Stuart Anderson

Mount Macedon. To me, the best place in Australia to grow Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It is also the place where the great Stuart Anderson decided to call it a day. You see Stuart Anderson started making wine in Bendigo with his label ‘Balgownie Estate’ on a 75 hectare site at Maiden Gully in 1967 with plantings of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay coming a bit later.

The resulting Balgownie Estate Cabernet Sauvignon became an instant hit with legend status putting cool climate viticulture in the minds, and glasses of everyday Aussies. Like the Cabernet, Balgownie's earthy and complex Hermitage (Shiraz in Australia since 1990) was at least a decade ahead of its time. Furthermore, Balgownie's Chardonnay and Pinot Noir exceeded the most optimistic expectations. In 1985 he received an impossible-to-refuse offer from Mildara Blass to purchase the property I reckon they just backed a Holden ute up to his door and threw him the keys – the keys to a ute with a boot for of cash, but that would just be speculation wouldn’t it.

It is his time in the Macedon Ranges that has led me to meet Stuart, where he has been helping out the likes of Alex Epis from Epis Wines, Michael and Bill Dhillon from Bindi and David Ell at Mount Gisborne Wines.

Anderson's approach in wine making is evident in the minimalist style seen in Burgundy, with the wine ultimately gaining its characteristic in the vineyard which see's them all benefiting from the terroir of the cool climate; no over-ripe fruit with few getting over 13% alcohol. This will lead to a wine which will not give away too much in their youth except for natural acidity and the promise of a long stay in the bottle.

There is no reason for writing about Stuart Anderson, but he is a massive reason why Mount Macedon wines are where they are today.

Bindi Composition Pinot Noir 2006

Have I told you how much I love this wine. As I have stated in an ealier a post, the one true thing I love about this job is seeing a heap of wines. Then every so often a customer will ask me aboout Bindi, because when diners ask for my suggestion, if I say Bindi all the time, I would sell out in a week, so I try not to push it so much.

Tonight an American couple asked me about the Bindi Composition ansd I couldn't lie. I told them of my affinity with the label and vineyard and that the wine is, well, the wine is yum; they had two bottles!!

So about the wine; the colour is a little like a cherry ripe colour - pinkish-reddish-brickish. The nose is all spice, cinnamon and Turkish delight. In the mouth the spice hits straight away followed by firm acid, definately a food wine. After this there is a long clean musk hit that is ever so soft. Just beautiful.

Drink till 2017

Eat with slow braised rabbit or beef carpaccio

Kennedy Point Syrah 2004 Waiheke Island, New Zealand

New Zealand doesn’t just make Savvy Blanc people. They make a hell of a lot (in Kiwi years) of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and a little bit of Chardy. Now we know this, but it is a surprise to a lot of people, including some ‘angry people’ out there – you know who you are – that the Kiwi’s make really good Syrah, or Shiraz as we know – that really big red wine from Barossa hey bro.
Now being serious, I really do love the Syrah coming out of NZ. It’s the type of Shiraz, Syrah, which I would sit down to with a meal. Syrah is primarily grown in the north island, and saying that, north of Hawkes Bay up to Auckland.
Kennedy Point is located on Waiheke Island, about a 30 minute ferry ride from Auckland. With about 6 hectares of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, Neil Kunimura and his team are producing some real classy wines. Like any good grape grower and/or winemaker, these guys are taking advantage of some great terroir, or in other words growing the right fruit in the right area. The vineyards are located on the south side of the island, where they are sheltered from the battering winds from the north shore.
This wine has great, deep colour – ox blood if you will. At 13.5% alcohol, I am tipping this wine spent at least 20 days on skins to get colour like this. The nose is quite green, with eucalypt coming in quite soft, but nothing else. It all takes shape in the mouth with blueberries being predominate, and sour morello cherries at the back holding the acid in check – and boy is there acid. It gets quite grainy at the back end also, so this wine may need to be decanted off of sediment in later years.

This is a great little wine that still has plenty of kick. Drink till 2015.
Eat with game, something like a partridge, pheasant pie.
17/20

Dr. Max Lake - Wine Icon

And so the legends pass....

Last Friday saw the passing of one of Australias wine legends, Dr. Max Lake. Max started up Hunter Valleys most recognised labels Lake’s Folly way back in 1963, and was the creator of ‘The Aussie Blend’; Cabernets, Shiraz, Merlot, and other Bordeaux blends.
I was fortunate to meet max while I was working at Como Wines. Max loved nothing more than sharing his views about two of the loves of his life – food and wine, and the pleasure that these two flavours derive.
In Max’s ‘Food and Wine Flavour’, he opens with ‘Life is dull and grey without the pleasures of the shared table.’ How true this is.
Here’s cheers to you Max!!!

Tarrington Cuvee Emilie Pinot Noir 2004

I first came across this wine at a friend’s wedding (Chris Tarrington –not related to the label) back in 2002. You see Chris isn’t short of a dollar, so for the reception, we had Tarrington Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. My relationship with the wine lasted, Chris’s marriage sadly did not.
Tarrington Vineyard is located in Tarrington in western Victoria of all places, just east of Hamilton. First planted in 1993 with small amounts of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, this winery has consistently produced wine that in very good vintages is easily passed as Burgundy. The vineyard is close planted with up to 8170 vines per hectare, spacings of effectively 1m x 1.2m. This is important to the quality of the finished product, but that can wait for another blog.
The approach in winemaking is very old school, with the Chardonnay seeing no oak and staying on lees for the entire nine months of maturity.
So, to this wine.
The colour is quite deep, very deep for a Pinot Noir. The nose is very spicey with cinnamon really coming on strong. In the mouth, like the nose, is full of spice with game and bacon fat opening up the longer in the glass; only good Pinot can do this. By the end of the wine, the hue was fading quite a bit, telling me that the wine is in its the home stretch.
All in all, sexy stuff this one.
Eat with rare to medium rare beef, and yes, duck.
Drink till 2012
17.6/20

The wonderful world of the Degustation

degust - to taste or savour carefully or appreciatively.

