Season of Stout - Grand Ridge 'Hatlifter' Stout Gippsland

It still cold and rainy here in Brunswick, so it is time for another stout.

Grand Ridge ‘Hatlifter’ Stout from Mirboo North, that’s right, Mirboo North – so fun to say isn’t it, in Gippsland is one of the easiest Stouts to drink I would have to say.

Grand Ridge has been around since the late 80’s when Aussie Rules was played by men, ‘greed was good’ and so to was Bryan Adams. Re-branded after a failed brewery vacated the premises, Grand Ridge has consistently been winning awards on the global stage essentially since the first frothy came off the brewery floor.

One of the great attractions to this brewery in Mirboo North is the bar that hovers above the brewery floor. In a visit to Gippsland last year with my family we happened across the brewery (a scheduled stop actually) for some lunch and a beer or two. Well, Erin had to drive back to the holiday house cos’ at $4 a bottle for Grand Ridge at the bar, this scribe was virtually obliged to taste the entire range – except for the ‘Supershine’ which is about 13% a/v.

Although this blog is on the ‘Hatlifter’, I still think the stout was the best had on the day. Leaving Grand Ridge with us that day was a mixed case of stout, Black and Tan, Yarra Valley Gold and the Brewers Pilsener (six of each).

Anyhoo, the ‘Hatlifter’ stout. In the glass it is a brownie/black colour with a creamy coffee head. On the nose there is chocolate mousse and liquorice. In the mouth it is very smooth, very un-stout like I reckon, more ‘Newcastle Brown’ than stoutish, but stout never-the-less. But right at the end after a while in the glass, the chocolate from the nose comes and pays a visit. Super stuff this one!

Drink with BBQ Buffalo chicken wings

http://www.grand-ridge.com.au/

Desert Island Wines on a rainy Brunswick Saturday morning....

At about 6.40am this morning, I was abruptly pulled away from my game of beach cricket with Sanath Jayasuria and Ian Healy; I do not know why these two cricketers were there, but I do know that Jayasuria is a bad sport, and for about $150 an hour someone will be able to explain the meaning of this dream. For now though, I will have to just let this one go through to the keeper you might say.

And it is now while I sitting in the kitchen looking out the back window and listening to the hum of the heater that my mind wanders back to the game of beach cricket. Not just content with the outcome of said game, I try to imagine what refreshments were available in the blurry distance, and it is here my mind again wanders further down the beach and tries to envisage what would comprise my desert island wine cellar.

Now like all good desert island wish lists, this one has a limit. I stopped it at four wines; aperitif, white, red and dessert. But four may not do the trick with the island menu changing with the seasons, so island management have allowed two of each.

So to kick it off we have two aperitifs:

Ruinart Rosé NV, Reims Champagne. Rosé is my favourite style of Champagne. There is so much to like about this wine with its big flavour, simultaneously showing restraint and elegance. The longer in the glass this wine offers subtle roundness with a lick of spice at the end. Enjoy this with oysters freshly shucked in a chilli and ginger dressing (all produce available on the island of course).
Romate Don José Oloroso, Jerez Spain. A sherry that can be either consumed sitting on the beach waiting to be rescued or with the fish stew that is bubbling away in your Swiss Family Robinson tree house. Lovely warmth and alcohol with a gamey end and the famous Oloroso mid palate disappearing trick.

I was a bit torn with my decision here. Yes I do love Chardonnay, but surely there is something else out there in white world that is befitting my island cellar. There wasn’t, so it is two Chardonnay’s, one new world, one old world.

Domaine Ramonet Montrachet, Burgundy France. You may be wondering, ‘why not the DRC Tim?’, and this is a good question, but the DRC to me is too tight and takes far too long to open up. Yes I know there isn’t much to do on the island, but the fresh whiting that is sizzling on the hot plate needs that citrus and liquorice powder straight away.
Giaconda Chardonnay, Beechworth Victoria. Australia’s King of Chardonnay – simple. To be enjoyed with braised Rockling in the cooler months when the Celsius gets down to as low as 28!!

The reds for me were a no brainer; one Pinot Noir and one Barolo.

