Monthly Archives: June 2015

Wine review – De Bortoli, Rolling and Brookland Valley

De Bortoli Yarra Valley Windy Peak Pinot Noir 2014 $9.95–$15
De Bortoli’s Windy Peak offers the juicy, pure varietal flavour of ripe, cool-grown pinot at an amazingly low price. I paid around $15 for it in Broome, where it became our much loved, campsite red, enduring the corrugations and dust of the Gibb River and Cape Leveque roads. Many retailers offer it for about $11, and Dan Murphy sells the previous, marginally better 2013 vintage online for $9.95. Remarkably for a pinot at this price, it provides some of the savour and backbone as well varietal fruit flavour.

Rolling Central Ranges Cabernet Merlot 2013 $12.95–$15
Rolling is a brand of Cumulus Estate Wines of Orange. Variations in the estate’s altitude mean that vines above the 600-metre mark lie within the Orange region boundary, while those below 600 metres fall under the Central Ranges appellation. It’s a fine line to draw as wines from, say, 650 metres bear more resemblance to those from 590 metres than to those at 750, 850 or even over 1,000 metres – all captured in the Orange boundary. But that’s for the locals to worry about. Rolling cabernet merlot, enjoyed in Qantas cattle class recently, provides pleasant berry flavours with cabernet’s herbaceous edge and fine tannins.

Brookland Valley Verse 1 Margaret River Chardonnay 2013 $13.30–$15
The trickle-down effect can never be underestimated for large-company wines. In this instance, Brookland Valley, part of Accolade Wines, produces cutting-edge Margaret River chardonnay, alongside the group’s other fine chardonnays, including Bay of Fires (Tasmania) and the flagship, Eileen Hardy. The group skills trickle down all the way to Brookland’s Verse 1 chardonnay, which provides way above average drinking for the price. Its keynote is pure, fresh peach-and-melon varietal flavour of great freshness, backed by textural richness derived from barrel maturation of some components.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 27 and 28 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Beer review – Woolshed Brewery and Brewcult

Woolshed Brewery Judas the Dark 330ml $4.70
Woolshed Brewery of Murtho, South Australia, adds roasted wattle seeds to Judas, giving an Aussie twist to a timeless villain. This deep, dark Judas, though, gives a sweet, warming, gentle kiss. Coffee- and –chocolate-like flavours of roasted grain give way to a charry, grippy bitterness that offsets the malty sweetness.

Brewcult Full Metal Anorak English IPA 500ml $10
In the US and Australia, IPAs proliferate daily as thrill seekers explore the world of pungent, resiny, bitter hops. Brewcult (Derrimut, Victoria) offers a dark-brown version, overflowing with resiny, fresh hops aroma. The fruity-malty palate, at a modest-for-the-style 5.8 per cent alcohol, balances the hops, which nevertheless give a bitter, lingering aftertaste.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 23 and 24 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Aussie cider consumption growing 20 per cent a year

As declining overall beer consumption and rapidly increasing sales of craft beer catch the headlines, cider continues its even more rapid rise in popularity.

Based on ABS and IbisWorld figures, cider consumption appears to have grown at around 20 per cent by volume annually between 2009 and 2014, and by 13 per cent by value annually in the five years to 2015.

ABS says the volume of cider available for consumption, expressed as litres of pure alcohol, grew from 1.64 million litres in 2009 to 4.13 million litres in 2014. Assuming an average cider strength of five per-cent by volume, this equates to 32.88 million litres and 82.58 million litres of cider respectively – and an increase over the five years of 151 per cent.

IbisWord estimates total revenue from cider in 2015 at $268 million, spread over 120 businesses employing 736 people.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 23 and 24 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Ross Hill, Chrismont, Tolpuddle, Forester Estate, Torbreck and Mad Fish

Ross Hill Pinnacle Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Ross Hill Griffin Road vineyard, Orange, NSW

$40
From 1994, the Robson family planted their Griffin Road, Orange, vineyard at elevations varying from 750 to 850 metres. In 2008, the family added another five hectares at 1018 metres, near their Wallace Road winery. In the benign 2013 vintage, five years after winemaker Phil Kerney arrived, The Ridge, a section of the lower, warmer Griffin vineyard, produced evenly ripened cabernet of a quality rarely seen in the district. Kerney successfully nurtured the fruit through the winery and ultimately to bottle under the company’s Pinnacle label. A deep, vividly coloured wine, Pinnacle shows equally vivid, ripe berry flavours in a deep, sweet palate cut through with cabernet’s assertive, ripe tannins. This is powerful, harmonious and elegant cabernet that might be enjoyed now with protein rich food. However, its best lies in the years ahead.

