Yearly Archives: 2015

Canberra’s beer day out

7 October 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Tickets now available

Tickets are now available for Beer Day Out, Canberra’s annual celebration of beer and cider. The event runs from 4pm to 9pm on Friday 6 November and noon til 6pm, Saturday 7 November at the former transport depot, Wentworth Avenue, Kingston.

Organisers expect over 30 craft breweries to attend and sell their products, though beerdayout.com.au lists 22 brewers and one cider maker at present.

Three of Canberra’s four brewers – BentSpoke, Zierholz, and Pact Beer Co – will be there, but not our original brewpub, the Wig and Pen. A spokeswoman for the Wig and Pen said they’d be offering in-house events as part of Canberra Beer Week, the broader craft beer festival that includes Beer Day Out.

Beer Day Out will include food offerings from local restaurants and producers and live entertainment. For details and ticket purchases via Moshtix see beerdayout.com.au.

Beer reviews

4 Pines West Coast Red Rye IPA 500ml $9
4 Pines’ latest jaw-dropper combines turbo hopping (around three times the bitterness of VB) and high alcohol (7.3 per cent) in a distinctive brew made from equal portions of rye and barley malt. The brew starts with powerful, resiny, citrusy hops aroma. These flow through to the brisk, spicy-malty palate and give a lingering, bitter–sweet finish.

Bright Brewery Hellfire Amber Ale 330ml $4.30
Bright’s Hellfire emulates full-bodied English ale styles, using English crystal malt to deliver the caramel- and toffee-like characters displayed in the aroma and on the palate. After the initial hit of smooth, sweet, caramel flavours, hops kick in with a mild bitterness that offsets the malty sweetness.

Wine review – Long Rail Gully, Villa Maria, Jim Barry

4 October 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Long Rail Gully Canberra District Pinot Noir 2014 $31.50–$35
Cool Canberra isn’t quite cool enough to make pinot noir to equal Australia’s best. I suspect in the long run the finest pinots in our broader region will come from higher, cooler Tumbarumba. Indeed, Canberra vignerons already source pinot and chardonnay from there. However, Canberra makes very good, if not cutting edge, pinot from several sites, including Long Rail Gully of Murrumbateman. A medium bodied style, it offers pinot’s vibrant red-fruits varietal aromas and flavours on a smooth-textured, dry palate. The finish is soft and dry, with just a hint of pinot’s more savoury flavour pushing through the primary fruit.

Villa Maria Hawkes Bay NZ Merlot 2013 $17–$20
In 1984, on my first retail buying trip to New Zealand, Marlborough’s vineyards were barely a decade old and the world new nothing of its irresistible sauvignon blanc. Auckland remained the headquarters for most wine companies. And the best reds I tasted were at Hawkes Bay, on the North Island. The most impressive of all came from John Buck’s Te Mata estate and Vidal, owned by Villa Maria proprietor George Fistonich. Fistonich, later knighted for services to the industry, still makes exciting reds from Hawkes Bay, including this keenly priced, fragrant, tasty merlot, with distinctive firm but gentle tannins.

Jim Barry Watervale Riesling 2015 $13.75–$18
As a late ripening variety, riesling generally hunkers down during Clare Valley’s summer heat before developing delicate varietal flavour in the cool autumn. In the rollercoaster 2015 vintage, Jim Barry’s wine from Watervale, southern Clare, shows full body and strong flavours, while retaining delicacy and distinctive lime-like character. The full body perhaps comes from a February heat wave that “resulted in a historical event that saw our riesling, shiraz and cabernet sauvignon all ripening at the same time”, writes Peter Barry. The February heat wave that brought on the ripening arrived after torrential rain and the coolest January in 23 years.

