Millton Gisborne Te Arai Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2011

Its been a big November I tell ya....

I just love Chenin Blanc and I love this producer and this is such a beautiful wine. The Millton Gisborne Te Arai Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2011 is all about purity of fruit and balanced acid and phenolic mouth feel; orange citrus - mandarin, tangerine and kumquat all laced together with delicious rich loquat and balanced white phenolics and acid. Its great and its Biodynamic too boot!! Bonza stuff.

Drink with chilli grilled chicken
Drink till 2015
96
Screwcap 11.5%v/v $26 Seddon Wine Store

Top of the tree in 2012

No, the world did not end. The Mayans sort of got it wrong with December 21st 2012 being cupitski for all of us mortals. Word is the Mayan's also predicted Beta VCR's would be the greatest invention since poncho's, the Spice Girls to collectively cure cancer and Corey Worthington to win a Noble Peace prize. Stick to human sacrifice next time Mayan's!!

What 2012 did bring to me was some pretty schmick wine positioned neatly in my glass. Last year saw just 6 wines for my top list. This year there are 10; 1 sparkling, 3 whites and 6 reds. Last year saw 5 whites and 1 red.  More awesomeness in 2012 than 2011 I guess.

So without delay and in no particular order, here is the pick of the the 2012 tasting crop.

Viñero Macedon Ranges Pinot Noir 2010 - a new label from super-sommeliers Matt Brook and Liam O'Brien, the 2010 hit all the right notes from a cracking vintage; very cool climate and not too far off soft and sexy Chambolle-Musigny.

Between 5 Bells Geelong Red Wine 2010 - a whacky blend that just so beautifully worked; who'd have thunk that we could find a use for Zinfandel? No offense California (sic).

Albert Mann Alsace Pinot Blanc Auxerrois 2011 - continuing on my love affair with Pinot Blanc, the recent winery of the year according to Wine Spectator (I think) delivers a magestic little quaffer that delivers so much more that the price suggests. Just beautiful.

Bindi Macedon Ranges Cuvée V Chardonnay/Pinot Noir -  I told you that this was going to be here. Bias or no bias, this wine just rocks.

Reichsrat Von Bulh Pfalz Riesling 2011 - I love Riesling, but what I loved about this beauty is its very unlike Rieslingness that just grabs you by the scruff of the neck and screams,' JUST DRINK ME!!!!!!!'

Fletcher Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo 2010 - my wine notes for this one were quite simple, 'Awesome. Breathtaking. Oursum. Captivating. Orsum. Sexxy.' You get that?

Best's Great Western Dolcetto 2010 - definitely bringing sexy back to Western Victoria, and definitely giving new world Dolcetto a voice.

By Farr Geelong Sangreal 2009 - Erin and I enjoyed this on Bastille Day last year in Perth. Enjoyed quite the understatement. Such brute power with such gentle force. Gary Farr knows his shit.

Sébastien Brunet Vouvray Arpent Sec 2010 - like my love for Pinot Blanc, my love affair with Vouvray also knew no bounds. I will make it a task this month to get this down at Seddon Wine Store, perhaps by the glass.

BK Wines Adelaide Hills Cult Syrah 2011 - just goes to prove that when you have a crap vintage, doesnt mean you have to make crap wine.

There you go, the top ten for 2012. And for the record, the By Farr Sangreal and BK Wines Syrah were the definate standouts. Cannot wait to see what 2013 has install.

Sébastien Brunet Vouvray Arpent Sec 2010

So it's been, what, a week and a bit(stupid cookies disabled my blog posting) since the mighty Melbourne Storm beat the Canterbury Bulldogs. It was a great game. Beautiful weather. Great crowd. Beautiful break foot. I have just one more thing to say. SUFFER IN YA JOCKS GUS GOULD YA MISERABLE TWAT!!!!

There you go then. Where was I? Yes, the Sébastien Brunet Vouvray Arpent Sec 2010 is right now my favourite wine. This wine first came across my bow about 6 weeks ago when i had a tasting at Albert Street Food & Wine. it was a tasting I requested because I love Vouvray and needed a new one on the list (didn't get around to it I'm afraid). It was great. Still is.

Plenty going on in the nose with ripe locuts and creamy lees with a lick of mandarin peel. In the mouth there is more ripe locut dominant as well as more citrus at the end with mandarin and tangerine waxing the back palate. I love it.

It hasn't been mentioned for a while on this blog, but this wine gets a definite Susan with pork cutlets - fat on - with the Vouvray cutting through the fat and lifting and extending as well as Billy Slater did through the Bulldogs defence. In your face Gould you sucker of the sourest grapes; Chenin not one of those.

Drink with pork cutlets
Drink till 2018
98
Diam cork 12.33% v/v to be precise and $36 Blackheart & Sparrows, Brunswick

Ipso facto Margaret River Chenin Blanc 2010

For a grape variety so well made in the Loire and so bastardised here in Australia, Kate Morgan has produced a wine that can easliy comne from Vouvray or Montlouis and not the back blocks of Margaret River. Huzzah to you Kate!!!