Chrismont La Zona Prosecco NV
King Valley, Victoria

$18–$22

In 2007 Arnie and Jo Pizzini planted the Italian white variety, prosecco, in their vineyard at Cheshunt, in Victoria’s King Valley. With it they emulate the light, delicate dry sparkling wines made with the variety in north-eastern Italy. La Zona starts as a still table wine matured on yeast lees for a few months before being blended with components from earlier vintages then undergoing a secondary fermentation in steel tanks. It’s a unique, good-fun style – pale, comparatively low in alcohol, at 11.5 per cent, and with a light, delicious, pleasant, intensely tart, dry palate.

Tolpuddle Pinot Noir 2013
Tolpuddle vineyard, Coal River Valley, Tasmania

$75
In May, Tolpuddle vineyard, owners Michael Hill Smith and Martin Shaw, celebrated a huge success at London’s International Wine Challenge. Tolpuddle 2013, just the second pinot from vineyard in Tasmania’s Coal River Valley, won trophies as best Tasmanian pinot, best Australian pinot and best Australian red – of any variety. Smith and Shaw sell the majority of their fruit to other winemakers, but make small quantities of pinot noir and chardonnay for their Tolpuddle label. Pure, primary fruit flavours push through the wine’s fine, smooth tannins, but savouriness and complexity give extra dimension to the first class pinot so loved by the London judges.

Forester Estate Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2014
Yallingup, Margaret River, Western Australia

$17.10–$254
Forester Estate take Margaret River’s regional white blend to a high level of flavour intensity and purity. Distinctive snow-pea-like characters, with a citrus-like tang, define this two-variety blend in Margaret River. And Forester Estate’s screams from the glass, leaving drinkers in no doubt what they’re about to encounter. The style can sometimes be a little skinny on the palate, but this one gives a plush and juicy feeling. And then the zippy acid carries the snow-pea flavour on to a long, refreshing finish.

Torbreck The Struie Shiraz
Barossa and Eden Valleys, South Australia

$47.50–$50
Torbreck creator David Powell departed the scene a couple of years ago after a public and bitter split with Torbreck’s American owner, Peter Kight. However, Torbreck and its winemaking remain intact, producing extraordinary reds like The Struie. It combines elegant, refined shiraz from the higher, cooler Eden Valley with fuller, riper shiraz from the warmer Barossa. The wine hits the palate with sweet, stock-like concentration – a chewy, slinky amalgam of ripe but spicy shiraz, soft tannin and mocha-like flavours from high-quality oak, which also adds a slight bitterness to the aftertaste.

Mad Fish Premium Red Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2013
Margaret River, Great Southern and Geographe, Western Australia
$13.30–$18
The Burch family’s budget red blend comprises mostly cabernet sauvignon (54 per cent) and merlot (35 per cent) with a gloop each of cabernet franc, sangiovese, shiraz and petit verdot. Cabernets and the related merlot give the wine its distinctive berry and tomato-leaf characters and lean, taut palate. And sangiovese probably adds to the grippy tannins, though it’s hard to discern what the shiraz contributes. Overall, it’s a high quality, good value cabernet blend. Watch for the retailer discounts, as they tend to lop around $5 a bottle off the recommended price.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 23 and 24 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Torbreck, Redbank and Partisan

Torbreck Barossa Valley Cuvee Juveniles 2013 $25
Originally made for Juveniles bistro, Paris, Torbreck provides an exuberant, unoaked expression of the Barossa’s signature blend of grenache, shiraz and mataro (aka mourvedre). Despite its hefty 15-per-cent alcohol, Juveniles sits bright, fresh and fruity on the palate, with little sign of alcoholic heat. Grenache (60 per cent of the blend) leads the aroma, musk-like flavour and liveliness of the palate. Shiraz adds body and soft tannins to the blend, while mataro contributes spice, savour and tannic grip to a remarkably fruity, buoyant finish.

