Yearly Archives: 2009

Drinker with a running problem — looking for good news

Wine

Can we train for The Canberra Times fun ran and drink alcohol? Not together, it seems. One website goes a step further – abstain for 48 hours before exercise, it advises.  OK, so how about a celebratory glass after the fun run? Maybe, but not much, seems to be the Google consensus.

Let’s Google for good news. Ahh, finally hope, for drinking runners: a Danish study, cited on a CNN health blog, “didn’t find that alcohol and exercise were interchangeable, but rather they had a compounded, additional effect together”.

Dr Morten Gronbaek, an epidemiolgist at Denmark’s National Institute of Public Health observed 12,000 people over 20 years – and concluded that “Leasure-time physical activity and a moderate alcohol intake are both important to lower the risk of fatal IHD and all-cause mortality”.

They found that those who exercised and drank moderately were 50 per cent less likely to suffer heart disease than non-exercising wowsers. Non-drinking exercisers reduced their risk of heart disease by 30 per cent compared to non-exercising wowsers – a risk reduction rate shared by couch-bound moderate drinkers.

Dr Gronbaek concluded, “physical activity and light to moderate alcohol intake in middle-aged and elderly people are both preventive and independent from one another”.

Perhaps we can continue to drink as we exercise after all. But not much. The study defined moderate drinking as one to 14 drinks a week, with an optimum for protection of one drink a day for women and two for men. Glad I’m a bloke.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Beer review — Guinness 250 and Wig & Pen Russian Imperial

Beer review

Guinness 250 Anniversary Stout 330ml 6-pack $19.99
Guinness began brewing ales on its Dublin site in 1759, sold dark beers as ‘porter’ from 1778 and first used the term ‘stout’ in the 1840s. The 250th anniversary brew is smooth and easy drinking, the key flavour being a lovely, sweet maltiness matched by a mild, balancing hops bitterness.

Wig & Pen Russian Imperial Stout half-pint $9
The Wig’s popular seasonal stout tastes like liquid, liqueur, bitter, dark chocolate, charged with heady alcohol. It’s opulent, unctuous, slippery smooth and with underlying sweet molasses-like flavours offsetting the bittersweet charry-chocolaty roasted malt flavours. There are hops in there, too, adding to the complex flavours and bitterness.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

The stout spectrum — shades of darkness

Beer

Two just released beers represent opposite ends of the stout spectrum – the mild and malty five-per-cent alcohol Guinness 250 Anniversary Stout; and the chocolate rich, ten-per-cent-alcohol Wig & Pen Russian Imperial Stout.

Although the new Guinness brew is carbonated, not nitrogenated like the popular draught and canned versions, it sits squarely in the familiar Guinness mould – smooth and easy to drink, but at the tame end of the stout spectrum.

If your tastes are more adventurous there are stouts offering more assertive characters – stronger roasted grain flavours, greater hops bitterness, higher alcohol content (after all ‘stout beer’ originally referred to all higher alcohol brews, not just dark ones) or a combination of these flavours.

The Wig’s Russian Imperial, inspired by a late eighteenth century English style exported to the Russian court, combines high alcohol with equally robust roasted malt and hops bitterness. But it’s not a ‘session’ beer like Guinness. One is probably enough. Very sensibly the Wig serves it only in half pints. And brewer Richard Watkins makes Russian Imperial only in winter, the style evolving each year.

Between the two extremes, though, there’s a world of interesting stouts including ‘session’ brews like Cooper’s and Young’s luscious Double Chocolate Stout.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Wine review — Jacob’s Creek, Coldstream Hills, Bream Creek, Capercaillie and Wandin Valley

Wine review

Jacob’s Creek Reeves Point Chardonnay 2005 $26–$32
Jacob’s Creek St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 $32–$40
Reeves Point is a terrific example of modern Australian chardonnay – bright, fresh, beautifully varietal (with Padthaway’s unique melon-like flavours), full bodied (but not heavy), finely textured and with layers of complexity derived from oak fermentation and maturation. Four years’ bottle age brings out the beauty of this wine – and it’ll prosper for a few more years yet. St Hugo starred at a recent Canberra tasting, loved for its deep, rich cabernet flavours and firm but elegant structure – classic Coonawarra. Reds of this dimension need a few years show their best – good to see it being released at four years’ age.

