winelander

The degustation dinner has been and gone and from all reports was a huge success and upon reflection, I think we got it almost spot on, I say almost as all the wines were enthusiastically endorsed by the guests as I wandered around the room seeking comments however The Mount Riley Sauvignon Blanc, which was an absolute stand out with its excellent passion fruit aromas and steely acidic finish was, I felt, a trifle too much for the salmon course and probably a Clare Valley Riesling or Viognier would have suited the bill a little better, even after 30 odd years of doing wine and food events you can still learn!

The Golf Club has decided to put together another evening which at this stage will be on Tuesday 27th June and will be Italian themed accompanied by wines of Italian varieties, these may be of Australian or Italian origin, interestingly it is claimed that in Italy there are close to 1000 grape varieties that wine can be made from! The entertainment will feature Steven Hyndman, a classically trained opera singer, and those who attended his last performance were blown away by his repertoire of popular classics, a night not to be missed. More information on the courses and wines to match will be released closer to the event. As usual tickets for this event can be organised through Catherine at the golf club on 3408 1457

Watching a drama show on the television the other night showing a group enjoying a get-together enjoying a bottle of wine reminded me how important wine has become in the lives of many Australians whose drinking habits have changed enormously over the last forty years or so. When I started in the industry in the early 1980’s most drinkers enjoyed a beer with their meal and those who drank wine mainly drank Port or a sweeter style mostly labelled Moselle, often out of a cask and many carried names such as Cold Duck, White Duck, Ben Ean, Bodega or RhineKeller, imported wines were also popular such as Black Tower, Mateus Rose and Blue Nun. Dry wines and red wines only represented less than 10% of wines drank and ladies probably about 2 % of wine drinkers of these styles, how times have changed!

The Australian wine industry was set up in the mid-1880s to supply fortified wines back to England where a taste for Ports and Sherries had become very popular, a style created by Portugal and Spain, where adding brandy spirit to white and red wine enabled them to be carried in barrels over a period of days on the ships without the wine oxidising and this also allowed wine from Australia to do the same over a period of months. Exceptions to this were vineyards set up by doctors, for example, Angove, Penfold and Lindeman. The wine that was produced was mainly for self-enjoyment by doctors and for medicinal purposes. However, the vineyards grew as friends and outsiders sought out these wines and the vineyards grew to become the household names they are today.

In the late 1940s, Penfolds wanted to make a more European style of red wine and sent chief winemaker Max Schubert over to Europe to examine the winemaking style of wines and the grape varieties used especially in Bordeaux. Upon return, Max made his first vintage of Grange Hermitage a blend of mainly Shiraz and a few other varietals, in Australia as long as a wine contains at least 85% of a grape variety it can be classified as the main variety, not as a blend. The finished wine was then presented to the reviewers of the day who all gave the wine the thumbs down describing the wine as one of the worst they had tried, Penfolds immediately instructed Max to stop making the wine. However, Max hid the wines away at the back of the warehouse out of prying eyes and for the next few years secretly produced more vintages, five years after the first disaster the first vintage was again presented to the reviewers who in harmony announced it was the finest red wine ever made in Australia. Penfolds immediately asked Max to make more whereby he told them he had made a further four vintages which is why Penfolds Grange is only ever released 5 years after the vintage, I was fortunate that when working for Penfolds I sat with Max at dinner when he visited Perth and asked him what his favourite meal was when drinking Grange, his reply was that he enjoyed a bottle most Sundays and his favourite meal was a meat pie with potatoes and gravy. When Penfolds took over Kaiser Stuhl, the company I was working for, the 1978 Grange sold for around 25 dollars and was often discounted to help sales, Koonunga Hill would have been around $1.99 on special and Bin 28 and 128 around $5 now Grange is around $1000 a bottle and Koonunga Hill still promoted at under $20!

In the next issue, we will put together a comprehensive list of what varieties are out there today in both white wines and red wines and what food generally goes with these wines, this should be interesting as many new varieties have appeared on the marketplace in recent years, many due to the changing climate and some can resist this change better than others.

Cheers, Philip Arlidge