Yearly Archives: 2007

Redoak heads down the beer-with-food track

25 July 2007BeerChris Shanahan

Siblings David and Janet Hollyoak own Sydney’s Redoak Boutique Beer Café. Located in Clarence Street, it offers an extraordinary range of beer styles brewed by David.

Somehow its existence slipped our radar until Frank Samios, of Café della Piazza, produced a bottle of David’s Rauch beer – a truly exotic style modelled on the originals from Bamberg, Germany.

I’ve not visited Redoak Café, but a look at the beer offerings surely puts it in a league of its own and makes it a must visit.

Rauch beer (made from beechwood-smoked malted barley) is exotic enough, but the current beer lists offers, as well, an eclectic and tempting range, including Framboise Froment, Hefeweizen, Bavarian Pilsner, Vienna Lager, Bock, Blackberry Hefeweizen, Organic Pale Ale and Belgium Choc-Cherry Stout.
The food and educational offering – including degustation menus and master classes – takes a leaf out of the fine-wine marketing books. See redoak.com.au for details.

Redoak Rauch 330ml $7.50 at Café della Piazza
Redback Rauch had the Schloss Shanahan tasting memories drifting back to Bamberg, Germany, and drafts of meaty, smoky Rauchbier served with liver dumpling soup. We’ve not seen an Aussie attempt at this beechwood-smoked style before, but see great promise in Redoak’s less in-your-face version. This is adventurous brewing by David Hollyoak.

Wine review — Brindabella Hills & Hewitson

22 July 2007Vineyard, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Shiraz 2005 $25
Perhaps it’s the sandy, gravely soils, wonders winemaker Roger Harris, that makes shiraz from comparatively low-altitude, warm Hall so amazingly cool-climate-fragrant in style. It’s seductively floral with a matching delicate, juicy flavour and elegant, supple structure – a sensational wine. And I suspect that it’ll grow in interest for several more years. Roger sources it principally from his own vines (planted as pinot noir, originally, then grafted to shiraz) with some from neighbouring vineyards on the Murrumbidgee Valley side of Hall. It’s a great favour for drinkers that it’s been allowed a year’s bottle age following cask ageing. See www.brindabellahills.com.au

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Sauvignon Blanc 2007 $18
Brindabella Hill Canberra District Chardonnay Viognier 2006 $25
Sauvignon Blanc and blends of it with semillon became the sweet spot in Aussie white consumption patterns some years back. They’re not the star varieties in the Canberra district but Roger and Faye Harris have made their straight sauvignon a regional benchmark – the 2007 appealing for its passionfruit-like varietal character, zingy freshness and delicious, fleshy palate. Roger’s adventurous addition of viognier to chardonnay might have gone over the top – viognier having such powerful aromas and flavours. But, in this barrel-fermented-and-matured version it works as the viognier adds richness without dominating.

Hewitson The Mad Hatter McLaren Vale Shiraz 2005 $50
Hewitson Old Garden Barossa Valley Mourvedre 2005 $50
The international language of top-quality wine focuses on vineyard location. It’s a concept inherent in every estate-grown wine and, increasingly, in offerings like these highly distinctive Dean-Hewitson-made reds. These are the antithesis of the delicate Brindabella Hills shiraz described above – and that variability contributes to the beauty and appeal of wine. The mourvedre, a solid, firm, concentrated and spicy red comes from a 154-year-old vineyard at Rowland Flat in the southern Barossa. It’s cellar mate, from the confluence of McLaren Vale’s Seaview Ridge and Blewitt Springs subregions, shows a comparable power and concentration but with the savoury softness of shiraz. These are a delight to savour. See www.hewitson.com.au

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Buying exotic beer in Canberra

18 July 2007BeerChris Shanahan

If you believe there’s life after lager and seek diversity, especially amongst the ale family, where do you shop?

I’ve yet to find a bricks-and-mortar retailer offering the diversity of Western Australian based www.internationalbeershop.com.au

But some retailers make an effort. I’ve had some success at Australian Wine Brokers, Braddon, and Canberra Cellars at Belconnen.

