LEAVING the Piedmont region, the Child Bride and I recently wound our way north to Lake Orta, the least “touristy” of the larger Italian Lakes, and a favoured holiday haunt for locals. Then, a day or two at Lake Maggiore followed with sensational scenery and jaw dropping mountains, before we headed (with several million other [...]
BARALO is Italy’s most famous and prestigious wine. Made from the nebbiolo grape, it commands huge bucks and is spoken about in reverent tones amongst wine aficionados. But I just don’t “get” Barolo, although I have tried it heaps of times. Maybe I have drunk them too young, but they were to me always big [...]
BARCELONA in North Eastern Spain is known for lots of things, including being the site of the 1992 Olympics and famously the television home of Manuel from “Fawlty Towers”. I stopped into this wonderful city on the way home from the 2009 Rhone Valley Wine Expo, and was blown away by its vibrancy and cultural [...]
Australia is an egalitarian nation – we welcome immigrants of all cultures and (mostly) live in harmony in a land of (mostly) wealth and prosperity. Over our very short history we have left a size 12 imprint on the wine world, with the best yet to come. TRADITIONAL VARIETIES With much success, we have embraced [...]
Last week we looked at winemaking both here and the Old World and saw that some of the greatest wines are mixtures of several varieties. We saw how sometimes overseas makers stuck with single grapes, but often added just a little “dab” of another grape to “lift” the blend. This week we will see if [...]
In the New World, we seem to have a love affair with what are termed “single varietals” – that is, wines produced from a single grape variety. Contrast this with the Old World approach. After a few hundred years of experimentation, many classic wine areas (Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, Sauternes, etc) have worked out that their [...]
Several weeks ago, my interest in Beechworth wines was reignited at a wine clinic run as part of the Beechworth Harvest Festival. I wrote about the exciting prospects for this emerging wine area, with many pockets of wines of breathtaking quality coming onto the national “radar”. So, when I received a kind invitation from Indigo [...]
When George H Brown arrived in Melbourne in 1852 the wine industry was about the furthest thing from his mind. Hell-bent on making a fortune in the gold rush, he headed to the Bendigo goldfields. Having no luck, he ended up at Milawa to take up farming, eventually planting grapevines with the first vintage made [...]
FOR the past 35 odd years, I have been an enthusiastic member of the Border Wine and Food Society. Under our rules, two members organise each monthly dinner, with complete control over the venue, food presented, and the wines to match. It is always a challenge, and the job comes around just often enough (about [...]
BOTRYTIS cinerea is a nasty little condition in the wine industry – it can produce “grey rot” in wet or humid conditions, which basically means the crop is written off. Amazingly, however, the fungus also creates “noble rot” in drier conditions, creating the base material for magnificent dessert wines. What does it look like? Not [...]