Larry Cherubino Ad Hoc Mt Barker Wallflower Riesling 2009

If you haven't noticed, pretty much all of the Riesling in Australia tastes exactly the same, and thats not me being uber generalist; tight harsh lemon/lime acid with acid and more acid. From Clare Valley to Geelong to the Great Southern and the Derwent Valley, Riesling has been produced in a way where it should be labeled 'Australian citrus wine'. Its a harsh call, but its all I have seen in a bottle for quite some time now.

Enter Larry Cherubino with his Ad Hoc Mt Barker Wallflower Riesling 2009. He has pretty much taken to this sterotype with a crossbow and gone whack; not that you would whack something with a crossbow of course. Yes, there still is the citrus about the wine, but it is not the dominant character, with the minerality of a German Trocken the most appealing character here.

Brimming with soft floral notes, this wine is a lot more feminant than the garden variety Riesling I was talking about at the start, with gentle white oliander prominant on the nose. There is no harsh ascerbic acid up front, instead a lovely and clean addition of river bed pebble - yes, minerals, but I like to describe it as river bed pebble! As with the nose, there is a little citrus, but it does not strip the palate like so many other Rieslings. A seriously good wine.

Drink with pickled octopus
drink till 2014
92
Screwcap 12.1%v/v $22 @ Blackhearts & Sparrows Brunswick

Mountford Estate Waipara Pinot Noir 2007

A truly great wine, but alas no longer available. Made in small quantities, I first had this wine last September at a New Zealand wine event I Melbourne and instantly fell in love with it. The Mountford Estate Waipara Pinot Noir 2007 displays bright red ink in the glass, this wine has gorgeous notes of red fruit laced together with dried tea and roasted beetroot. In the mouth a wave of sweet plum hangs around for a while but in time a very savoury stewed cheery dominates; much like a young Nebbiolo after about three hours in a decanter.

If you see Mountford Estate in a wine shop, buy it!!

Drink with BBQ five spiced quail
Drink till 2013
95
Quality cork 13.5%v/v /www.mountfordvineyard.co.nz/

Watershed Margaret River Shiraz Cabernet 2005

“Although Woundwort had shown himself at the last to be a creature virtually mad, nevertheless what he did proved not altogether futile. There can be little doubt that if he had not done it, more rabbits would have been killed that morning on Watership Down. So swiftly and silently had the dog come up the hill behind Dandelion and Blackberry that one of Campion’s sentries, half asleep under a tussock after the long night, was pulled down and killed in the instant that he turned to bolt” Watership Down, Richard Adams

For those of you who know me, I am a sport tragic. Every now and then you can hear “Tim from Brunswick” on talk-back radio SEN 1116 AM, be it a quiz or singing the praises of my favourite ever footballer, Stephen Michael, the great South Fremantle ruckmen who decided to stay home instead of pursuing a VFL career; I love you Stephen if you ever read this.

So, it was a month or so ago that SEN were discussing books that made the transition to the big screen (not exactly what you would call sport talk-back). It must be said, before I go on, that a good proportion of SEN listeners are your quintessential Aussie Bogans; very myopic in their beliefs about pretty much everything. So anyway, SEN were asking listeners to phone in with what they would consider good book/movie transitions; Star Wars (true), The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Godfather, The Club (David Williamson) and plenty more were announced. Me? I phoned in with Richard Adams ‘Watership Down’. You know the one; rabbits.

I was quite surprised with the ‘guffaws’ I was getting from not only other listeners but also from David Schwarz, one of the presenters. Fortunately the worldly Francis Leach was there to explain what the book/movie is about (I am not going to explain the pretext of the book now – I will be here for sometime).

It was time to announce the best call, and it was me!!!!! My prize? Not the round of golf at Devil Bend (which I had won on a previous call), not the Adidas pack, but two bottles of Watershed wines from Margaret River. Geez I thought, I won some wine on a sport talk-back radio station discussing a book about rabbits – funky shit that one!