Bindi Block 5 Pinot Noir, Macedon Ranges Victoria. It was inconceivable of me not to have any Bindi in the beach cellar, and Block 5 I think is the obvious choice. This wine consistently brings finesse and perfume to the glass with longevity one of its strong suits. Drink with pheasant or duck from the north side of the island (hey, it’s my island dream OK).
Vietti Rocche Barolo, Piemontese Italy. This wine is going to take a while to open up, so it is lucky I have plenty of Block 5. An exquisite wine with achingly gorgeous violet and tar held up with intense acid and savoury appeal. Have with the wild boar hunted from the islands interior.

To complete the cellar I have chose one fortified sherry and one Botrytis.

McWilliams Botrytis Semillon, Riverina NSW. A wine that has graced this blog already. A gorgeous wine to sip in front of the fire on the beach while enjoying orange and coconut crumble.
Romate Pedro Ximenez Sacrista Sherry, Jerez Spain. If it all gets too much being on your own and you just want to have a good cry, have a sip of this belter and you will quickly realise this is far too good to share. Super stuff!!

So there you have it. It is now raining harder in my backyard and Henry is in need of a nappy change. I think it only fitting that I put ‘Weezer’ on my iPod and listen to ‘Island in the Sun’

‘on an island in the sun, we’ll be playing and having fun,
and it makes me feel so fine I can’t control my brain...’


Cue end credits.

Even Keel Canberra District Shiraz Viognier 2006

Sighhhh. That feels better.

With number one child about 70 km away with the grandees, number two child gradually getting used to falling asleep not in my arms, but in his cot, a glass of wine on the go and other stuff leisurely falling in to place I can sit down in our cluttered study and not be disturbed while writing this blog. Just listen to the peace.

Anyhoo, on with the wine. Now after such a rousing introduction it would be remiss off me to write about something that is just plain nice. So here is the Even Keel Canberra District Shiraz Viognier 2006. A belter it is!!

Based down in the Mornington Peninsula, Samuel Coverdale has got 4 hectares under vine on Red Hill, but it is not only from here where he gets his fruit. With a large net, Simon sources his fruit from all over the east coast; Orange, Clare Valley, Tumbarumba and of course the Canberra District.

The wine is a very dense red/purplish colour with a sort of crimsonish hue. The nose is a lovely marriage of savoury chocolate and apricot, with neither of them dominating the olfactory. In the mouth this wine has many identities with lovely grainy fine tannins up front and a great whack of acid which tells us that this wine will develop very nicely indeed. Once the acid blows off a bit, the apricot comes back in the guise of apricot crumble, very rich and very long – sexy stuff this one!!

Wonderful balance, huge length and a real complex hit of spices and perfume, this wine will please time and again for a few years to come. Mucho fantastico!!

Again, sexy stuff this one!!

Drink till 2018
Drink with Joue de bœuf
18.7/20
Screwcap $29

Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2007 and Lemon Tart from Babka Bakery, Brunswick Street Fitzroy

Quite possibly Australia’s most consistent wine – period! Year in and year out, Leo Buring Riesling can be counted on to produce young and vibrant wine, or with careful cellaring, a gorgeous glass of stewed pineapple and kero. Every wine list that I have run has had Leo Buring on the Riesling page, and I have no doubt that the next one will have it also.

So, on to the wine. Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2007.

Viticulturaly speaking, 2007 was pretty ordinary in the Clare with little rain after flowering coupled with extreme heat in December and January. Riesling tends to favour conditions that are more on the cooler side, with plenty of rain when it is needed; in 2007 this did not occur. Yet this wine, through skilled wine making, offers all that is great about Riesling.

The colour still has a straw look about it, but you can already see a little bit of yellowy gold coming through. On the nose there is wax with a little bit of pineapple, un-ripe pineapple, also. In the mouth there is a wee bit of spritz with prickly acid being the primary feel. There is a little hole in the mid-palate, with more pineapple towards the end. After an hour the wine really gets going with stewed pineapple coming out quite big. It is here that I would recommend decanting wines such as Riesling and Pinot Gris so as to get through the initial acid whack and enhances the aromatics to come through, and I would use a cornetto decanter for this job.

