Category Archives: Meta

Sorrenberg Gamay 2009

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Sorrenberg Gamay 2009

Sorrenberg Gamay 2009

Looking at the map, there’s been no shortage of Australian wines in this blog, but they’ve all been rather lazily from South Australia.  (To be fair, I did write about a Hunter Semillon but the producer is based in South Australia.)  While it’s true that South Australia does produce the most wine of Australian states, there’s plenty of great wine coming out of the rest of the country.  Today we’ll try an interesting one from Victoria.

I’m having a look at the Sorrenberg Gamay 2009.  They’re based just outside of Beechworth in Victoria, which is a bit over 200km to the northeast of Melbourne, pretty close to the New South Wales border.

Victoria has more than its share of fine wines and wine regions, with Bass Phillip of South Gippsland, Giaconda of Beechworth, and Mount Mary of Yarra Valley all featuring as “Exceptional” in the Langton’s Classification of 2005.  The climate in general tends to be cooler than that of the regions I’ve covered in South Australia, and Beechworth is no exception.  It’s a small and relatively new region, with modern viticulture only going back to the 1970s, and only merits a single line in the OCW.  The climate is described as sub-alpine, that is, quite cool.  The town of Beechworth  itself is at an altitude of over 500m, with some of the surrounding vineyards being higher still.  The soil is varied, with alluvial flats and less fertile but better drained slopes.  Sorrenberg describes their particular patch as granitic.

So Gamay is actually one of my favourite grapes, which makes it strange that I haven’t properly written about one before.  I’m still embarrassed I didn’t pick out the one we were served blind in the tasting section of the WSET Diploma Exam, but such is life.  Gamay is a red, thin skinned grape, best known as being the heart and soul of Beaujolais.  It has been all but cast out of the rest of Burgundy (though generally comprises the bulk of Bourgogne Passetoutgrains), but can certainly be found in the Loire and Savoie.  Outside of France, there are smatterings of it to be found, with California, Canada and Australia have very small plantings, though it is found in Switzerland, frequently blended with Pinot Noir.

Gamay suffers from being unfashionable, for a number of different reasons.  First off, it is a light red.  Obviously there are fashionable light reds, with Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo springing to mind.  However, generally the trend of late has been toward heavier, more full bodied reds.

The second problem is Pinot Noir.  I love Pinot Noir, but Gamay will always be in its shadow.  While they’re both Burgundian, they’re very different grapes, and are generally made into even more different wines, with Pinot Noir heading in the direction of finesse and sophistication capable of extended cellaring, while most Gamay is made into fruity, accessible wine meant to be consumed immediately.  It’s not helped by the fact that the non-Beaujolais part of Burgundy looks down on Beaujolais.  I have a map of the region that I picked up when I was staying in Nuits-St-Georges last year titled La Route Des Vins De Bourgogne.  It stops at the bottom of Mâconnais, as though no one would want to go further south than that, though to be fair it does mention Mâconnais-Beaujolais wine route at the very bottom.

The third problem is Beaujolais Nouvous, a wine released the third Thursday of November, just scant weeks after vintage.  It’s a pleasant enough wine, fruity, light, and aromatic, but not very serious.  However, it was at one time hugely popular, and still makes up a large percentage of Beaujolais production, overshadowing other, more serious Beaujolais.

Despite all this, Gamay can be used to make very fine wine.  Above the basic appellation is Beaujolais-Villages, with the grapes coming from the northern part of the region, and finally there are wines named after specific villages, such as Moulin-à-Vent and Brouilly.  Instead of being rushed into the mouths of consumers at the first opportunity, these wines are made more gently (and expensively) and benefit from ageing.  For their quality, they are typically very good value.

Someday, perhaps in a vintage or two, I would very much like to source a ton of Gamay and try my hand at making some.  No one in my region (that I know of) makes it except for a rosé in McLaren Vale, and while I’ve been involved with a few different styles of winemaking, carbonic maceration would be a new one for me.  I even have a pretty good idea as to how much work it would be and how much it would cost, but I think I’ll be better off waiting another vintage at least before I try.

Sorrenberg is a small producer that traces its family roots back through 500 years of winemaking in the Mosel region of Germany.  They make a handful of premium wines – a red and a white Bordeaux blend, a Chardonnay and this Gamay.  Being a fan of both Gamay and novelty, it is was drew me to them, and I have not as yet had an opportunity to try their other wines.