Redbank Sunday Morning King Valley Pinot Gris 2013 $17.90–$22
Pinot gris and pinot grigio are just the Italian and French names respectively for the same grape variety. “Grigio” and “gris” mean “grey”, indicating the skin colour, which can range through grey and pink to light red. While there’s no formal definition of the styles suggested by the names, “grigio” more often than not indicates the leaner, dry style produced in northeastern Italy; and “gris” represents the more luscious, sometimes sweet styles of Alsace, France. Redbank, from high-altitude vineyards in Victoria’s King Valley, sits towards the off-dry, plush French style, with a pleasant, light spiced pear-like flavour.

Partisan McLaren Vale Shiraz 2013 $15.20–$18
McWilliams Wines remains one of Australia’s largest family owned wineries, with an ever-extending reach away from their Griffith base, and a kaleidoscope of regional brands. The Partisan label represents a step into McLaren Vale’s signature red variety, shiraz. And, typical of a McWilliam brand, the quality greatly exceeds what we’d expect at the price. If not offering Grange at $15–$18 a bottle, Partisan certainly deliver rich, ripe, shiraz with the chewy, savoury, satisfying depth characteristic of McLaren Vale. Discounted to around $15 a bottle, it’s an absolute bargain.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 20 and 21 June in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Record crowd attends beer awards presentation

Celebrating the world’s biggest beer-judging event

More than 800 people packed into this year’s presentation dinner for the Australian International Beer Awards. The Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria, which runs the awards, claims it as the biggest beer-judging event in the world.

This year 58 judges at the Melbourne show ground tasted their way through more than 1,700 entries submitted by 344 brewers from 35 countries.

Trophy winners include brewers large and small from all over the world. And some of the awards may put a smile on the face of the uninitiated.

Will Australian brewers worry when a Vietnamese brewer, Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corporation’s 333 Premium Export, wins the trophy for best Australian style lager? Or will the Belgian and French be up in arms over Australia’s Little Brewing Company’s success in their style division?

See the full catalogue of results at rasv.com.au/beer.

Beer reviews

Thatcher’s Gold English Cider 500ml $5.90–$7.50
Thatcher’s Gold won three trophies in the 2014 Australian Cider Awards: best in show, best cider and best international cider or perry. It’s widely available in bottle shops and also on tap. The cider has a bright, pale-golden colour an aroma of very ripe apples and flavour to match, with delightfully brisk acidity and dry finish.

Badlands Darkness London Porter 500ml $8.00
Badlands’ robust porter takes the palate on a silk-smooth ride through the dark side of ale. Flavours reminiscent of coffee bean, chocolate and a hint of charcoal reflect the roasted malts used by the brewer. It’s a warming, gentle, winter brew in which a subtle bitterness provides balance without overshadowing the malt.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 16 and 17 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Ravensworth, Clonakilla, Helm, Eden Road, Ross Hill and Brangayne

Ravensworth Nebbiolo 2014
Hilltops, NSW

$35
As winemaker Bryan Martin and photographer David Reist launched their book, Tongue and Cheek, in March, guests quaffed Martin’s just-released 2014 nebbiolo. At its best, the Piedmontese variety makes lighter coloured, highly fragrant reds of great power and elegance, with firm tannins that outgrip even those of cabernet sauvignon. Martin’s new wine sits at the darker end of the nebbiolo scale, with alluring fragrance and a rounder, softer palate then the 2013 vintage reviewed last year. The tannins do come back and bite in the end, but this is already a friendly and distinctive drink. It joins Freeman (made by Brian Freeman) as another outstanding expression of the variety from the Hilltops region.