The tart in question from Babka bakery in Fitzroy was really a side note for this wine. It was only the next day that Erin bought this home for me, and within three seconds of the tart being shoved in my gob, I realised that there was about a glass left of the Leo Buring. I left the rest of the tart and decanted the remainder of the wine and went back to it an hour or so later. Pure delight!! This worked because of the contrast of acid that the tart and wine both gave out; lemony puckery acid from the tart and prickly warm acid from the Riesling. Balance can be achieved through contrast. Acid with the acid and richness with the pastry and stewed pineapple.

Great balance, great length with the right amount of complexity for a young Riesling. And yes, mucho fantastico.

Drink till 2019
Drink with lemon tart from Babka in Fitzroy
17.8/20
Screwcap $19

Frogmore Creek Tasmanian Pinot Noir 2006

There is nothing wrong with referring to ‘The Simpsons’ for some inspiration, so here it goes,
‘..... more asbestos, more asbestos, more asbestos...’

These are the rantings of the eternal 10 year old Bart Simpson during a debate with class poindexter Martin Prince. As much as I love the little fella, the last thing we need is more asbestos. What we do need however, is more flavour, more complexity and just plain more yum. This is precisely what the Frogmore Creek Tasmanian 2006 Pinot Noir needs.

The colour is quite translucent with no real depth to it at all. There is a bit of soft spice with oak coming through the longer in the glass. Sweet strawberry up front with very little to offer other than acid. The next day the wine was pretty much gone with no real depth at all.

One thing that struck me was this wine came in at 14% a/v, which is bloody high considering it is from the some of the southernmost vineyards in Tassie and that 2006 was quite a tame year weather wise. yet the thing with Frogmore Creek Pinot Noir, is that over the years the winemakers have been achieving quite high alcohol, with the Reserve Pinot Noir 2005 coming in at a whopping 14.8% a/v - thats large!

No real balance with this one, but hey, don’t have a cow or anything. This wine I reckon will be better in a couple of years after it loses the massive acid.

Drink with pork chops and beetroot salad
Drink till 2013
15/20
Screwcap $23

Fish Bone Fish + Chips and Chateau du Cléray-Sauvion 2007 Muscadet Sèrve et Maine

When I was a kid, Friday nights in the warmer months (most of them cos’ I grew up in Fremantle) meant extended games of cricket at the park, or if we were lucky, extended stays at the beach. These were days when kids could freely do their stuff without a nervous parent watching their every move. For me though, the real clincher was when mum would pull up in her beaten up Renault, change from her nurses outfit and walk out to the veranda and call my name to come in – the park and beach were both within hollering distance. My goodbyes done to Elias and Gabe, I would meet my mum, and sometimes my older sisters, at the Renault where we would head off in to town for F+C – Fish and Chips!!

In those days, Fremantle was over-run by that wild gang of hippies, ‘The Orange People’. It was also a place where local families could walk down South Terrace or The Esplanade without being run down by a tourist tram or three wheeler scooters. And it was also a time where the buskers would let you pass on by without threat of harm if you did not empty your pocket of coins in to the guitar case.

But Freo on Friday for me was all about Fish and Chips. And the two destinations were either The Freo Markets or Ciccerellos in Fisherman’s Harbour. Today the F+C at the Markets is now some craft stall and Ciccerellos is now a vast fast food styli outfit, but still producing the F+C that I remember – heaps of salt and heaps of vinegar!

Fast forward 30 years to last night where it was my turn to take the kids to get F+C. It has been quite some time since I have seen the butchers paper wrapping, with these days your order coming in a sought of rectangle box in a bag. And it is Fish Bone on Lygon Street Brunswick where my kids get their F+C in abox and an introduction to excess salt and vinegar.

Now there are not many F+C outlets in this area, with a few of them still using oil from when Ricky Martin was living ‘da vida loca’ or something like that. You know when someone is doing the right thing though when at 6pm on a Friday there are about 25 people waiting for their lot. I am not sure what cottonseed oil does in the frying process, apart from frying of course, but I gotta say that Fish Bone, for the last four years or so, easily has it over some of the more hoy-fa-loyting fryers south of the Yarra. And you know it is good when your four year old eats everything, including the fish.

