Category Archives: Wine

TheWineBlog.net – General articles about wine.

Star drinking

by Martin Field

Cascade First Harvest Pure Green Hop Brew– up to $20 the six-pack of 330ml bottles – * * *
Made with from fresh hop flowers. Mid to dark amber. Sweet aromas of toffee like malt and savoury hops. Full-flavoured and malty on the palate with a delicious lasting hop bitterness at the finish. This limited release is worth chasing up.

Temple Bruer Verdelho 2007 – up to $18.50 – * *
Langhorne Creek, South Australia. Certified organic, no preservatives added. Spicy apricot nose. Full-bodied white with overtones of stone fruits on the palate, mild acidity and a quite dry, food suited finish.

Blind Mans Bluff Sophist Red – Cellar door price $18 – * *
Kenilworth, Queensland. I’d call this a sort of shiraz rosé. It’s light in colour – a bit darker than your typical rosé and light in alcohol at 10 per cent. The nose is juicy and plummy and the palate fresh and off-dry with enough grape tannins to offset the sweetness. Serve chilled as you would a rosé.

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Intrusive sommeliers

by Martin Field

In the latest issue of Slate online, Christopher Hitchens makes some valid points as he slags intrusive sommeliers, see Wine drinkers of the world, unite.

I’ve met a few sommeliers who know a lot more about wine than I ever will and who can advise and talk knowledgeably about it. For diners who don’t know much about wine these experts can be invaluable.

But for those who know what they like, some sommeliers (vinowaitus interruptus) come across as arrogant buttinskis.

I particularly detest those dudes and dudines whose only job it seems, is to flog pricier bottles and who overpour robotically to sell more wine – often with no regard to guests’ thirst, tastes, wallets, or sobriety.

And, who has ever met a sommelier who recommends inexpensive wines from their list?

PS – As for intrusiveness – I’ve been to restaurants lately where your conversation is still interrupted by wait staff wielding giant pepper grinders and pots of grated parmesan. I thought those went out with avocado vinaigrette.

Music to drink wine by

Reports in the news today suggest that the enjoyment of certain wine varietals can be enhanced while listening to different styles of music. See, for example, Why wine tastes better with music, and, Music can enhance wine taste.

Examples include matches such as cabernet sauvignon with Jimi Hendrix; chardonnay with Blondie; merlot with Otis Redding and music by classical composers such as Orff and Tchaikovsky.

There is of course an enormous cultural bias inherent in this kind of research.

If you are a wine drinker whose tastes run to the blues, rock ‘n roll and bluegrass a glass of good red is hardly going to taste better while listening to Carmina Burana.

Similarly,if you have been acculturated to prefer western classical music or opera, a glass of chablis might taste a tad sharpish while Jimi’s Voodoo Chile is blasting way at volume 11 on the stereo.

One can only imagine what wines you would match with the music of Celine Dion, Ravi Shankar, Karlheinz Stockhausen or ‘J-Lo’.

Pasanau

For the first barbecue of the season last weekend I prepared some lamb chops and opened a bottle of La Morera de Montsant 2002, a Priorat D.O. by Cellers Pasanau. This turned out to be an excellent match.
morera02.jpg

The bottle was offered to me by Joan Gómez Pallarès, the man at the keyboard of De Vinis Cibisque. We had met for a lunch in Barcelona during the Mobile World Congress last February.

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Hierarchy of nuts

by Martin Field

Nuts are a favourite accompaniment to wine. They are delicious when served with bubbly and other aperitifs and a plate of nuts and dried fruit is obligatory when savouring a vintage port after dinner.

But did you ever notice that in any bowl of mixed nuts, in shell or not, certain varieties are always eaten in exactly the same order of preference?

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Californian, Noosan, Kiwi vigneron

by Martin Field

So I’m sculling a tasty New Zealand pinot noir at Laguna Jacks and this guy comes up to me and asks me in an American accent how I like his wine.

I learn that his name is Quintin Quider and that the pinot is from a Central Otago winery, Wild Earth that he owns with wife, Avril. He adds that he hails originally from California, came to Australia after a stint in New Zealand, and now lives in Noosa.

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Star Drinking

by Martin Field

Cascade Green – up to $18 the six-pack of 330ml bottles *
According to the label, this full-strength (4.5%) lager is 100 per cent carbon neutral, preservative free and low carbohydrate. It has pleasant hoppy spicy aromatics. The palate is medium-weighted and very smooth in texture. Flavours are malty sweet and the finish without bitterness.

Banrock Station Ecomate Colombard Chardonnay 2007 – 1 Litre Tetra Pak – up to $10 * *
Light lemony nose. Fresh easy drinking style with faint oak, off-dry finish and mild acidity.

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Useless Standards

by Martin Field

Headlines over recent months have featured horror stories about alcohol abuse, binge drinking, and general overindulgence in our favourite legal drug.

Some stories have ludicrously blamed the size of wine glasses for excessive boozing. For example, “MP calls for smaller wine glasses” and, “Wine glasses blamed for women drinking large alcohol amounts.”

I’m totally unconvinced that standardising the size of wine glasses is going to stop boozing and I don’t believe that proposals to change the official guidelines for the recommended number of standard drinks per day will have any effect whatsoever.

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Noshtalgic cheatin’ in the kitchen

by Martin Field

Pickled eggs ‘n Scrumpy
I was telling Beery Mag about getting legless on scrumpy (a strongly alcoholic rustic cider) on the morning of a mate’s wedding many years ago.

We rode borrowed motor bikes down narrow hedgerowed lanes near Rockwell Green in Taunton, Somerset, and stopped for morning tea at a quaint little tavern that sold cider.

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