Clonakilla Syrah 2013
Clonakilla T and L vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW

$110

Over the last few years Clonakilla’s syrah (aka shiraz) has grown to rival the winery’s original flagship blend of shiraz and viognier. The unblended syrah, says winemaker Tim Kirk, “comes from our north-east facing T and L vineyard”, named for Kirk and wife, Laura. Kirk de-stems the grape bunches but leaves the berries intact in a single fermenter. A spontaneous ferment begins inside the berries and the wine macerates for a total of one month on the skins before being pressed off and matured for 15 months in French oak barrels. The result is a bright, intensely flavoured, spicy shiraz of extraordinary finesse – a wine to savour drop by drop. It should evolve well for many years.

Helm Premium Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW

$52
Ken Helm’s latest cabernet shows the perfectly ripe fruit of the outstanding vintage. In our cool district, leafy and herbaceous characters become part and parcel of cabernet’s flavour. However, there’s little sign of these characters in Helm’s latest vintage. Instead we smell and taste vibrant cassis-like varietal characters, backed by cabernet’s assertive tannins, which give backbone and longevity. At this early stage of the wine’s evolution, flavours from maturation in oak are also apparent, but hopefully time will harmonise the fruit–oak combination.

Eden Road The Long Road Pinot Noir 2013
Courabyra and Maragle vineyard, Tumbarumba, NSW

$30
Winemaker Nick Spencer says he sources fruit for The Long Road pinot noir from the Courabyra and Maragle vineyards in high, cool Tumbarumba. Originally planted to pinot noir and chardonnay for sparkling wine production, Tumbarumba soon showed its class with chardonnay as a still table wine. Pinot noir, however, remains a work in progress under makers like Eden Road. The Long Road finds favour in Canberra restaurants. We enjoyed it earlier this year at Restaurant 86, Braddon, and recently at the Lanterne Rooms, Campbell. It remains a lighter style pinot, with bright fruit, stemmy notes and quite a grip from its fine silky tannins.

Ross Hill Tom and Harry Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Ross Hill vineyard, Orange, NSW

$25
Phil Kerney turned out a lovely cool-climate cabernet in 2013. It earned trophies as best cabernet in the 2014 Orange Wine Show and 2014 Winewise Small Vignerons Awards, Canberra. The judges perhaps became a little overexcited and I suspect they didn’t see Tom and Harry alongside Kerney’s Pinnacle Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 ($40), a wine of much greater dimension. Tom and Harry displays the vivid berry and eucalypt-like flavours of cool-grown cabernet in a fine, elegant, medium-bodied style.

Brangayne Isolde Reserve Chardonnay 2013
Brangayne vineyard, Orange, NSW
$30
Three-star/84
Isolde chardonnay comes from Brangayne vineyard. At an elevation of 960–1000 metres, it’s the higher of two sites owned by the Hoskins family. Deep down, the wine shows the flavour intensity and the crisp, high acidity you’d expect of fruit grown at this altitude. However, perceiving this fruit requires the drinker (well, this drinker, anyway) to overlook intrusive woody and resiny flavours, inserted presumably during oak fermentation and maturation. We might politely call the wine “old fashioned”. But Australian winemakers and drinkers moved on from this style long ago.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 16 and 17 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Brangayne, Clonakilla and Tim Adams

Brangayne of Orange Riesling 2014 $22
The Hoskins family owns two vineyards at Orange: the Brangayne vineyard (elevation 960 to 1,000 metres); and the slightly less cool Ynys Witrin vineyard (860 to 880 metres). Riesling, from the lower site, was harvested in the cool of a late March night and trucked about 200 kilometres north-east to Simon Gilbert’s Mudgee winery. The wine offers a style contrast to those from the Eden and Clare Valleys or Canberra. High acidity accentuates the wine’s citrus-like flavours – a hint of orange cut by zesty lemony tartness. At just 11.5 per cent alcohol, it sits light and spritely on the palate and finishes dry.

Clonakilla Canberra District Vintage 2013 (fortified shiraz) $30
The Portuguese now own the term “port”, leaving our winemakers to invent alternative names for what we once might have called “vintage port’. To winemaker Tim Kirk, though, this is just another expression of Canberra’s cool-grown shiraz – made from parcels too ripe to include in Clonakilla’s elegant, medium bodied table wines. “We made this from some of the ripest shiraz that came into the winery”, writes Kirk. Kirk arrested the still-sweet wine’s fermentation by adding very, strong, pure, grape spirit – beautifully named spiritus vini rectifacatus. And what a pure, elegant and sumptuous winter warmer it is – vibrant, spicy, sweet and harmonious, with long cellaring potential.