The Degustation (aka dego); the most pure and beautiful way to eat and drink wonderful food and wine. I’ve said it all. There’s is no real point in writing any more in this blog really, but that would be remiss of me wouldn’t it now?
The true form of the ‘dego’ was introduced to me when I was a sommelier at ‘Vue du monde’ four years ago. Here I would contend with up to eight tables over a service and match wine with their minimum five course dego. Now one table or two sounds pretty easy but when you have seven or eight of the mongrels at the same time, it doesn’t seem so wonderful. But it’s not what I have to go through, it is what the diner, YOU, gets out of it.
As the definition says - to taste or savour - this is what it is all about. The whole idea about getting the right food and wine match is pure sensory bliss – fair dinkum it is!!
You see, degos are designed to take the worry out of deciding what to order. Let’s face it, how many times have you sat there pondering what to have, only to be half way through your meal and wishing you ordered the duck and not the lamb. Same goes for wine – some wine lists out there are like compendiums. My partner Erin used to be a ‘wine list widow’ when we would go out. These days it’s straight to the Burgundy or Barolo page, and if that’s too hard, it’s a bottle of Bindi.
So the plates come out one at a time and the appropriate wine served. Appropriate, you ask? Now food and wine matching for me is all about balance between the flavours on the plate and the glass – simple. But there is a lot more to it than that. A lot of diners expect to have lighter wines early then slowly ascending in body and texture, and obviously going from white to red. Au contraire I say to you!! As I stated before, it is all about balance.
One of the current dishes I am matching is a dish that has abalone and oyster with a duck consommé. This dish offers two real distinct flavour profiles and when you have flavours that are not true, as in predictable to one style of wine, the only option is to offer two styles of wine for the one dish; Champagne with the abalone and oyster and Madeira ‘Bual’ with the consommé. It works – simple. It works!!! The balance between these two flavour profiles on the plate and in the glass is stunning and succinct – they are wonderful I tell you.
The definition above states, ‘to taste or savour carefully or appreciatively.’ With this in mind, when you go for the dego option you must also go for the wine dego option. Now I know a lot of you love your Marlborough Savvy and Barossa Shitaz .... I mean Shiraz ... but these wines are not always the best partner for degos. Though I stated before that the dego does not have to start with the lighter style of wine, traditionally a dego does start with delicate, light flavours and slowly builds up to the final savoury course with rich, textured flavours. In most cases the same should go with the wine.
Now I am not saying that you have an entire glass of wine with each course, rather you should have just enough to complement the flavour on the plate. I also believe you should have no more than about 90mL of wine with each course – degos have been known to go up to 19 courses, so be careful.
If you do decide to go with the bottle option I would suggest choosing two – a white and a red. For a white perhaps a Chardonnay, new or old world, that has not got a lot of oak and not been through 100% MLF (malo-lactic fermentation – the secondary fermentation to dull some of the acid in wine) or a Pinot Gris, something with a bit of mouth feel and not too thin. For a red I would go for a Pinot Noir, once again new or old world, or a cool climate Shiraz, something from, say, Geelong, NZ or the Canberra district.
So next time you go out and there is a dego available, give it a go. Spend some quality time with your partner, rather than with the menu and wine list.

Bindi Original Vineyard Pinot Noir 1999

Now there are a lot of wine critics/reviewers out there, and I guess by doing this blog and having my say on the stuff, I am sought of one as well. The one thing I do not want to be is judgemental and picky.

Now there is a certain reviewer out there who shares the same surname as a 'lubbly jubbly' celebrity chef. There are quite a few reviews from this fellow (yes, he is a man) that focus on the faults or weaknesses of the wine; thats just the wrong angle I reckon and that isn't kosher (no pork products were harmed during the writing of this blog).

I managed to scour the net and came across his review for the Bindi Original Vineyard Pinot Noir 1999 and was quite taken-a-back with his language, '... weedy and stalky, this wine leaves a rather hollow, unpleasant feeling', and, '... expectations were high but disappointment was ultimately felt.'

Unpleasant, Disappointment. These are words that I would use if I were in an elevator and someone had an emergency bowel movement, this is unpleasant; and I would be disappointed if my daughter came home and said school holidays have come early dad - I've got a week's suspension.

Too much lateral thought goes in to what you see, smell and taste in the glass.

Me, I love this wine. Since 2005 I have been helping out up at Bindi. Most of this was between 2005 - 2007 while I was finishing my Viticulture degree; mostly during term breaks and days when I would just blag class. I was able to learn so much about the wine process through Michael Dhillon, who really just emphasised to me that 99% of the work happens out in the vineyard; which leaves 1% cleaning out tanks and barrels, packaging wine and giggling along to 'Tenacious D' - it's a Kodak moment.

So on to the wine. The colour is going a bit, with a little brick red coming through, but more like faded rose. The nose is just sexy; a bit of rose then a smack of toffee. In the mouth this wine flows between game then toffee then musk then just pure delight. When you think its done, a little touch of acid comes along to remind you that its still got a little bit left in the tank - ripper stuff this one.

So, I have decided that I will not rate Bindi wines because of my involvement and affinity to the stuff, but will just say that the 14/20 this wine scored is a bit way off - maybe he just doesn't get what this wine is all about.

Drink now till 2012.

Eat with slow roasted pork!!