend your money on this instead… as the advertising suggests, “imagine what you could buy instead?”. 9.2/10.