Wine review – Vickery, Tar and Roses, Balnaves, Xanadu, Bream Creek, and Taittinger

30 September 2015People, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Vickery Watervale Riesling 2015
Brazel, Castine and Koerner vineyards, Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia
$19–$23
This beautiful riesling is a collaboration between riesling master John Vickery (first vintage 1951) and Barossa based Phil Lehmann, winemaker for the WD Wine group, owners of Hesketh Wines, St John’s Road and Parker Coonawarra Estate. Vickery’s involvement extended from fruit selection to “the final classification, where only the very best components were selected by Phil and John for the finalised wine”, writes their partner Jonathon Hesketh. Vickery 2015 is full-bodied style at 13 per cent alcohol. But at the same time it’s refined and delicate, with the juicy, irresistible, lime-like varietal flavours unique to this Clare Valley sub-region. What a great bargain it is.

Tar and Roses Sangiovese 2014
Heathcote, Victoria
$20.89–$24
Italy’s sangiovese grape makes an enormously wide range of styles in Australia, depending on clone, growing climate and winemaking approach. Don Lewis and Narelle King source their sangiovese from Victoria’s warm Heathcote region. These grapes have, “consistently given us a rich, full style that we like, always highlighted by assertive tannins, true to the variety”, they write. The medium coloured 2014 starts with bright and vibrant, sour-cherry-like varietal flavour. However, very strong tannins wash in through the fruit, giving a grippy, savoury and very dry finish.

Balnaves “The Blend” 2013
Balnaves vineyards, Coonawarra, South Australia
$19–$20
“The Blend” combines merlot (52 per cent), cabernet sauvignon (46 per cent), and a splash of petite verdot from several Balnaves family vineyards. The wine provides a contrast to the similarly priced, prettier, cabernet from Xanadu, also reviewed today. The chocolate-like, earthy richness of merlot leads the blend, which reveals both the ripe-berry character of Coonawarra and deeper, more savoury flavours, backed by quite firm, though gentle tannins.

Xanadu Next of Kin Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Margaret River and Frankland River, Western Australia
$15–$18
Xanadu’s early-drinking cabernet comes principally from the company’s vineyards at Walcliffe, Margaret River, “supplemented with a small portion (13%) of cabernet selected from a mature vineyard in the Frankland River region”, writes winemaker Glen Goodall. The medium-bodied red shows an aromatic, floral side of cabernet. The palate reflects the aroma, and throws in a mint-like seasoning with the fruit, some spice from oak maturation and the variety’s fairly astringent, drying tannins.

Bream Creek Pinot Noir 2011
Bream Creek Vineyard, Marion Bay, Tasmania
$34
The beautifully sited Bream Creek vineyards rolls down a mild slope, giving visitors panoramic views east to Marion’s Bay and Maria Island. The cool site, on Tasmania’s lower east coast, was planted to vines in 1974 and purchased by one of the state’s best-known viticulturists, Fred Peacock, in 1990. Peacock’s 2011 pinot reveals the great purity and finesse of the variety grown at this latitude. Bright, cherry-like varietal aroma and flavour underpin a juicy, fine and elegant red, of silky texture and lingering, dry finish. The wine looks very young at four years, with barely a sign yet of the gamier pinot flavours likely to emerge in the years ahead.

Champagne Taittinger 2008
Champagne, France
$110–$160
There’s sparkling wine and there’s Champagne – the real thing from France’s Champagne region. But the latter isn’t always better than the former. Indeed, too many undistinguished wines bear the prestigious Champagne label. However, really good Champagne, like Taittinger 2008, still sets the world standard. In this instance a 50:50 blend of chardonnay and pinot noir from top-ranking Champagne vineyards forms the base of a remarkably intense, fine, vigorous wine. Completing the picture is six years’ ageing on yeast lees in bottle – the magic bit that gives Champagne so much more flavour and structural dimension than the base wine alone could give.

Prepare for mega beer

30 September 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Flat sales spur consolidation

Spurred by flat beer sales in major markets, the world’s biggest brewer, Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev, confirmed in mid-September it would make a bid for the second biggest brewer (and owner of Foster’s since 2011), Britain’s SABMiller.