Coldstream Hills Yarra Valley Reserve Chardonnay 2006 $50
Bream Creek Tasmania Chardonnay 2007 $22
Meet two absolutely delicious and contrasting chardonnays – the first an opulent, vivacious giant killer and top scorer in Winewise magazine’s recent international chardonnay shoot out; the second a leaner, understated, mouth-wateringly intense gem from Fred Peacock’s Bream Creek Vineyard, Marion Bay, south eastern Tasmania. Recalcitrants still in the ABC (anything but chardonnay) club stopped drinking chardonnay ten years ago – there just isn’t a sauv blanc in Australasia to match these two for quality and complexity. The Coldstream wine, made by Foster’s, is sold out officially, but a number of retailers still offer stock. Bream Creek is available at www.breamcreekvineyard.com.au

Capercaillie The Ghillie Hunter Shiraz 2007 $70
Wandin Valley Estate Bridie’s Reserve Shiraz 2007 $35
At the Winewise Small vignerons Awards recently we awarded three gold, five silver and five bronze medals in a class of 18 Hunter shirazes from the 2007 vintage. The extraordinary 72 per cent strike rate suggests rich pickings from that vintage well beyond the few wines we tasted on the day. The best probably won’t have been released yet. But it could be rewarding looking in this often-neglected corner of Australia’s wine world. These are very fine, soft wines, quite often with exceptional keeping qualities. The three gold medallists were Capercaillie The Ghillie, Wandin Valley Bridie’s Reserve and Thomas DJV – I’ll detail the release dates in a future review.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Book review: Wolf Blass — behind the bow tie

Book review, People, Wine

Wolf Blass — behind the bow tie
Liz Johnston, Fairfax Books 2009, $39.99

Old winemakers and merchants don’t retire. They push on past the golden years, working until they drop. At 75 years Wolf Blass remains the man behind the brand, owned by Fosters since 1996 – and out of his financial control since 1991, when Wolf Blass Wines and Mildara merged to become Mildara Blass.

He’s unquestionably one of the most influential figures of our modern wine industry. Wolf both tapped into and led public tastes across four decades, building an immensely successful brand in an industry more prone to disbursing wealth than creating it.

He deserves a book. But what credibility can we expect of an official biography (Fosters owns the copyright) marking Wolf’s 75th birthday, and launched in a blaze of publicity for the brand?

But scepticism is unfounded. Like all things associated with Wolf, there’s substance behind the fanfare. History isn’t rewritten; Wolf’s not canonised. Indeed, Liz Johnston gives us the best wine book in years. Like Wolf’s wine it’ll engage a wide audience.

It starts, of course, with an interesting subject – Wolfgang Franz Otto Blass. He was born into a wealthy German family in 1934, spent an adventurous, at times dangerous boyhood under the Third Reich in Stadtilm, Thuringia; and lived under American, British, French and Russian occupation after the war before settling and training as a winemaker in West Germany.

At age 22 he became cellarmaster for Karl Finkenauer at Bad Kreuznach; moved to England as wine chemist in 1957; and in 1961 emigrated to Australia to become sparkling wines manager at the Kaiser Stuhl Co-operative in the Barossa Valley.

He registered ‘Bilyara’ as a business name in 1966 and made small quantities of wine under this brand, while working full time at Tollana, the wine arm of United Distillers. In 1973 he started Wolf Blass Wines International; floated the hugely successful business in 1984 and merged it with Mildara to form Mildara Blass in 1991.

Fosters bought Mildara Blass in 1996 but retained Wolf as brand ambassador, a role he plays very actively today – travelling, promoting and working with the winemaking team, led by Chris Hatcher and Caroline Dunn.

But the book’s more than just a chronology. It’s a reflective work that puts Wolf and his life in historical context. Some of the most interesting and confronting bits cover his childhood in wartime Germany.

Some of it’s boys-own adventures like pilfering food from German supply trains between strafing runs by British Spitfire squadrons. But other memories continue to disturb Wolf today – for example, as a child he witnessed the beginning of the death marches from Buchenwald prison, located near his home.