They apparently do their fermentation in barrel, which left me scratching my head for a few minutes.  With white wines, that’s easy enough as you’re fermenting juice (which I’ve helped do) and you just put an S-shaped bubbler on top to let the CO2 out.  With reds you’re typically fermenting crushed berries, or sometimes whole bunches.  I was trying to imagine how you get berries or bunches efficiently into a barrel when I remembered that when you ferment reds in barrel, it’s typically a barrel turned on its end with the head taken out.  I’ve only helped with red ferments in tanks or tubs, which is why it took me a minute to think that through.

Their website says they also grow Pinot Noir which in their most recently released vintage (2010) constituted 10% of their Gamay, sufficiently small so as not requiring a mention on the label.  While I have had blends of Pinot Noir and Gamay before, I see that as something of a novelty.  I think in general, certainly in Burgundy, Pinot Noir commands such a higher price than Gamay, it rarely makes economic sense to blend them.  With Sorrenberg I would think it’s a matter of wanting to make the best Gamay they can, and that supplementing it with Pinot Noir is more about getting the character they want more than economics.

The wine itself is a treat.  It’s much darker in the glass than I was expecting, though I spent last week working with 2011 Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir so I may just be expecting everything to be pale.  The nose is fragrant – cherries and herbs.  Not a trace of bubblegum or banana that can be evident on lesser Gamays.  I haven’t had enough Gamays produced in this style to have been able to identify it blind – I would have guessed Pinot Noir I think.  On the palate the fruit is very fresh, and the herbs of the nose give way to spice, slightly peppery.  The body is just under medium, as you’d want from a Gamay, but the acidity has zing and the cherries carry through a long finish where they are joined with a bit of dark chocolate.  This wine lives up to the intentions of the winemaker.

And a quick meta – I had this niggling notion that the titles on this blog weren’t quite right.  It turns out they have been completely screwed up for probably quite some time.  I think I did something wrong when I added a plug-in, but it’s fixed now.  Here’s hoping the site gets re-indexed relatively quickly.

Also, I’ve enjoyed the most recent wines a great deal, and rated them highly.  If it seems I haven’t had an ill word for a wine in the past week or two, keep in mind that I’m not tasting a random selection.  Fortunately for me, I get to pick and choose what I’m having, and more often than not it’s drinking, not tasting, so I can get pretty picky.  I try not to spend money on bad wine, and while sometimes I’m happy to throw the dice and take my chances, most of the recent entries seemed reasonably safe bets that all turned out well.  I’m also somewhat insulated in that most of the recent wines were purchased from local wine merchants that likewise have little incentive to stock or recommend bad wine.  If there are aspects of a wine that I think could be better, I’ll certainly point them out, but I’m just pleased to have had a recent string of good performers.

To Do

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To Do

To Do

Twice over the past week, people have actually read this blog.  It came as quite a shock, and it is motivating me to step up my game slightly.  So I’m going to outline here a few things that I intend to do to improve this blog.  This post is a bit of a to do list, and of more interest to me than to anyone else who might possibly read it.  Much like this whole blog is a list of my notes on things I’m drinking, and likewise probably of limited interest.

First off, I started titling posts here somewhat randomly.  From now on, if a post has a random title, it’s not about much (like this one).  If it’s about a single wine, that wine will be the title.  If it’s somewhere in between (a tasting of several wines), I’ll try to make it as friendly a title as possible.  I intend to retroactively change titles for existing articles to reflect the wines tasted.  I’m sure that will screw up the millions of Permalinks all over the Interwebs pointing to my site, but better now than in a few months when perhaps three people in a week read the site.  Seriously though, I think to call it search engine optimization would be a bit too grand, but if I’ve written about a wine, apparently some people with an interest in that wine do come looking, and I may as well make that as easy as possible. [DONE - All posts about a single bottle of wine have that wine as a title.]

[Funnily enough, having gone through and updated the titles, and therefore the Permalinks, I realized the only place that would actually be linked into any back content on the blog would be links I posted on Facebook.  Sigh.  So to the seven people who "Like" me, sorry about that.]

Second, I think I’m going to impose a region, grape, producer, glass-in-front-of-me format as much as possible.  I tend toward the more orderly side of the alignment spectrum, so it’s not a big deal, but I think it may allow some more consistency in the postings.  Grape and region may need less and less attention at the point where I’m writing up my 50th Pinot Noir, and my 100th Adelaide Hills wine, but at that point I’ll likely build up a collection of pages (as opposed to posts) about them and I can start linking. [Not going back retroactively, all posts moving forward about a single wine are that format (mostly).]