“The combined firm would earn roughly half the industry’s profits and sell one in every three pints of beer quaffed worldwide”, wrote The Economist on 19 September.

With a combined output in 2014 of around 600 million hectolitres, the new entity would produce roughly 12 times as much as Japan’s Kirin, owner of Australia’s market leader, Lion.

Lion holds about 48 per cent of the Australian beer market, followed by Foster’s at 42 per cent. Cooper’s, the largest Australian-owned brewer, claims five per cent, leaving the other five per cent to around 150 craft brewers.

Cooper’s boss, Dr Tim Cooper, says the merger would put pressure on industry suppliers and “result in a further loss of diversity”.

Beer reviews

4 Pines Oaked Baltic Porter 500ml $9
The high alcohol content (7.5 per cent) adds body and warmth to 4 Pines robust, oak-matured porter. The brewer’s description of “gooey chocolate syrup” colourfully reflects the slurpy appeal of its roasted- malt-derived flavours. A touch of vanillin from oak maturation completes a complex, very bitter dark ale.

Bright Brewery Staircase Porter 330ml $5.20
The first sniff of Bright Brewery’s strong, dark porter is reminiscent of espresso coffee. The coffee- and chocolate-like flavours, derived from roasted malt, persist on a generous, warming, bitter–sweet palate. The bitterness of roasted grain and hops ultimately triumphs over the sweet malty flavours, giving a dry, firm grip to the finish.

Wine review – Bremerton, Tar and Roses, West Cape Howe

27 September 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Bremerton Special Release Langhorne Creek Mourvedre 2013 $24
Sisters Rebecca and Lucy Willson make and market a range of mainstream wines as well as little gems like this mourvedre. The variety, originally from France’s Rhone Valley, generally appears as the minor partner in blends with shiraz and grenache. However, several producers, including the Willsons, make stand-alone versions, sometimes sold under the alternative name “mataro” or, in one instance, under its Spanish moniker “monastrell”. Bremerton’s wine shows a highly fragrant, medium-bodied side of mourvedre, featuring slurpy, red-currant-like fruit flavour and fine but assertive tannins.

Tar and Roses Victoria Pinot Grigio 2015 $16.20–$18
Winemakers Don Lewis and Narelle King give us a full-bore expression of this sometimes bland white variety. “Grigio” means grey, and indicates a grey-pink-bronze hue that sometimes finds its way (as it does in Tar and Roses) into the wine’s colour from the skins. The hint of pear in the aroma flows through to a richly textured palate in which the smooth, silky mouth-feel becomes the dominant feature. A hint of sweetness suits this textural style, but it’s offset by mildly grippy tannins and refreshing acidity.

West Cape Howe Perth Hills and Frankland Tempranillo 2013 $17–$20
West Cape Howe tempranillo combines fruit from the warmer Perth Hills and cooler Frankland region, located almost 400km south-east of Perth. Winemaker Gavin Berry says the Perth Hills component contributes earthy, savoury characters while the cool-grown Frankland component provides spicy and berry flavours. The combination gives a richly flavoured, medium-bodied red with deliciously vibrant red-berry-like flavours. Earthy, savoury flavours and assertive tannic finish, typical of the variety, complete a really attractive red wine. The 2013 vintage won gold medals in the Mount Barker and Royal Perth wine shows and a trophy in the latter.

Wine review – Freeman, Long Rail Gully, Vasse Felix, Yering Station and Ulithorne

23 September 2015Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Freeman Nebbiolo 2013
Freeman Altura vineyard, Hilltops, NSW
$35
Nebbiolo, the great red variety of Barolo and Barbaresco, Piedmont, provides more disappointments than triumphs. All too often intractable tannins swamp any initial pleasure in the soaring aroma and fruit sweetness. However, in Brian Freeman’s nebbiolo from Young, NSW, deep fruit flavours – reminiscent of dark, sour cherries – maintain a happy balance with the robust tannins. Indeed, this delicious consummation of opposing but equal forces creates an exciting flavour and textural sensation.