Johnston writes of Wolf seeing prisoners shot and the corpses left on the roads – and being told that the victims were criminals and deserved their fate. It was years before Wolf realised what he’d witnessed as an eleven year old.

The toughness of the war years and the period of shortages that followed, though, helped shape a determined and resourceful Wolf Blass.

In Australia Wolf initially made sparkling wine for the ‘pearl’ styles, pioneered by Colin Gramp in the 1950s. But when he moved to Tollana under United Distillers began making the bright, fruity, easy-drinking styles that ultimately made the Wolf Blass brand famous.

The commercial history sprinkled through the book introduces us to other key figures that shaped our wine drinking habits, including Max Schubert (creator of Grange), Harry Brown (a remarkable, Sydney-based wine merchant), Len Evans and Peter Lehmann. But we also see the commercial players, notably Ray King, the man behind Mildara’s commercial success and later, the success of the combined Mildara and Wolf Blass. This was the industry benchmark for return on investment.

King must scratch his head wonder at the destruction of wealth in Foster’s wine division since its disastrous acquisition of Southcorp in 2005.

We learn a lot, too, about Wolf the promoter, the brand builder, the womaniser, the racehorse owner – a colourful and refreshingly frank, politically incorrect commentator. We see Wolf through others’ eyes – notably his wife’s and two exes. Now that is being frank.

It’s a terrific read and will appeal to different people at different levels – the human perspective, the wine perspective and the large wine industry view.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Beer review — Crown Ambassador 2009 and Thomas Hardy

Beer review

Crown Ambassador 2009 Reserve Lager 750ml $69.99
You can sense Crown Ambassador’s luxurious flavours as soon as you see its shimmering, burnished-bronze/caramel colour – an impression that grows as you sniff the rich, high-toned fruit and sweet underlying caramel/malt sweetness. The palate is complex and creamy textured, the opulent malt and alcohol offset by delicious hops bitterness.

Thomas Hardy’s Ale 250ml $14.90
Another Thomas Hardy, in The Trumpet-Major, penned a note apt for this 11.7% alcohol, bottle conditioned ale: “It was of the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in body yet brisk as a volcano; piquant yet without a twang; luminous as an autumn sunset.”

Crown Ambassador 2009 — top beer, pity about the price

Beer

After last week’s column on vintage beer, Foster’s obliged with a sample of Crown Ambassador Lager 2009. We share it with a dozen or so keen tasters:

Spreadsheet Tom turned from his computer and admiring the sleek, black, gold-embossed bottle, said thoughtfully, “It’s actually $35, not $70”.  Seeing our puzzled faces, he explained, “Look, it’s 10 per cent alcohol, and normal beer’s only five – so you’re really getting two bottles”.

But the air of reverence persisted. We carefully cut the plastic faux-wax and levered the cap from our Crown Ambassador 2009 Reserve Lager – one of only 6,000 in the whole world. Our expectations ran high – the stately, black, magnet-sealed box; the elegant bottle; the promise of heady aromas, unctuous flavours; and the price. Could any beer be worth that much?
And the beer was marvellous – as aromatic, opulent and complex as you could imagine. It’s not on the same planet as normal Crown Lager. The high alcohol (10.2%), generous crystal malt flavour, ale-like fruitiness, heady aroma of galaxy hops (from Myrtleford, Victoria) and bottle fermentation put it in the top ranks of Australian beers built for ageing.
I still wouldn’t buy a bottle at $70, despite Spreadsheet Tom’s optimism. But you can see where Crown’s headed with this. The packaging and price create great expectations; and the beer delivers on the promise. But beer lovers can enjoy any number of equally good brews, in plain packaging, for a fraction of the price.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Wine review — Voyager Estate and Grant Burge

Wine review

Voyager Estate Margaret River ‘Girt by Sea’ Cabernet Merlot 2007 $20–$24
Voyager Estate’s ‘Girt by Sea’ is to Margaret River what Majella’s ‘The Musician’ is to Coonawarra – a richly-flavoured, finely-structured, medium-bodied red built to drink now but without losing regional identity. ‘Girt by Sea’ reveals Margaret River’s greatest winemaking strength – blending cabernet sauvignon and merlot to produce a harmonious red, based on ripe berry aromas and flavours and backed by fine, savoury tannins – a delicious luncheon red. It’s sourced from Voyager’s ‘north block’ vineyard and the vines are up to 15 years old.