Third, I’m going to get everything I post here onto the corresponding Facebook page (oh, and get a decent profile picture for that account).  Up until now, I just cross post things there when I remember, which is not as often as I post here. [More difficult than I thought without a proper account backing up the Facebook page - work in progress.]

Fourth, I’m going to have an image of some sort for every post.  And it’s going to be in the upper left of every post.  [Mostly done retroacticely.] And they’re all going to be the medium-size instead of the thumbnails I have now.  [Mostly done retroacticely.] And I’m going to go back and make that the case for every post.  And I’m going to figure out how all the various text fields associated with the image are displayed or not, including Title, Alternative Text, Caption, and Description.  Phew. [OK, title is what you get when you mouse over an image, and on an image page (image in an actual page, not just as the page) it is the title at the top.  Caption turns up below a thumbnail, below the image in a gallery, and in all caps under the image on an image page.  Description I've only seen on an image page, below the text for caption in normal case.  I think I'll probably only see the alt text if I don't download images, so i'm not going to worry about them.  Oh, and annoying dashes are part of the theme I'm using.  Calling that one done.]

Fifth, I’m going to try to spread the love around a bit in terms of wine regions.  I’ve made a start with some Iberian work of late, but looking at the map I’ve not had a single wine from Germany since I started writing, nor Chile, and the USA has been woefully neglected except for that awesome bottle of Ridge Monte Bello. [Ongoing.]

Sixth, I’m going to link a bit more, particularly to other posts within my existing content.  So if I mention a post from last week or last year, I’ll link to it.  Likewise, when I’m writing up my posts, I’m often clicking around online to dig up information about the producer or region.  I usually link to the producer, but from now on, I’m going to try to find a way to link in further reading as well.  One of my best sources of information is of course the Oxford Companion to Wine from Jancis Robinson, but I can’t link directly to OCW entries as such links are only useful to subscribers.  However, I will link where I can, and I’ll try to keep my eye out for free articles on Jancis’ site that are relevant. [Ongoing.]

Seventh, posts from when I was studying (or when I was meant to be studying) have a fair amount of study note cruft before getting to the wine.  Rather than have a picture way up top, if there is a way branch off the study bit into its own post, I think that will make things a bit cleaner.  However, I do need to preserve the chronology.  Worst case scenario (if I’ve passed) it to just dump the study stuff, either through deletion or onto its own area away from drinking notes.  [Nothing done about this yet.]

Finally, I’m going to come back to this post from time to time and update it as far as what’s done and further things that need doing.  I’ll be able to keep track, but I won’t trouble anyone who stumbles upon the site.  Yes, I could just keep this offline somewhere, but the same could be said for everything I’ve ever posted or will ever post.  [Ongoing - update in square brackets.]

Quick Map Meta

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So I have some maps now. One within each post with a specific note, and then there’s a new page on the main toolbar which has a bigger map with an overview of everything tasted in this blog. I still really want to start building up a collection of polygon maps that relate to various regions, but that can wait. This effort was motivated by realizing that I hadn’t had any wine from Portugal since I started writing. I now see I could stand to taste around Australia a bit as well instead of just sticking with South Australia.  Oh, and I’ve completely neglected Germany.  Anyway, it’s good to be able to visualize what I’ve been hitting and what needs some more love.

Pittnauer Zweigelt Burgenland 2007

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Pittnauer Zweigelt Burgenland 2007

Pittnauer Zweigelt Burgenland 2007

First, wine.  After failing the certified sommelier exam yesterday (but before I had the failing grade in hand) I had lunch.  Sad, unfortunate, and in some ways avoidable (certainly for the next time I face such an exam), but alas, even if things are going badly it rarely helps to deny oneself food (and drink).  Thinking of the quote attributed alternatively to Napoleon and Churchill, I knew I was in the category of needing it.  It was fine, but I wouldn’t fill a blog with it, let’s just say.  However, the red wine I had by the glass to go with some lovely venison is worth an entry.

I had my first Zweigelt.  I know, everyone remembers their first Zweigelt, and it’s always special, and this was no exception.

What?  What’s a Zweigelt, you ask?  Well it’s only the most  popular dark grape in Austria!  It’s apparently a cross between Blaufränkisch and St-Laurent, though you could be forgiven for not knowing that (and over the past three weeks I certainly have developed an appreciation for forgiveness in the face of not knowing something).  Austria exports no more than a quarter of their wine, and  most of their exports go to their close neighbours, with roughly 70% going to Germany and the next biggest market being Switzerland.  So to find a Zweigelt on a wine list, much less to find one available by the glass, well who could say no?