Long Rail Gully Riesling 2015
Long Rail Gully vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$22
The Parker family established the 22-hectare Long Rail Gully vineyard, one of Canberra’s largest, in 1998. They originally sold fruit to Hardys, but these days they make wine for their own and other labels, and continue selling grapes to several local winemakers. The consistently outstanding wines, made by Richard Parker, son of founders Garry and Barbara Parker, remain very modestly priced for whatever reason. The 2015 shows the floral-and-lemony aromatics of riesling, with a delicate and delicious palate, featuring lovely lime-like varietal flavour and lingering, ultra-fresh dry finish.

Vasse Felix Filius Chardonnay 2014
Vasse Felix vineyard, Margaret River, Western Australia
$20.90–$28
Each vintage Vasse Felix winemaker Virginia Willcock makes many batches of chardonnay – all fermented and matured for nine-months in a mix of new and older oak barrels. She grades the barrels and from them blends three wines – the flagship Heytesbury ($75), a “quintessential” Margaret River chardonnay ($37) and “Filius” ($28), so-called son of quintessential. This is an exciting wine for the price as it captures the dazzling richness and freshness of Margaret River chardonnay, complete with the aroma, flavour and textural seasonings introduced by high-quality oak barrels. This is a brilliant chardonnay for the price.

Little Yering Shiraz Viognier 2013
Yarra Valley, Victoria
$18
Little Yering “spent its childhood in French oak”, declares the back label. I can report 12-months solitary confinement did nothing to restrain its youthful exuberance. Indeed the wine cartwheels pure, fruity enthusiasm across the palate, spreading the vibrant red-berry and spice deliciousness of Yarra Valley shiraz. Some of the vigour and thrust no doubt comes from the small portion of the white viognier in the blend; and the fine, spicy, soft tannins perhaps derive from oak as well as the fruit. It’s a pretty and yummy medium-bodied red to enjoy now.
Long Rail Gully Shiraz 2014
Long Rail Gully vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$25
Long Rail Gully 2014 sits towards the lighter-coloured end of Canberra’s medium-bodied shiraz spectrum. Consistent with the lighter colour, the aroma reveals a cool-grown, spicy, even peppery, side of shiraz. Spicy-pepper flavours carry through on the palate, in tandem with lively, fresh fruit flavours. Spicy, fine tannins cut through the fine, smooth palate giving length to the dry finish.

Ulithorne Immortelle 2013
Corsica, France
$34
Immortelle’s official French appellation, “Indication Geographique Protegee Ile de Beaute” translates to country wine of the island of beauty (Corsica). And, indeed this medium bodied red combines the local grape varieties minustellu, niellucciu and carcaghjolo neru with syrah. Ulithorne’s Rose Kentish made the wine in conjunction with Corsican friends. The result: a crimson-rimmed red of medium hue with delightful floral and herb-garden aroma. The bright, fresh, medium-bodied palate precisely reflects the aroma, combining sweet underlying fruit with herbs and fine, grippy, savoury tannins.

Sydney brewer honours Albo

23 September 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Albo bender

Like so many craft brewers, the blokes behind Tempe’s Willie the Boatman Brewery, rose from the ranks of home brewing.

They named the brewery after William Kerr, a boatman and local character of the 1830s, as a statement, they say, of the strong community spirit they believe in. Their beers, too, carry the names of local characters, living and dead.

In a stroke of genius, owners Pat McInerney and Nick Newey named their latest brew after their Federal member, Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese. Albo’s Corn Ale captured Mr Albanese’s imagination, and he attended the Sydney and Canberra launches.

Pat McInerney based the beer on American corn ales, brewed by farmers during the prohibition and war periods. A small portion of corn in the brew gives it a lively freshness and softness, though it’s no wuss at 5.5 per cent alcohol.