The Ipso facto Margaret River Chenin Blanc 2010 by pure fact is a super little drop of flintiness and tart acid, and the longer in the glass comes a great swell of cracked ginger, orange blossum and subtle pear notes. I am sure my mother-in-law, who holds Amberley close to her heart, will disagree, but the Ipso facto may certainly be the game changer that Chenin Blanc needs in Australia.

Drink with chicken and ginger stir fry
Drink till 2016
96
Screwcap 12.5%v/v $28

The Wanderer Upper Yarra Valley Chenin Blanc 2010

This variety is vying with Pinot Blanc right now as my default wine; both are positively singing right now due to proper viticulture and dedicated wine makers. The Wanderer Upper Yarra Valley Chenin Blanc 2010 right now is in the groove. Bright and shiny nose - I know thats sounds like a bit of a wank, but hey, just works! Fresh ginger on the nose is followed by the gentlest of honeysuckle. Crisp in the palate, the acidiy is followed by more subtle ginger and the tiniest amount of white phenolics - sort of a talc feel in the mouth. I seriously do love this wine right now.

Drink with Hue prawn and pork pancake
Drink till 2014
97
Screwcap 13%v/v $26 Albert Street Food & Wine, Brunswick

Millton Gisborne Chenin Blanc 2009

Erin is watching ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ on the dots. This may be my last post ever, because the world must be ending for Erin to be watching such rubbish TV. Better make this one count then. The Millton Gisborne Chenin Blanc 2009. Can you believe it, ‘Celebrity fuckin Apprentice’!!!!! I love Chenin. Problem is that we in Australia tend to stuff it up, so I am usually drinking Vouvray. Not anymore, or not as often anyway. I’ve got Millton from Nelson – but I better hurry up because Arma-fuckin-geddon is around the corner. Closed and tight on the nose, the palate is awash with subtle sugar and perfectly pitched ginger. Do you hear that, sounds like the four horsemen. Just want more.

Drink with my green papaya and beef salad
Drink before the end of the world!!!!
96
Screwcap 13%v/v $26 Blackhearts & Sparrows Brunswick

François Chidaine Les Argiles Vouvray 2008

Such a sexy wine. In an almost Mills & Boon way this wine grabbed me around the waist and drew me to its plump bosom in a fit of ecstasy! The François Chidaine Les Argiles Vouvray 2008 is quite easily my favourite white for 2011 for the simple reason that it has everything. Pale straw to look at, the wine offers up a hint of tropical fruit on the nose, but that was it. In to the decanter for you then my pretty! After a while a real whack of flint was followed by ripe pineapple and papaya – funky shit right. The palate was where it was for me with a great mix of minerality and sweetness, but it wasn’t like one followed the other. This dance ebbed and flowed between the both, sort of like dancing to The Chemical Brothers and Anne Murray both at the same time; told you it was the funky shit!

All in all, a brilliant Chenin Blanc!

Drink with crumbed lambs brains - an easy Susan!
Drink till 2015
97
Quality cork 13.5%v/v; didn’t put $$ on wine notes sorry, but got it from Blackheart & Sparrows in Brunswick

Home

Number 64. My home. Our home. After three weeks in Vietnam with family can honelstly say that I am loving the very mild 13 degress right now in downtown Brunswick. Heaps of food, heaps of beer - no wine except for a very ordinary Chardonnay/Chenin Blanc out of the cask from South Africa - heaps of sunburn, now tan, and heaps of everything in between.

Christmont King Valley La Zona Savagnin 2009

To tell you the truth, I don’t believe the hype.

On almost a weekly basis, some new young pretty thing is trying to take credit for ‘discovering’ a wine or variety that is going to take the market by storm; Viognier – last seen trying to pull its way out of a jar of apricot conserve, Chenin Blanc – keep it WA, it’s yours, Trebbiano – best left unsaid, and Verdelho – ditto.

This brings us to Albarino, that little powder keg of spine tingling citrus with a soft woven texture to it, or is it. Seems those smart folk at CSIRO have been working on a few new projects other than working out water is wet and sticks are brown (no seriously, I do respect the work they do – I almost became one of them!). Anyway, seems that wonderful complex white grape from Spain wasn’t the hip and funky thing people were hyping it up to be – it was Savagnin!

Sav-an-what you say; doesn’t that come from New Zealand from a pipe that was just layed in the ditch to get it to us quicker and fresher?

Close my eager friend, but no. This, too, is sort of a Spanish variety with links dating back to Germany somewhere about the time Bill and Ted landed back there in episode 1 – the 17th Century; seems there was some witch hunt on and the good folk of Bavaria needed to amscray toot sweet, and supposedly on their way brought with them Savagnin.