On the crowds, it would definitely be smart to phone your order through, this way it gives you plenty of time to wonder up the road to ‘Blackheart and Sparrows’ and get yourself some refreshments. Now when I was a kid, the staple beverage with F+C was a Coke ice-cream spider – a scoop of vanilla ice-cream with Coke poured over the top; way cool I tell ya.

So with my palate evolving a little bit, the question is what type of wine will soak up all that salt and vinegar. Beer is always good with F+C, but for this exercise we are drinking wine. There has been a lot of discussion on the appropriate wine match to F+C on the web I have noticed, with some gerbil in the UK recommending Malbec. I think we will just leave that one alone. To me F+C need something that is light and fresh with a little bit of residual salt about it. This leaves you Semillon, Savvy B (last resort people), and what we had, Muscadet; in particular the Chateau du Cléray-Sauvion 2007 Muscadet Sèrve et Maine from Vallet in the Loire Valley.

Made ‘sur lie’, or on lees, and under the ‘Haute Culture’ label, the name of the maison, the Chateau du Cléray-Sauvion 2007 Muscadet Sèrve et Maine is exactly what you should drink with F+C. The colour is quite light – bone straw, which is what you would expect from a young Muscadet. The nose is quite complex with subtle oyster shell and grapefruit – the real salty citrus scent you look for I guess. The mouth is quite soft, with tingly acid opening up to more citrus in the way of grapefruit and lemon to soak up the salt and vinegar as needed.

With so many wines to choose from, Muscadet and F+C is definitely a ‘Susan’ match i.e. ‘this goes with that at Susan’ styli. And if you can get some oysters from your F+C, do it; Muscadet and oysters is a ‘Susan’ no-brainer also.

Fish Bone gets Two Birks
Drink till 2014
17.2/20

Noon Winery McLaren Vale Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2002

They say ‘big is better’ and ‘nothing is bigger than Texas’ and then there is this one from the late US president Gerald Ford, ‘if the government is big enough to give you what you want, then it is big enough to take it away as well’. These all may be true, but the one thing I know that is big is the Noon McLaren Vale Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2002. BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG!!!

You got that. Good!

Quite possibly the biggest alcohol I have ever seen for a table wine, this bad boy weighs in at a hefty 16.1% a/v. I could have easily have introduced this wine like some heavy weight prize fighting boxer about to step in to the ring, but that would just be too theatrical for cyberspace I reckon.

This wine has been sitting in my cellar for about 5 years now, so with a curious mind and thirsty gob, Erin and I got stuck in to this one like any other bottle of plonk – casually. What we got was a lesson about being cautious. Yes I know, too theatrical.

After sitting in the decanter for about 30 minutes, the wine had this appearance of being almost black, something I saw while at Charles Sturt Uni in Wagga; it was a class on pH (the measure of acidity or alkalinity of a solution) in red wine with lower pH of 3.2 – 3.8 being normal red wine colour, to the extreme of pH 6.1 being total black. Now the thing with pH is that the lower it is the more acid you will have and less alcohol with the opposite for those wines with high pH. Anyway, it is a fair bet that this wine had a high pH, not 8, but definitely somewhere around 3.9 - 4.0.

On the nose there is heavy eucalypt similar to that of ‘Martha Gardner’s’ wool wash. After this there is just a real big hit of ethanol, which is no surprise really. In the mouth liquorice in the way of sweet all sorts is overwhelming and seems to just go on for quite a while without much else happening.

This is a wine for all those wine drinkers who love that big smack of oak and alcohol, and with a couple bottles left in the cellar, it seems that this one will have to wait a little longer before it see’s the light of day, or the bottom of my glass.

To quote Bobo from ‘Pizza’, ‘It’s big and it’s cheesy’.

There is balance, there is length, but the wine just lacks complexity and elegance.

Drink till 2020
Drink with leg of lamb and mint sauce
16/20