BWS Kingston used to carry a wide range but seems to have slipped. Fellow Woolies outlet, Dan Murphy, generally offers more than the independent retailers. And, until recently, I reckon it outgunned archrival First Choice, owned by Coles.

But a recent sample foray into the First Choice, Philip, store unearthed dozens of distinctive beers, mainly ales.

I understand that there’s been a bit of creative freelancing by one of the staff — retail veteran David Owens.

David’s nose for a good drop gives us access to some wonderful brews, including great English ales from Theakston, Shepherd Neame, Fullers and Marston.

Beer review — Weihenstephaner & Shepherd Neame

18 July 2007Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Weihenstephaner Original Bayrisch Mild 500ml $5.99
How can a millennium-old brewery making some of the world’s best beers have such a bland website? Don’t bother visiting. But do pour another glass of this sublime, pale-lemon coloured lager – and savour the rich, fine flavours and delicious, lingering hops bitterness. This is as good as pale, light lager gets.

Shepherd Neame Bishops Finger Kentish Strong Ale 500ml $7.49
It’s been a lucky week on the beer-tasting bench – two 5-star beers in a row. First the delicate Bavarian lager, then the slap-on-the-back Kentish Ale: deep amber coloured, terrifically fruity aroma and warm palate, cut by assertive, bitter (bordering on astringent) hops that work magic for those wha’ likes ‘em.

Coonawarra origins — not long above sea level

18 July 2007Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Coonawarra is, of course, Australia’s most-famous patch of cabernet growing dirt and a recent Chateau Shanahan tasting, though far from definitive, gave the region a healthy score card. But it wasn’t thumbs up for all of the wines tasted and, as well, several otherwise appealing drops suffered from over-oaking — a scourge that won’t quite die in Australia.

But before we look at the wines, let’s look at the region. Coonawarra lies about 400 kilometres south of Adelaide on what is now called the Limestone Coast – for good reason – though most South Australians still know it as the ‘south east’.

They’re lucky to have the Limestone Coast in South Australia at all. It could well be Victoria’s ‘far west’, as a glance at the map (or Google earth) shows.

This fertile strip of land is physically separated from South Australia as it lies entirely south of the Murray (if we include Lake Alexandrina as part of the Murray) and is separated from Victoria by nothing more than a line drawn on the map – the western boundary being the sea.

Coonawarra can only be understood in the context of this vast and comparatively recent limestone formation – Coonawarra, for example, having been above the sea for only about seven hundred thousand years.

A series of fossilised sand dunes between Coonawarra and the coast mark former shorelines as the sea retreated in glacial periods and advanced as the climate warmed. But as the land continued to rise, the shorelines shifted steadily to the west.

It seems that what we know as Coonawarra today was once an inter-dunal lagoon, perhaps similar to today’s Coorong, just an hour’s drive northwest.

These recent marine origins explain the presence of limestone beneath the generally shallow topsoils of the region. And these topsoils appear to be derived largely from that limestone bedrock.

Driving through Coonawarra you might say that it’s flat and featureless. But with the water table so close to the surface, variations of only a few metres in elevation make significant differences to land usage – especially to suitability for grape growing.

This would have been quickly apparent to Coonawarra’s early settlers before today’s drainage canals had been excavated or large-scale irrigation had affected the water table.

When John Riddoch established the Coonawarra Fruit Colony in the late nineteenth century – and this was the forerunner of the wine industry – the lower lying parts would’ve been inundated in winter and the main north-south road, around which today’s vineyards are concentrated, almost certainly marked the highest, driest tract of land.

Long before Europeans carved the road, this perennial elevated strip of land would’ve been dry and exposed to the air far more than the seasonally inundated land around it.

Over time this exposure led to the oxidation of the iron content from black ferric oxide to red ferrous oxide – giving Coonawarra’s central strip it’s famous russet colour, known as terra rossa – quite literally ‘red earth’. The surrounding soils remained black and are still subject to flooding.