This brings us back to the 21st Century where man knows everything, now that DNA is 99.9999999999012% spot on, or almost spot on. Ever since the unglorified debunking of Albarino to Savagnin, the good young bright things out there have been going, ‘Yes, Savagnin, marvellous stuff that. Must have it next time I’m with Chad and Miffy up at Cape Cod... snort snort, sniff sniff’ – think young Major Charles Emerson Winchester the third when reading that.

Now we know it’s Savagnin we can rejoice the wonders of it while secretly dissing that imposter Albarino – I knew it was a fake the whole time!

This brings us to the wine of this already long and shamelessly ‘in your face’ post. The Christmont King Valley La Zona Savagnin 2009, a wine making its debut due to the simple fact that last year it was Albarino. Crisp bone straw colour with an almost watery hue. Absolutely nothing on the nose except aggressive citrus. The mouth, pretty much the same unfortunately. A very dull wine with no saving graces to think of – sorry.

Drink with whatever you have with Albarino
Drink only if you need to impress someone
74
Screwcap 12.5% $19.99 Dan Murphy’s Kew

Season of Soup - French Onion and Pichot Domaine Coteau de la Biche Vouvray Moelleux 2002

With each new day dawning to blue sky in cosmopolitan Brunswick, my daughter Imogen asks me if spring is now over and is summer coming sooo quickly. Well my dear, I am sorry to say this is Melbourne, home of the ‘G’, the upside down river and those glorious four seasons in one day....

‘.... lying in the depths of your imagination, Worlds above
and worlds below, the sunshine’s on the black clouds hanging
over the domain.
Even when you’re feeling warm, the temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day......’

'Four Seasons In One Day' Crowded House

So with one eye on a beach towel and the other on an umbrella, we in Melbourne are still in the throes of winter, which brings me to soup. But this is no ordinary ‘Season of Soup’ entry. Today is not only our favourite soup (Erin and me), but a Susan match that I reckon is one of the best!

French Onion Soup with Pichot Domaine Coteau de la Biche Vouvray Moelleux 2002 – a big mouthful, but a good one.

French onion soup is pretty much that, onions and lots of them!!!! This is sort of like risotto; lots of looking and lots of stirring. The key element to a good French Onion soup is making sure the pot and onions brown. So here is my French Onion soup.

· brown onions, plenty of them (14 serves four)
· olive oil
· flour, just a pinch
· Gruyere cheese
· butter, optional though
· salt to taste
· crusty bread
· water
· swimming goggles

After cutting up the multitude of onions, add a good glug of oil to the pot and heat. Add onions and add another glug of oil over the onions. Let it sit for a while on heat with the occasional stir. Once there is an obvious reduction in volume or the pot, add butter and season to taste. Keep stirring!! After a while the pot will start to brown over in the hot spots – this is good. Keep stirring.

Once you have the contents a good brown, add flour and stir for another five minutes. This thickens the contents of the pot so it is easier to reduce evenly. Add water to cover entire volume and add a few small cubes of Gruyere for a creamy edge. Reduce to a good ratio of onion and water. Grate some Gruyere over some bread and grill to your liking.

It is important to let the soup sit for a while so you don’t burn your tongue – this bugger is super hot just out of the pot.

Now the wine. Just to let you know that Vouvray is Chenin Blanc. Now Chenin Blanc in Australia gets a bad rap I reckon. Why you ask? Because we don’t get it; that’s at both levels – producing and drinking.

The very best Chenin Blanc’s come out of the Loire Valley in France. Now before you start thinking that I am banging on about French wines and how they are superior to ours (well yes), I’ll just remind everyone that in France they can only grow certain fruit in certain areas, unlike here where we can bloody grow anything any-bloody-where.

So back to the Loire Valley, and in particular to a little town called Vouvray. You punters out there may know this name from a couple of years ago when a nag by the same name was favourite in a couple of group 1 races. If you are like me and put a few bucks on it and are cursing the sound of the name ‘Vouvray’ (cos’ the mongrel didn’t salute once), I am sorry for bringing back bad memories.

Vouvray is situated on the Loire River just west of Tours in central France where Chenin Blanc is King. Here there are three styles, sec, demi-sec and Moelleux; dry, semi dry and Moelleux which is the sweetest of the three and by far the most sought after.

Moelleux wines can have up to 500 grams/litre of residual sugar in them, making them syrupy sweet and perfect with rich food such as Foire Gras.

This Pichot Moelleux has only 94 grams/litre of residual sugar, but this by no means makes it a light weight in this style. The colour is a beautiful light golden/straw with a yellowish hue coming through. The nose is super sweet with candied orange and saffron. Decanting this wine will benefit. After a while in the glass and decanter, this wine develops richness similar to Sauternes that produces a very warming mouth feel with glycerol, honey and marmalade coming through.

The reason I have given this combo the ‘Susan’ is that I reckon this pairing has got equal measure of richness – both develop a natural viscosity with time – and natural sweetness from the caramelised onions and candied orange in the wine. Ohh I do love it!!

Drink till 2032

94

Quality cork (blackened at tip is an indication that it spent time in underground cave)

$55 12.5% a/v