So, the wine in question today is the aforementioned Watershed Margaret River Shiraz Cabernet Shades 2005. Off the bat I must say that I am not a big fan of the ‘Aussie Blend’ of Shiraz and Cabernet. To me the combination strips away the primary characters of each varietal. But hey, who am I to complain – the wine was free.

Well, to my surprise, this was actually quite good. Wonderfully dark in the glass, the nose threw up cassis, saddle leather, tobacco and a real waft of Margaret River green; think dried herbs. The palate was a bit restrained early but then produced some really good licorice and black fruit. A really good wine and a nice surprise.

So next time you tune in to SEN 1116AM, don’t be surprised if “Tim from Brunswick” is rambling on a bout South Fremantle and Stephen Michael , because he really is the best player I have ever seen, even if he did not play in Victoria.

Drink with a cheese burger and onion rings
Drink till 2011
90
Screwcap 13.5%v/v $19 or there about’s at The City Wine Shop, Spring Street Melbourne

Prawn Crackers

What a simple pleasure prawn crackers are. Stick em in the microwave, press start and 60 seconds later you got a snack that will shut the kids up quicker than you can say Hong Kong Fui!

By Farr Geelong Chardonnay 2006

It’s Mothers Day today – happy Mother’s Day to all the mum’s out there, and happy Mother’s Day to my mum who is holidaying in sunny Tuscany. My lovely Erin has had a lovely child free morning with a cup of tea, jam pancakes and the paper in bed; I’ve had two annoying (of course I love them) little buggers at my feet, but now they seem to be quiet watching ‘Yo Gabba-Gabba’ on the box – cabin pressure has been restored. So with five minutes up my sleeve, I steal myself off to the study for a wee bit of blogging.

What to write about - something mucho fantastico I think. The By Farr Geelong Chardonnay 2006. Once again, I think Geelong is the most underrated wine growing region in Australia, and this is pretty much thanks to Gary Farr. Straw yellow with a golden hue, aromas of stone fruit, with peach kernel coming through strong and a massive hit of lemon tart and licorice powder at the end. If this wine was masked, it could easily be mistaken for something from Chassagne-Montrachet with layers of citrus, minerality and licorice all woven together by precise oak integration; simply stunning wine.

Drink with baked mulloway
Drink till 2013
98
Quality cork 13.5%v/v $40 mailing list two years ago

Giaconda allocation 2008

“Luxury disgusts me” – Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani said this about his 2002 proletariat-inspired men’s collection. Luxury may disgust him, but the outfits from the collection were for those who lived in luxury everyday; a mere cashmere waistcoat costing $14,000!

Of course luxury disgusts Giorgio Armani, he lives in it everyday. This is the same disgust that an obese person feels about their own plight, or a terminally unemployed and unskilled 40 year old feels about their braised steak and onions toasted sandwich being the gastronomic highlight for the year. The things that are our everyday life, after a while we learn to hate them for they are what we have accepted.

I hate the fact that my Giaconda allocation is only eight bottles and that if I drank them now I would miss out on a truly wonderful wine, yet patience is something this blogger has yet to master; away they go in to the cellar.

Luxury, a truly misunderstood state of mind.

Ostler Waitaki Valley Audrey’s Pinot Gris 2008

This is a true expression of what real terroir wine is all about. Located in North Otago, just over the ranges that enclose Central Otago on the South Island of New Zealand, the Ostler Waitaki Valley Audrey’s Pinot Gris 2008 is absolutely gorgeous.

Full of oyster shell on the nose with a real hint of ocean spray, even though the vineyard is about 50km from the South Pacific Ocean; this whack of fresh ocean salt comes from the cracked limestone that is effectively the soil profile, a soil profile that was once the ocean floor some 38 million years ago. The mouth brings a new flavour spectrum of white flowers up front followed by a juicy hit of Fuji apple and gorgeous ripe figs with enough residual sugar to balance out the minerality on the nose.

An absolute joy to drink, and easily the best exponent of Pinot Gris outside of Alsace!

Drink with blue swimmer crab with angel hair pasta
Drink till 2015
98
Screwcap 14.2%v/v about $33 from Decanters by the Bay, Port Melbourne