Reviews

Willie the Boatman Brewery Albo Corn Ale 640ml $9.90
Pat McInerney and Nick Newey named their new brew after local Federal member, Anthony “Albo” Albanese. Albo attended the Sydney launch and now Canberrans can buy it at King O’Malleys and Plonk. It’s full-bodied, soft beer, with a tease of galaxy hops in the aroma and clean, fresh, mildly bitter finish.

Bright Brewery Fainters Dubbel 330ml $6.20
Named for nearby Mount Fainter, Bright’s Belgian abbey-style ale tastes like the beer equivalent of Rutherglen’s luscious fortified wines, albeit at around half the alcohol content (8.5 per cent). It combines lush raisin-like flavours with distinctive clove-like character, with a sweet but tangy finish, reminiscent of liquorice.

Wine review – Angove, Xanadu and Mount Langi Ghiran

20 September 2015Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Angove Long Row Riesling 2015 $8–$11
Long Row riesling’s low price and drab label convey little of the very good wine quality. In the benign 2015 vintage the wine shows both the floral and citrus side of the riesling grape, in a delicious, round, juicy, drink-now, dry style. It comes from Angove’s Nanya vineyard on the hot stretches of the Murray River. While this is hardly a textbook site for the riesling grape, the family knows how to coax the best out of those vines, planted by Tom Angove back in the early 1970s.

Xanadu Fusion Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 $18.05–$20
A spin-off of all the top-end cabernet coming out of Margaret River, is the emergence of high quality drink-now versions at more modest prices. Xanadu, maker of a couple of seriously good cabernets, now offers Fusion – a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, petit verdot and merlot. It’s a lot of wine for around $20 and really good representative of the elegant Margaret River style. The emphasis is on bright, fresh, ripe, berry-like flavours, with the minty and herbal notes typical of cabernet-related varieties. Fine tannins give the wine proper cabernet structure, but in an approachable drink-now style.

Mount Langhi Ghiran The Divide Grampians Shiraz 2013 $16
The Rathbone Wine Group’s Mount Langhi Ghiran specialises in the unique, peppery, savoury shirazes of Victoria’s Grampians region. In the best vintages, its flagship, The Langi Shiraz ($110), equals any red made in Australia, in its own idiosyncratic style. The more affordable Billi Bill Shiraz ($17) and Cliff Edge ($25) provide variations on the regional theme. And now “The Divide” shiraz, provides more good drinking – and evidence of the power Woolworths holds over such a small, but significant Victorian brand. This fruity, silky, savoury, spicy shiraz is available at Woolworths-owned Dan Murphys and Mount Langhi Ghiran cellar door.

Wine review – Grosset, Yarrh, McKellar Ridge, Tselepos, Windowrie and Hay Shed Hill

16 September 2015Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Grosset Polish Hill Riesling 2015
Grosset Polish Hill vineyard, Clare Valley, South Australia
$55
Geoffrey Grosset’s thirty-fifth Polish Hill riesling harvest arrived early. The vintage, “Was mild and early. Starting February 8^th following a very mild December and even cooler than average January, vintage was not only the most compressed, but also the earliest in thirty-five years”, writes Grosset. The cool season produced small, thick-skinned berries, yielding an equivalent of two bottles per vine, he says. Those small berries produced a riesling of extraordinary concentration, but in the most delicate, refined way imaginable – characteristics suggested by the lovely aroma and confirmed by the powerful, fine, luscious, absolutely bone-dry palate. This is as good as Australian riesling gets at present – though Tasmania may one day throw down a challenge, albeit in a different style.

Yarrh Sangiovese 2013
Yarrh vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$27
Neil McGregor and Fiona Wholohan planted Yarrh’s first sangiovese in 2001 and in 2004 made their first wine from it. The success of the variety, prompted them to graft over another half-hectare, which is due to come into production in 2016. Wholohan makes the wines to a consistent medium-bodied, savoury style with the body rising or falling in line with vintage conditions. The almost sold out 2012, for example, shows the lighter body of a cool year; while the 2013 shows the extra depth and richness of a great season. Wholohan aptly describes the fruit flavour as sour-cherry-like. This is cut with firm, tight, earthy tannins, reminiscent of the lighter wines of Tuscany’s Chianti region, the home of sangiovese.