Anyway, back to Zweigelt itself.  As I mentioned, it’s a dark grape.  It’s relatively low in acidity and in weight, with common flavours being cherries, peppers, and currants.  It was originally crossed in 1922, so it’s a relatively young variety, and while very popular in Austria, has only started to go international with some plantings in Germany, the United Kingdom, and apparently Japan.

So this one in particular from Pittnauer – I just had one of those moments where I am pleased to have been keeping this blog.  My memory isn’t the greatest (so I’m not sure how I managed to pass all the exams in 2010 and 2011) and while there logo on the bottle was familiar, it wasn’t until just now that I realized that I’ve blogged about them before, in particular about their Pittnauer Rosé 2010.  Now their Rosé didn’t do a whole lot for me, but their Zweigelt was just the thing.

It had a very fruity nose, but with hints of chocolate, that went perfectly with my meal.  It wasn’t heavy, maybe a medium minus body, and the alcohol was medium, but the intensity of flavour on the nose and the palate was fantastic.  I really enjoyed this wine, and would rate it very good quality.

Right, meta update, just for kicks.  This is post 53, which isn’t too bad really.  I meant to mention it when I hit post 50, but didn’t realize until I was already on 51.  I have 4 Likes on Facebook, and I’m not related to any of them (as far as I know).  The number of impressions I’m getting on search results are way up, though I started from such a low base it’s pretty insignificant.  And since I’m on the Internet, I’m getting spam – up to 111 posts blocked so far.

Also, it’s apparently still a done thing to tweet “drunk.com”, presumably when you’re drunk.  Not really much to do with me, and if it makes people happy, more power to them.  I only once saw evidence that anyone who tweeted it had read the blog, which made it even funnier.  I almost feel like I should put up a special page just for people who should hit my homepage via Twitter so they get a special message congratulating them on being drunk and telling them to party on.

The trend does mean I’ve been asked to sell the domain more times in the last couple of months than in the past couple of years, but that’s fine.  If I ever can’t afford my next drink, I know I can probably cash this in and get a case or two of something good.

Lastly, the future.  I’m going to keep on blogging, though you may have noticed I’ve dropped the formal WSET style of writing up a tasting note.  If it turns out I failed the tasting part of the exam, it will return.  Also, I’m thinking of trying to work out some study materials for myself to do with wine geography.  I love maps, and I have some good ones from a variety of sourse, including Vinodiversity.  However, they mostly sit around and I only look at them when I’m after something specific, not as a general study aid.

So, I’m thinking it might be worthwhile to make up some maps online, probably using Google Maps/Earth.  In an ideal world, I’d love to make up a game where the name of a wine region would appear and you would have to click on a continent, a country, possibly a state, and then zoom into the region itself.  So if, for instance, if Umpqua Valley came up, you would click North America, then the USA, then Washington, and finally click within a polygon that would be the area of the AVA.

The problem, of course, is getting data for the multitude of wine regions into a map.  While there are fine maps out there, I’m not sure how easy I’d find it to use them as reference for making my own, and with something like Google in particular you can zoom down to street level and I’m certainly not going to have that find a detailed set of data for most regions.  There’s also the rights issue with regard to referencing third party maps – I can’t infringe on anyone else’s copyright, especially as there might be some way to turn a penny or two out of having good online maps of the wine regions of the world.  There would be one further problem, and that’s staying on top of region changes.  The Champagne region has increased in size recently, areas are upgraded from DOC to DOCG with increasing regularity, and the USA adds AVAs all the time.  Keeping the maps up to date would be a job in itself.

But first things first – I’ll start having a look at what’s possible and what’s easy, which is always a good way to start.  Thanks for reading.

 

Quick note on what’s happening with this blog

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So I’m done with my exam, or at least I’m done until I have to retake it (should that be required).  However, rather than just drop it, I have every intention of continuing to write about drinks, mostly wine but certainly other beverages as they cross my palate.  Now that the exam is finished, I will feel less guilty drinking things other than wine.

This week I haven’t actually had much to drink.  After the exam, I did have a drop of single malt whisky, and then over the weekend that followed there was much beer consumed, but this last week has been dry in a mild detox.  However, it must be said that I hate not drinking, and will certainly be back to it shortly, though possibly not until I write up a recap of the theory part of the exam.