Grant Burge Barossa

  • Hillcot Merlot 2008 $17–$22
  • Cameron Vale Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $19–$25

Grant Burge’s substantial vineyard holdings cluster around the cooler southern end of the Barossa Valley in the vicinity of Williamstown – with one outlier, Corryton Park, located further east in the higher, cooler Eden Valley (but still part of the Barossa zone). Grant planted the Hillcot Vineyard to merlot in 1982 (claiming it as the Barossa’s first planting of the variety). It’s medium bodied with an appealing plummy ripeness and firm, but not hard drying tannins and a sympathetic kiss of oak. The cabernet’s a little fuller, but still finely built with clear, ripe varietal flavour and structure.

Grant Burge Baross

  • Daly Road Shiraz Mourvedre 2008 $17–$22
  • Miamba Shiraz 2007 $19–$25

But when it comes to the Barossa, the real excitement invariably lies in shiraz, either on its own or blended with the other Rhone Valley varieties. Miamba captures the ripe, tender, juicy charm of Barossa shiraz. It’s gentle and easy to drink, but there’s sufficient tannin (from both fruit and oak) to give very satisfying drinking – and probably enough to guarantee four or five years in the cellar. It’s named for, and at least partially sourced from, Burge’s Miamba vineyard. Daly Road is another classic Barossa style, combining the juicy softness of shiraz with the spicy, earthy firmness of mourvedre.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Jim Barry Wines, delicious old rieslings and a great Clare vineyard

People, Vineyard, Wine

In the Clare Valley a couple of weeks back Jim Barry Wines hosted its fiftieth anniversary celebrations. The highlight was a tasting of memorable Jim Barry, Leo Buring, Lindemans and Richmond Grove rieslings from vintages 1972 to 1998.

And what lovely twists there were to the tasting: the beautiful old Leo Buring wines came from a vineyard that now belongs to the Barry family; the Jim Barry wines came from a vineyard that the family no longer owns; and the sole Richmond Grove wine, the youngest in the line up, came from the same vineyard as the old Buring wines. And it was made by same winemaker, John Vickery, in the same (but now renamed) winery where he’d first made wine for Leo Buring in 1955.

The thread linking all this is the Florita vineyard at Watervale, located towards the southern end of the Clare Valley. This was the source, acknowledged in the fine print of the labels, of the legendary, long-lived Leo Buring Reserve Bin Rhine Rieslings of the sixties, seventies and early eighties.

When Lindemans put Florita on the market in 1986, Jim Barry saw a unique opportunity to grab one of the region’s great and proven vineyards. But it was tough times in the industry and, according to Jim’s son Peter, Nancy (Jim’s wife) said to Jim, ‘you don’t want it’. But he did.

So Jim said to his sons, Peter, Mark and John, ‘mum won’t let me, so you boys had better do it’. And they did. Peter recalls the financial stretch, approaching several banks ‘with figures to back the lie – bullshit on paper. Several banks knocked it back, one accepted it, lent us money and we made it work’. It’s that sort of vision and risk taking that makes or breaks businesses.

To help fund the purchase, the Barrys sold a corner of Florita to Ian Sanders (the corner became Clos Clare) and another vineyard in Watervale, source of their earlier Watervale rieslings. They also sold Florita material, as juice, to other makers, including Richmond Grove (owned by Pernod Ricard and located in Leo Burings old winery at Tanunda, Barossa Valley).

Twenty-three years on, the entire Florita vineyard is back in family hands and it provides fruit for three labels – Jim Barry Watervale Riesling ($15), Jim Barry The Florita Watervale Riesling ($45) and Clos Clare Watervale Riesling ($24). The Barrys also offer a riesling ($19) from their Lodge Hill Vineyard in the northern Clare.

As we tasted the older riesling Peter Barry recalled that John Vickery at Burings had the technological over his dad in the seventies, and it wasn’t until the eighties that Jim Barry Wines acquired essential refrigeration and other protective technology that Burings had enjoyed since the sixties.