McKellar Ridge Riesling 2015
Briar Hill vineyard, Wallaroo, Canberra District, NSW
$25
Brian and Janet Johnston make McKellar Ridge riesling from fruit grown on Phil and Judy Thompson’s Briar Hill vineyard at Wallaroo. Their 2015 vintage earned the top gold medal in its class before going on to win trophies as best riesling and best boutique wine in the NSW Small Winemakers Show. The wine shows the lemony thrust and bite of very young Canberra riesling, softened by a very small dose of residual grape sugar, which gives flesh but not sweetness to the palate.

Tselepos Agiorgitiko 2013
Nemea, Peloponnisos, Greece
$33
Melbourne’s Hellenic Republic restaurant (434 Lygon Street, East Brunswick) offers an all-Greek wine list, including many of their own imports. Having little experience of Greek wine, we deferred to the sommelier, who steered us to this enjoyable red, made from the agiorgitiko grape, grown at Nemea, in the northwest Peloponnisos. Medium bodied and fragrant, it offered bright, ripe-berry flavours on an initially supple palate, cut with rustic, savoury tannins that worked well with the food. For stockists contact cclarkson@dejavuwines.com.au.

Windowrie The Mill Verdelho 2015
Central Ranges, NSW
$17–$18
In the late eighties and early nineties, The O’Dea family planted hundreds of hectares of their extensive Windowrie property to vines. Initially, they sold to other makers but now make significant volumes on site for their own label. Fruit sourcing now extends along the large Central Ranges zones, and includes this appealing dry white, made from Madeira’s verdelho grape. A fairly full-bodied style, it offers pleasantly tart, flavours, reminiscent of melon-rind. These give a twist to the dry finish and make the wine distinct from our more familiar varieties.

Hay Shed Hill Cabernet Merlot 2013
Hay Shed Hill vineyard, Wilyabrup, Margaret River, Western Australia
$20–$22
In this reasonably priced red, winemaker Michael Kerrigan gives us the varietal purity and power of Margaret River cabernet sauvignon and merlot. The fruit wells up richly on the palate, yielding cabernet’s cassis, merlot’s chocolate and the minty-leafy character seen in both varieties. Well-balanced oak helps fill out the generous mid palate and contributes to the firm, dry finish we expect of these varieties.

Strange tales of ale

16 September 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

New beer book

For an eclectic look at the world of beer over two millennia, grab a copy of Strange Tales of Ale by British beer author, historian and blogger, Martyn Cornell.

Cornell’s new book kicks off with the tragic tale of London’s great beer flood of 1814. He writes, “A huge vat filled with maturing porter fell apart at Henry Meux’s Horse Shoe brewery. More than 570 tons of beer crashed through the brewery’s back wall and out into the slums behind in a vast wave at least 15 feet high”. Eight women and children died and others were injured.

On a happier note, Cornell details how RAF Spitfire pilots, with tacit approval of the Air Ministry, flew beer in “jettison tanks” to the troops in Normandy in the weeks following D-Day.

The book is available in electronic and print format from Amazon and Google Books.

Beer reviews

Bright Brewery Smoko Rauchbier 330ml $5
Smoko emulates the beechwood-smoked beers (rauchbier) of Bamberg, Germany, where it makes delicious company, as I found out firsthand, for liver dumpling soup. So it’s a forceful beer to enjoy with rich food, not quinoa. Smoko reeks of campfire clothing and bacon, combining rich malt and bitter hops with meaty, smoky flavours.

Bright Brewery Alpine Ale 330ml $3.95
Craft brewers explore every corner of the beer world, at times challenging our senses with powerful flavour combinations. But they also make simpler brews for everyday quaffing. Bright Brewery succeeds in this area with its single malt, single hop Alpine Ale. It’s malty, tasty, fresh and finishes with a balanced, lingering hops bitterness.