The early fruit growers discovered that the comparatively well-drained red soils proved more productive than the black soils. As winemaking became the mainstay towards the latter half of the twentieth century, these red soils remained the favoured sites for grape growing, too.

Then, in the early nineties, Australia negotiated a treaty with Europe in which we recognised each other’s wine regions. The problem for Australia was that we had no formal boundaries that could be recognised.

From this grew our Geographic Indications (GI) system under which we defined and recognised in law our wine zones and regions. Thus, the Coonawarra Region became one of several regions within the Limestone Coast Zone.

The at times bitter wrangling over what was and wasn’t in Coonawarra led to the declaration of an area far larger than the popular notion of Coonawarra’s long red strip of terra rossa.

The original twenty-kilometre long cigar-shaped strip might now constitute perhaps five per cent of the declared area.

Admittedly, only a small portion of that is planted to vines. But modern Coonawarra unquestionably has unproven broad acres of land well beyond the original strip. Some of this may prove to be outstanding. But much of it may also be quite ordinary – especially if an end to the long dry floods some of the new plantings.

The recent tasting at Chateau Shanahan is just one of several planned for the next few months – including a look a the much-hyped 1998s – in an attempt to see who and what’s in form in Coonawarra.

We’ll be following this up with a field trip next January to see what’s really happening on the ground and which wines are really worthy of carrying the Coonawarra name.

Wine review — Wynns

15 July 2007Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wynns Coonawarra Estate – Shiraz 2006 $12-$15 – Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 $23-$30
My only quibble with these two new releases – and especially the shiraz – is that they ought to be a year older at release. Not that you’ll be putting the cork back in. The shiraz offers lovely, sweet berry flavours with cool-climate spice and pepper and an elegant, fine-grained tannin structure – very appealing, and will be more so in another year. The cabernet is all class and must surely rate amongst the best value in the world. The fruit flavour shows the extra ripeness of a warmer season, but it’s still crystal-clear cabernet varietal, albeit in a slightly fleshier, silkier style – and should drink beautifully for many, many years.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate – Michael Shiraz 2004 $73 – John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 $73
Wynns two flagships reds have shifted gear since their reintroduction in 2003 after a short, oversupply-driven hiatus. What we see now is a more refined version of what went before: slightly less ripe, notably less new-oak influence and a little more brightness in the fruit character. All of this is particularly apparent in the sensational 2004 Michael Shiraz. Yes, there’s oak there but the keynote is superb, fragrant peppery shiraz with an elegance reminiscent of that of the legendary 1955 – the original. John Riddoch, too, shows the great fragrance of the vintage in its own cabernet way – powerful, yet supple and elegant. Both wines are screw cap sealed.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Johnson’s Block Shiraz Cabernet 2004 $35
This is a straight, single-vineyard wine from one of the original sites acquired by the Wynn family in 1951. It still has vines dating from 1925 and was one of several older vineyards to be rejuvenated from the late 1990s. Winemaker Sue Hodder calls the wine ‘old fashioned’ in that it shows more fruit and less oak than the modern Wynns wines do. The aroma really is seductively floral and backed by a juicy, shiraz-led palate. Cabernet’s role seems to be to tighten up the palate, giving structure and elegance. It’s really a classic Coonawarra blend, revived a decade ago by Majella and now finding new life under Wynns.

Beer review — Wig & Pen, Hoegaarden

11 July 2007Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Wig & Pen Russian Imperial Stout $6.00 & Lachie’s Ness $4.20 (half pint)
These are two wonderful, idiosyncratic seasonal specialties brewed by Richard Watkins at the Wig & Pen, Canberra City. The first is a potent, molasses-rich stout served, responsibly, only in half pints. The other, named for proprietor Lachie McOmish, is in the silk-smooth, chocolate/malt/smoky Scot’s wee heavy style.
*****

Hoegaarden ‘The Forbidden Fruit’ 330ml $5.50
International brewer InBev makes Belgium’s unique, cheeky winter favourite – Forbidden Fruit. It’s a heady mix of alcohol, malt and fruity esters that are part and parcel of the warm-fermented ale family. At 8.5 per cent alcohol it’s a sip-and-savour style – but a wimp compared to the Wig’s 11 per cent stout, reviewed above.
*****

Book review — ‘The Wine Diet’ by Roger Corder

11 July 2007Book review, WineChris Shanahan

Any book that puts wine at the centre of the diet can’t be all bad. It was enough to draw the Chateau Shanahan literary team beyond the me-too cover hype – the usual promises of eternal life, or something like it, if you follow this diet.