Tim Adams Clare Valley Cabernet Malbec 2010 $22–$26
Deep, inky malbec – the national red of Argentina and local specialty of Cahors, France – thrives in Australia, too. Our winemakers generally blend it with other varieties, though a number of straight varietals are available, notably from Langhorne Creek. It’s well established in the Clare Valley, too, and in the hands of veteran winemaker Tim Adams, adds a deep, earthy punch to cabernet sauvignon. At five years the first mellow touches of age add a lovely dimension to a vibrant, solid, chewy wine. Even so, the inherent elegance of cabernet may push through with a few more years’ bottle age.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 13 and 14 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Scramble for craft funds favours the big

Big brewers set to reap the benefits

IbisWorld research suggests our big brewers, Lion and SABMiller, are better placed than small brewers to reap the benefits of rapidly growing craft beer sales.

The researcher estimates craft beer’s market value at $167 million, following annual growth of ten per between 2010 and 2015. IbisWorld says 147 businesses in the craft beer industry employ 552 people.

In this rapidly growing market, says IbisWorld, small-scale newcomers face few barriers to entry and require comparatively small capital inputs. However, commercial success requires larger volumes and larger capital inputs – which favours the big brewers and their existing craft brands.

Echoing these thoughts in an interview for Radio Brews News, Stone and Wood founder, Jamie Cook, estimated short-term capital requirements for the industry at $85 million. The challenge for small brewers, he said, was to keep up with market growth and the big brewers.

Reviews

Killer Sprocket Hey Juniper 500ml $8
Killer Sprocket comes from Sean and Andrea Ryan, operating out of the Cavalier Brewery Melbourne. They make Hey Juniper in the richly malty, highly hopped American ale style, and season it with juniper berries. The combination of hops and juniper gives a pervasive – and inescapable – bitterness to a unique beer.

Holgate Brewhouse Nut Brown Ale 500ml $8.90
Holgate Brewhouse’s tenth anniversary ale combines “lashings of Australian macadamia nuts and hearty English malts”, says the back label. The beer’s deep and brooding brown colour matches its earthy, charry, malty, vegemite-like savoury flavours. Despites its weight, it’s spritely and fresh on the palate, with a mild bitterness offsetting the sweet malt.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 26 and 27 May 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Canberra’s BentSpoke Brewery – one year, 160-thousand litres

A year in brewing

BentSpoke Brewery opened last June and on the strength of its superb brews became an instant Canberra landmark, smack in the heart of once-daggy Braddon.

For its first birthday this weekend, brewer Richard Watkins plans on unveiling four special brews, one each on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday (and bugger the Tuesday hangover).

He’s tight lipped about what’s in store. But for Canberra Times’ readers he’s revealed insights of the first year’s trading.

I think we’ll hit about 160,000 litres”, he said. Spreading all that amber liquid over the three thousand patrons visiting each week puts consumption at a little under two pints a head.

The strong and bitter Crankshaft IPA proved by far the most popular of 31 brews offered during the year.

And for the future Watkins hopes to, “get our beer on tap around Canberra and maybe even into bottle shops”.

Reviews

BentSpoke Grainy half-pint glass $8
Under the ever-inventive Richard Watkins, BentSpoke’s new brews come and go at a pleasing pace. The new winter warmer, slurped joyfully on a cold autumn afternoon, offered the deep, sweet, toasty flavours of five grains – barley, wheat, oats, spelt and tiny teff – gently offset by mildly bitter hops.

BentSpoke Larken’s Brown half-pint glass $7.50
Larken’s Brown percolates through BentSpoke’s hopinator en route to the glass, absorbing exotic flavours from a mix of cinnamon, chillies and roasted coffee beans from Highgate Lane. Coffee aromas and flavours dominate the brew. And if it wasn’t cold, frothy and alcoholic, the drinker might swear they’d downed a very good espresso.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2015
First published 2 and 3 June 2015 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times