One thing worth a mention is that while the big exam is finished, I have another exam next week for which I’m now studying.  The Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS) is coming to town, and while the qualification they offer is similar to the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, there are areas where they differ.  I passed the Introductory Course with CMS 18 months ago, and will be attempting the Intermediate Course which is the one you need to pass to call yourself a Certified Sommelier.

As you might expect, CMS has an additional emphasis on service which WSET does not. So for the Certification Exam, I’ll have a theory test, a blind tasting test, and a service test, which will be either wine service, sparkling wine service, or decanting.  Sadly, I’ve never been paid to open or decant a bottle of wine, so this is all a bit new to me, but I’ll be giving it a go.  I mean there are videos on YouTube as to how to do it, so it can’t be that hard, right?  Sure.

The theory and blind tasting, however, are largely a subset of the material covered by the WSET, with a few exceptions.  I’ll need to brush off my mixology skills as cocktail knowledge is required.  Likewise, some information as to beer and sake is covered.  But really, pass or fail will come down to me being able to open and pour a bottle of wine while being asked questions by a Master Sommelier (of which I think there are less than 200 in the world).

Anyway, that’s where things stand at the moment – me not drinking, recapping the exam of last week, and getting ready for another one next week.  This time next week I’ll be finished with the exam itself, and will have an hour until I know the results.  Most likely I’ll be enjoying a stiff drink of something.  So wish me luck, and I’ll get back to studying, and practicing.

Nearly done

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In 48 hours I will have taken the WSET Diploma Unit 3 Exam and will be sitting in an airport lounge waiting for a flight home.  I’ll have a drink in my hand.  It may be wine, but I’m thinking at this point I’ll be more interested in something stronger.  Actually, I think I may pack some miniatures of my favourite single malt whisky, Port Ellen, so comfort me on my trip home.  Because I’m almost certain I’ll need it.

So I’m thinking this exam will be the first attempt and that it will take another go to pass.  I’m not worried about the tasting.  I’m not an expert, but I am reasonably confident that I can pass the tasting section of the exam.  Believe it or not, writing up notes here every day or so has really helped in terms of at the very least making sure I don’t miss anything, like acidity or tannins.

As to the theory, I’m clearly not ready.  I think I have sufficient time had I spent it well.  Unfortunately, I didn’t stick closely to my study plan, and once I was off the plan it pretty well went to pieces.  My only hope would be if they asked a question about, say, making Pinot Noir in the Adelaide Hills, which I think I could cover pretty well.  And actually if I get one of those “here are six grapes – write a paragraph each on five of them” I would do OK. If they ask “describe German wine quality levels” I’m hosed.

So no tasting note tonight.  We’re actually drinking a bottle of Château Le Crock (I’m not making this up) which is very nice, but I’m going to spend tonight writing up what I think the questions will be.

Oh, and on to the meta, just because this seems like a good time.  I am up to four Facebook likes, and I’ve had 35 spam comments (but no actual comments).  This will be my 41st post, which is almost respectable.  I’m pretty sure I’ll continue to write about wine after this exam, partly because I’ll have a second chapter in terms of trying to pass on my second attempt, and partly because I’m enjoying it.

More people are hitting the site, but I didn’t have the patience to see how far down I am if you Google “drunk”.  (It was more than 17 pages in, at the moment.)  I have no real idea if anyone finds this site useful or entertaining, but I actually found it useful once.  I was writing a note on the grape Crouchen and wondered “why does that sound familiar?” and of course it was from the very first post I made.  So yeah, not hugely useful, but if I’m ever asked about Crouchen, I’ll be able to whip out that it’s found in the Goats Do Roam white blend.

Anyway, wish me luck on the exam.  I hope to pass half of it, and then to retake the other half in June.

Erratic update schedule for the next few days

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It’s Christmas here, and with the holiday officially on us, the amount of time I have to write up the great drinks I’m enjoying is quite diminished.  Fear not, I look forward to filling you in on the Tannat we had with dinner last night, the Champagne I’m looking forward to with lunch, and the red Burgundy to go with the goose for dinner tonight.  I might even have a tipple of a favourite single malt.  For now though, I hope you have better things to do on your holiday than to be clicking the reload button here in hopes of an update.  Merry Christmas!

No news is good news

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There was no update yesterday due to a lack of interesting wines.  I actually went to lunch at a restaurant that used to have a very interesting selection of wines, including a number of international rarities.  Unfortunately, they’ve made some sort of change and the only things on offer by the glass were relatively local, and even their by the bottle wines were all rather ordinary.  At home it’s been largely a matter of finishing off the bottles from the tasting earlier in the week.  Tonight though I look forward to getting back into the swing of things, and to give an update on how the studies go.