But as we read through the book we found not a panacea, but a discourse on nutrition enlightened by population studies and medical research down to the molecular level – and one family of molecules in particular.

On page 32 we meet this star molecule – procyanidin – or one version of it, anyway. Our arteries dilated just looking at tetra-epicatechin, a strapping chain of four epicatechin molecules.

But before we discuss the procyanidin family, we should meet Roger Corder, author of The Wine Diet.

The jacket tells us that he’s Professor of Experimental Therapeutics at the William Harvey Research Institute, London. It says ‘he has pursued research into cardiovascular function and the links between diabetes and heart disease for 25 years, with the aim of discovering new treatments for these ever-increasing health problems’.

Corder’s long trail to procyanidin begins with a recounting of the so-called French paradox. About 25 years ago, he writes, ‘French epidemiologists observed that the French had relatively low rates of coronary heart disease despite high consumption of saturated fat’.

Then in 1991 Dr Serge Renaud appeared on 60 Minutes and shook America with the idea that ‘regular wine drinking could account for the French paradox’. This, says Corder, ‘split experts into the camps of believers and non-believers’.

Scientists continued to study the protective effects, or not, of alcohol in general and of red and white wine.

Much of the research focused on the benefits of the polyphenols found in red wine – of which our hero, procyanidin, is but one form. These compounds are derived from grape skins and pips and, to a lesser extent, from oak storage vessels.

Further population studies tended to confirm a heart-protective effect from red-wine drinking. As scientist drilled down, they examined an apparent correlation between red-wine consumption and reduced platelet aggregation – a risk factor in blood clotting.

For others, the search shifted to the anti-oxidant properties of red-wine polyphenols. Could they prevent the oxidation of LDL-cholesterol (the bad one)? The belief was that as LDL-cholesterol (the bad one) accumulated under the endothelium (the non-stick coating inside blood vessels) it oxidised and could become a trigger for atherosclerosis (arterial blockage).

Clinical trials showed that, yes, red wine polyphenols did indeed suppress LDL oxidation – whether ingested as red wine, as white wine laced with red wine polyphenols or as an extract without alcohol.

Not surprisingly this and other similar studies, writes Corder, led people to attribute the ‘anti-atherosclerotic benefits of red wine to the antioxidant properties of its polyphenols’.

But as further trials with anti-oxidants showed little efficacy in reducing the incidence of heart attacks, scientists began ‘wondering whether they have any relevance’.

The headline anti-oxidant during this period was resveratrol, another member of red wine’s polyphenol family. Corder discusses the case for and against resveratrol but dismisses it, quoting fellow scientist George Soleas, writing in 1997, ‘resveratrol is a very minor player indeed, and may even more accurately be characterized as a spectator’.

Corder agreed with Soleas partly because the concentration of resveratrol used in clinical trials bore no relationship to the quite small quantities found in red wine.

Moving away from the anti-oxidant qualities of red-wine polyphenols, Corder sought to identify the ‘most important component of red wine for modifying vascular function and preventing atherosclerosis’.

His laboratory research showed that red wine suppressed synthesis of endothelin-1 – an agent known to narrow blood vessels, raise blood pressure and trigger ‘processes leading to atherosclerosis’.

Corder and his colleagues ultimately identified our friends, the procyanidin family, as the polyphenols contributing to blood-vessel health.

Corder’s subsequent research identified areas, most notably in Sardinia, Italy, and Madiran, France, where consumption of red wines with high procyanidin concentrations coincided with low rates of heart disease.

