Locally owned and independent
April 28, 2022
The Northern Rivers Times
WINE 57
Grape Expectations by Max Crus
Wash away your sins and put your blessings through the ringer This was to be yet another political column, because, well, there’s not much else going on apart from a global environmental crisis, a few species extinctions, a couple of wars, bit of poverty and housing stress, starvation and other health matters, and anyway Albo is crook, so in deference this is an electioncampaign-free column and won’t that be a blessing? What better segue then, to count our other blessings. The Prime Minister might be blessed having a couple of girls who look like him (poor things), but our house is blessed with an amazing washing machine. Actually, like kids, you are not so much blessed with a washing machine as with enough money to make the transaction with Harvey Norman in exchange for a thing that throws your clothes around and spins them until they are dizzy. You used to be able to make kids do that, except Whitlam outlawed it about the time it became un-PC to say how blessed you were that your kids didn’t work in sheltered workshops, a term that became un-PC at the same time. But I digress. Our washing machine has 12 settings, ‘Modes’ the manual calls them, but we’ve only had it six months so haven’t read that yet. Maybe it’s time because I don’t understand any of them. There’s ‘ECO 40-60’, which is a term applied to rock bands of the Whitlam era which I never
Gralyn Estate Margaret River Reserve Shiraz 2011, $120 Yes, that vintage is correct. It’s older than our dog, understood. Same with the washing and half the price. Grand fare, despite its minimalist machine’s. It’s not 40-60 minutes, 12.5 per cent, from one of Margaret River’s oldest it goes for three hours! Not very wineries (and first cellar door) boasting only four Eco, specially on Earth Day. hectares under vine, so it’s rare too. 9.6/10. There’s an ‘Express 20’ setting, which you would think means Gralyn Estate Margaret River Reserve Shiraz 2018, 20 minutes. Nup. It’s about 40 $120 minutes. It’s not often you get the chance to try a couple of ‘Cottons’ is another. What wines half a generation apart, nor be so indulgent. happens if you put synthetics in Lash out and savour le difference or dare to be accidently? Will it know? Ditto diffident and leave for another seven years. 9.4/10. ‘Dark Garments/Denim’. Can you use the term ‘Dark Garments’ still Howard Park (Great Southern) Arbor Novae Pinot or is that like ‘Blessed Children’? Gris 2020, $30 Equally, there’s ‘Woollens’, with It’s Earth Day, April 22nd, so get up and out a little hand beside it? What does there and do something eco. Use that setting on that mean? your washing machine or buy this wine or plant a ‘Delicates’? Mind your own new tree, which is what Arbor Novae means…the business. Is that the opposite of latter that is. Light, bright gris in a riesling bottle is ‘Outerwear’? appropriate. 9.1/10. Then there’s the most mysterious setting, ’Proofing’. Perhaps it’s Howard Park (Porongurup) Arbor Novae, Riesling something Germans do with their 2021, $30 clothes. Another Earth Day offering with art by Andy Ahh, washing was such a simple Quilty, so if you soak the label off carefully and chore when you were blessed with frame it, you’ll get your money back easily. Soft and kids to do it for you, after they round (both the wine and the art) in that WA riesling finished their shift in the coal mine way. 9.4/10. and Scomo was a boy. Oh, there’s one more setting, Richard Hamilton McLaren Vale Burton’s Vineyard ‘Drain/Spin’, which is clearly Old Vine Grenache 2020, $38 political or about wine-tasting, so let’s go the latter and spin and drain Gimme that old vine religion, it’s good enough for me. And so is grenache which hides its 14.5 per cent these until Albo gets back : under a bushel. 9.3/10. Max Crus is a Clarence ValleyRichard Hamilton McLaren Vale Hut Eleven Single based wine writer and Grape Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2019, $38 Expectations is now in its 26th Like Barossan cabernet, McLaren Vale’s are often year of publication. Find out more about Max or sign up for his underrated, indeed ignored, which is good. It keeps a lid on enthusiastic accountants and therefore prices. weekly reviews and musings by visiting maxcrus.com.au Wine-scribes do this deliberately of course. 9.4/10.
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