Domain Day Garganega 2009

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Domain Day Garganega 2009

Domain Day Garganega 2009

First, the meta.  I’ve done a small bit of blogging here and there.  I even had a personal webpage back in 1995 that was fully of pithy stuff that I am glad I can’t remember.  But this blog is a bit different in that it gives me some structure as far as studying for the WSET Diploma Unit 3 exam in just over four weeks.  I drink, I talk about it, I write up some tasting notes, and I put everything here.  I’ve really been enjoying it, and I think I like the fact that other people can read this, but it’s not the point.

So some stats, just for fun.  I have no idea if anyone has read any of this, and a quick look at the logs suggests it really just me and some robots.  There are apparently two people on Facebook who like this, which I think is great.  I was worried when it was just one, in that if he didn’t like something I wrote, no one would like me, but now I have a buffer.  Two is also the number of people in the last 24 hours who have contacted me trying to buy drunk.com, which is also great.  I have no interest in selling, but it’s nice to be asked.  I’m keeping a list of everyone who has ever expressed an interest in buying, and should I ever run out of money for that next case of DRC, I’ll drop them all a note.  Finally, I’ve had 13 spam comments, which is probably what those robots visiting have been up to.  This will make 17 posts, so I’m more prolific than the spam bots, which is saying something.

Quick update – just saw that people are tweeting “drunk.com” which explains why a couple of people recently had the bright idea of trying to buy this domain.  I think I’d be prepared to trade it for another domain if someone could hand me drunk.int, but seeing as they’d need an international treaty, I’m not going to hold my breath.

But hey, there’s blogging about blogging, and then there’s blogging about drinking, and I know which is more interesting (to me).  I know I already wrote today about a wine, but that was lunch, and a by the glass entry at that, so here’s an update from dinner.  We opened up a bottle of Domain Day Garganega 2009 from Mt Crawford.  I continue to be a slave to the novel.

Domain Day is in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, a region famous for the iconic Australian grape, Shiraz (known as Syrah in some other parts of the world).  However, their exact location is described as Mt Crawford, which is 450 metres above sea level, and therefore has a very different weather profile from the rest of Barossa which is typically very warm.  They make use of this somewhat cooler sub-region to grow some grape varieties that are unusual or unexpected, to say the least.

Garganega is actually a very prominent grape variety, being the primary component in Soave, a white wine from the Veneto region in northeast Italy.  However, it’s very much of the Veneto, and it’s difficult (if not impossible) to find outside of Italy.  Domain Day has been making wine from their Garganega plantings for six or so years now, and it’s lovely.  I do not have a wide background in tasting Italian wines, so I can’t compare it to Soave, but it shows what I believe to be typicity with a medium body and something akin to Pinot Grigio meets Chardonnay plus some almonds.

What drives Domain Day to grow Garganega grapes in the Barossa Valley?  Probably the same thing behind their Lagrein and Saperavi, which I’m sure to write about in the future.  Perhaps it’s an interest in less mainstream grape varieties, or the hope that they can corner their local market in a less available exotic wine style.  Whatever it is, I’m so glad they’re doing it because they make very interesting wines and supplementing the diversity of locations into the world wine mix.  And if I’m asked an essay question on wines of the Veneto, I’m absolutely going to find a way to tie in a mention of Garganega grapes being grown in Australia.

Appearance

Clear and bright, medium-minus lemon with a quick film in the glass when swirled.

Nose

Clean, medium intensity, developing with notes of pear, simple citrus, almond, honey and vanilla.  I want to say I can smell American oak, but almost no one in Australia uses American oak (except for Grange), and whenever I try to pretend to be able to tell the difference, I’m invariably wrong.

Palate

Dry, medium acidity, no tannins, medium alcohol, medium-plus body with a bit of oiliness, and medium-plus flavour intensity.  Notes of pear, melon, almond, and honey.  Slightly candied finish.  Medium-minus length.

Conclusions

This is a good quality wine, and certainly a step up from the wine I had at lunch.  The flavours have an intensity to match the body, with slightly less acidity and alcohol.  There wasn’t a huge amount of complexity, with it largely being fruit driven, but some nuttiness and oak influence is enough.  The length could be better, but it hits the nail on the head for typicity (though my knowledge of Garganega is largely from reading, not tasting).  I look forward to seeing what this tastes like as the vines get a bit older and the winery has a few more years of working with the grape under their belt.  I expect the 2009 can improve over the next few years, though there’s no harm in drinking it now.