A great deal of The Wine Diet isn’t about wine all. Not even the procyanidin bit, as Corder details the dozens of common foods rich in these compounds – from apples to walnuts to chocolate.

And on wine itself, Corder has more caveats than Clayton Utz: only red wines contain procyanidins and their concentration varies enormously from wine to wine; the greatest benefit is to be had by drinking wine with meals, as this reduces peak blood alcohol level; that consumption must be moderate; and that for women regular wine consumption, even at low levels, increases the risk of breast cancer.

Perhaps of even greater interest than the mighty procyanidin molecule is Corder’s discussion of nutrition in general. The Chateau Shanahan team found this the most illuminating part of the book – a level headed discourse on how we might balance our energy intake amongst carbohydrate, fat and protein and a rundown on the nutrients we need, why we need them and what we’ll find them in.

As we said at the start, any book that prescribes wine in our diet can’t be all bad. And it gets better when we’re encouraged, as Corder does, to eat a wide range of fresh products.

The Wine Diet — Complete Nutrition and Lifestyle Plan, by Roger Corder. Published by Sphere, an imprint of the Little, Brown Group $29.99

Wine review — Yalumba, Clonakilla & Innocent Bystander

8 July 2007Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Yalumba Barossa Valley Bush Vine Grenache 2006
Yalumba Eden Valley Wild Ferment Chardonnay 2006 $17.95
They call it grenache in France and Australia and garnacha in Spain. By whatever name, it’s is an interesting red variety, tending to a pale colour and very high sugar levels (and therefore alcohol) when ripe. It’s fragrant and spicy, has soft tannin and is therefore very soft and at home in blends with shiraz and mourvedre. In the Barossa it made superb fortifieds before the current table wine age and, as a consequence, many little stands survive. Yalumba’s captures the perfume, spice and softness of the variety, along with an earthy, savoury edge. Its companion chardonnay is a bright, fresh and funky style of great appeal.

Clonakilla Canberra Shiraz Viognier 2006 $80, Hilltops Shiraz 2006 $28, Canberra Ballinderry 2005 $30
This trio, due for release on September 1, further cements Clonakilla’s place as one of Australia’s great wine estates. Tim Kirk’s Shiraz Viognier – inspired by Rhône Valley winemaker Marcel Guigal – remains the benchmark of this blend in Australia. The 2006 continues the beautifully fragrant, graceful, supple style. With such small production of the flagship, Tim introduced a few years back a second shiraz, sourced from the nearby Hilltops region – a bolder style featuring deep, spicy shiraz flavours with typical Clonakilla silky smoothness. Ballinderry, a cabernets and merlot blend, is the surprise in this year’s release. Was it Tim I heard denouncing Canberra cabernet? He won’t be any more. This one is outstanding – fully ripe but elegant and varietal.

Innocent Bystander Moscato 2007 375ml $13.50
This one’s as pretty to look at as it is pleasant to drink. The quirky label, clear bottle and blush-pink colour look inviting. Flip off the crown seal, pour a lightly frizzante glass and you can smell the enticing, grapey, musk-like sweetness. The distinctive aroma and flavour come from the muscat grape – gordo muscat and black muscat from the Boulton and Burge vineyards on Victoria’s Murray. Picked early, made fresh and at just 5.5 per cent alcohol this is an Aussie interpretation of Asti Moscato, from Italy’s Piemonte region. It’s crisp, fresh, grapey and slightly sweet – a good afternoon pick-me-up or aperitif.

How Sue Hodder’s history lesson improved Wynns’ Coonawarra reds

4 July 2007People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

The old adage that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn anything from history is bunk. At Wynns Coonawarra Estate, a close study of historic wines taught Sue Hodder and her winemaking team plenty about Coonawarra wines.

A decade on from two retrospective Wynns shiraz and cabernet tastings — stretching back to the 1950s — Sue’s new-release reds demonstrate that the past can influence current winemaker thinking.