The gap shows in the extra vivacity of the old Buring wines – like the beautiful Reserve Bins DW C15 Watervale Rhine Riesling 1973 and DW G37 Watervale Rhine Riesling 1977. Even so the older Jim Barry wines from1972, 1974 and 1977 in particular drink well, albeit in a rounder, softer style than the Buring wines.

But the gap has been closed in recent times and I’ve no doubt that Jim Barry The Florita and Clos Clare will equal the great wines made by John Vickery so sustainably over so many decades – especially now that we have screw caps protecting these beautiful wines.

The best vintages will be as delicious at almost forty years as they are at one. The connection, of course, is the Florita vineyard. You can see it by searching ‘Old Road Watervale South Australia’ on Google Earth or maps.google.com – it’s the vineyard furthest from Cemetery Road. The little plot on the corner near the cottage is Clos Clare. It’s a great Australian regional story to be explored primarily in the glass.

Florita Vineyard timeline

1940s
Leo Buring purchases the Florita site. He plants pedro ximenez and palomino for sherry making and, believes former Buring employee John Vickery, perhaps small amounts of crouchen, trebbiano and shiraz.

1955
John Vickery joins Leo Buring at Chateau Leonay (now Richmond Grove), Barossa Valley. John makes table wine and sherry.

1950s
Among the wines Vickery makes is a fino sherry sold under Buring’s ‘Florita Fino’ label. This is probably the first label to bear the vineyard name. Leo Buring established the solera before Vickery’s arrival.

1961
Leo Buring dies at 85 years.

1962
Lindemans, under Ray Kidd, purchases Buring’s business, retaining Vickery as winemaker. At about the same time Kidd replants Florita almost entirely to riesling, leaving about one hectare of crouchen.

1963
In time for vintage, Lindemans installs protective winemaking equipment, enabling production of riesling and other crisp, fruity whites in a style pioneered by Colin Gramp, of Orlando, in the 1950s. The stage is set for Vickery to make his legendary Eden and Clare Valley rieslings, the latter from the Florita vineyard.

1960s, 1970s, 1980s
Vickery’s Leo Buring rieslings, including those from Florita, become Australian benchmarks.

1986 and thereabouts
Lindemans, now owned by Phillip Morris, sells Florita vineyard to Jim Barry Wines.  Lindemans retains the Florita trademark.  To help fund their purchase (it was a stretch, says Peter) the Barry family sells a two-hectare corner with vines and a cottage to Ian Sanders. Sanders names this corner Clos Clare. The Clos Clare wines are made by Tim Knappstein and then Jeffrey Grosset. (Sanders later sells Clos Clare to Noel Kelly. Wines are then made at O’Leary Walker).

The Barrys immediately graft the one-hectare of crouchen, planted by Lindemans in the 1960s, to sauvignon blanc. Four years later they grub this out and plant riesling. Florita vineyard is for the first time planted entirely to the variety that made it famous.
1994–2003

The Barry family sells juice from riesling grown on the Florita vineyard to John Vickery, now working in Orlando’s Richmond Grove Winery (formerly Chateau Leonay). From 1994 to 2003 Richmond Grove Watervale Riesling contains material from Florita.

2004
The Florita trademark lapses and the Barry family takes it up, allowing the launch of Jim Barry ‘The Florita’ Riesling 2004.

2007
The Barry family buys back the lost corner of Florita. Peter Barry’s sons Tom and Sam run Clos Clare as a separate business, making the wine at John and Daniel Wilson’s Polish Hill River winery.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Beer review — Moo Brew and Schwelmer Pils

Beer review

Moo Brew Hefeweizen 330ml $5.50
This is brewed at Moorilla Estate, Tasmania, and it’s as good now as the first brews were a few years back. It’s bottle conditioned and in the Bavarian style – big on banana-like aromas, with a soft, very fresh palate, finishing with crisp acidity rather than hops bitterness.

Schwelmer Pils 500ml swing-top $5.95
This was probably a lovely beer once. Even though it’s stale and cloudy now, there’s ¬ a residue of malty richness and hearty, tangy hops. But there it was in the fridge at Canberra Cellars Braddon. Silly me didn’t see the ‘best before 08 07 09’ tag, did I.