In the tastings – featuring Wynns’ shiraz back to vintage 1953 in 1997 and cabernet sauvignon back to 1954 in 2004 – some of the very old comparatively low-alcohol, low-tannin, low-oak wines surpassed more recent wines, and completely eclipsed those of the late seventies.

The tasting proved the great longevity of Coonawarra reds – like the 1955 Michael Hermitage (shiraz) and 1954 cabernet sauvignon. And it revealed several distinct style eras in the estate’s history.

In simple terms we might see the early fifties to the seventies as straightforward – pick the grapes not too ripe, crush, ferment, press to tank, let the malo-lactic fermentation rip, and then mature the wine in older oak for a while before bottling.

In the late seventies – and we might call this the bean-counter era – fruit ripeness and consequent wine flavour declined as vineyard yields rose. This was in part a company thing (the high yields) and, in part, historical, as several other makers sought to produce ‘elegant’ wines by harvesting unripe grapes. Older drinkers still view the word ‘elegant’ as euphemism for thin and green.

The economic imperative took a different shape in the eighties as minimal pruning and mechanical harvesting reduced costs without sacrificing ripeness. Minimal pruning, in particular, created problems of its own to be addressed more than a decade later.

Although the eighties was a period of growth and rising demand for premium reds, margins were often squeezed in a mainly domestically focused industry. In this period Coonawarra reds tended to become riper and more influenced by maturation in new oak – with mixed success as winemakers learned the ropes.

It was, overall for Coonawarra, a period of great quality improvement. And for Wynns, this included the introduction of a new flagship red in 1982, named after pioneer John Riddoch. Made by John Wade, John Riddoch 1982 is to my taste one of the greatest cabernets yet made in this country.

Meanwhile good old Wynns Black Label cabernet carried on, perhaps a tad riper and a little oakier than in the old days, but, as the retrospective tasting showed, always purely varietal and almost invariably with the stuffing to age for decades.

In the late eighties and nineties the flagship John Riddoch cabernet was always denser, more powerful and oaky than the cheaper Black Label, but not always more revered by consumers.

Similarly, a powerful reserve shiraz resurrected the ‘Michael’ name in 1990, there having been only one vintage – 1955 – in the past. This, too, showed intense fruit and assertive oak.

By the late nineties the Wynns cabernets in particular were showing silkier tannins, without losing varietal flavour and intensity – and Sue and the team had begun rethinking how things ought to be done.
The re-think led to a rejuvenation of the older vines, including the removal of dense clusters of dead wood – a result of twenty years’ minimal pruning.

Launching this year’s releases last week, Sue said that what the tasting of older wines had taught her was that Coonawarra reds don’t have to be big tannic monsters to age well. It was clear that elegant, refined styles, without any new oak, still delivered great drinking pleasure after half a century.

Sue said that she’d also learned that a bit of ‘pepper’ in Coonawarra shiraz was nothing to be afraid of. This simply recognises that Coonawarra is a cool growing region, that cool-grown shiraz has a peppery note and it loses this when over ripe.

During the vineyard renovation and re-thing of winemaking styles, Sue’s team stopped making John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon and Michael Shiraz altogether for a couple of vintages. Declining sales surely played a part in the decision, but it was a much need breathing space.

While the by-now older John Riddochs and Michaels were ageing well – and some are just glorious – Sue has now demonstrated in the new-release 2004s that the style could be bettered.

The new wines still have exceptional fruit intensity, but oak intrudes less and the true elegance that was apparent in many of the old wines in the retrospective tasting is apparent.

The glory of the old styles, it seems, gave Sue the confidence to make changes for the better.

The 2004 Michael Shiraz, in particular, shows the benefit of the softer touch and rejuvenated vineyards. This wine captures the fragrance, unique berry and pepper character and elegant structure that Coonawarra can deliver – as it did in the original Michael in 1955.

The changes are there but more subtle in recent vintages of the White label Shiraz and Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon and the re-introduced John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon.

Indeed, the estate that made Coonawarra famous is quietly, through quality and value, reasserting its status. See this website on July 16 for reviews of the new releases.