The recent collapse of wine investment companies Heritage Fine Wines and Wine Orb underlines the high risk to consumers of investing in wine through a third party. And a search through the price realisations at Langton’s Auctions suggests the secondary market is a buyer’s paradise and a devilishly difficult place to make money even when … Continue reading Beware the wine scammers
A tasting of 50 years of Wynns Coonawarra Estate cabernet sauvignons last week highlighted what a long, twisting, sometimes profitless and often frustrating struggle lies behind the emergence of significant wines. The ‘estate that made Coonawarra famous’ remained largely unknown, under various guises, for sixty years before the inspired marketing of the Wynn family gave … Continue reading Fifty years of Wynns Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon
By April this year, Clare and Eden Valley riesling makers could hardly believe their own good luck. They’d barely finished crowing about 2002 — the best vintage in twenty years, they said — even better than the excellent 2001s. And, here were the barely fermented 2003s looking every bit as good as the 2002s, perhaps … Continue reading Vintage 2003 — outstanding for Aussie rieslings
Two Tasmanian producers — Pipers Brook and Tamar Ridge — between them own a little over half the island’s approximately 500 hectares of vines. Both are set to boost production significantly and, through the hard-learned lessons of twenty-five years viticultural and winemaking experience, mechanisation of new vineyards and efficient winemaking processes, bring Tasmanian wines to … Continue reading Two Tassie wineries make half the State’s wine
What has a bowl of tiny, exquisitely flavoured strawberries got to do with wine? The intense but delicate flavours of a cool climate, that’s what. The strawberries, fresh picked from Tamar Retreat B&B’s garden, became a metaphor for the equally intense but delicate Tasmanian wines tasted on a quick tour in late January. As if … Continue reading Cool climates, tasty berries and Tassie wine
With Tassie shaping up to be the pinot noir capital of Australia, both as sparkling wine star and as the southern hemisphere’s Burgundy, what better place to start than with two delicious red versions from the two producers set to take the style to larger audiences than have ever seen it before.Tamar Ridge Tasmania Pinot … Continue reading Wine review — Tamar Ridge & Pipers Brook
In vintage 2000, Tasmania harvested 3263 tonnes of grapes, a little under 0.3 per cent of the nation’s 1.147 million tonne total. Amongst the grape statistics, one little gem sparkles most. And that’s the relative volume of pinot noir being produced. The apple isle’s 1036 tonne pinot crush in 2000 represented 6.4% of the Australian … Continue reading Tasmania on the rise
A collation of my Canberra Times articles published between January and March 2000 January 23 2000 Along New South Wales’ Great Divide — from Tooma and Tumbarumba in the south, heading north through Gundagai, Canberra, Yass, Young, Harden, Cowra, Cudal and Cargo, to the cool heights of Orange’s Mount Canobolas and on to Mudgee – … Continue reading Orange a bright star on the NSW Great Dividing Range
The enjoyment of two new-release, elegant, slightly-austere Coonawarra red wines (Redmans Cabernet Sauvignon 1996 and Shiraz 1996) has me pondering the direction of (some) Australian red-wine making. Are too many Australian reds becoming too big, too bold and too oaky? Is regional and varietal character being swamped and blurred by oak, tannin and forbiddingly-high alcohol … Continue reading Redman elegant Coonawarra reds — relief from the inky, oaky monsters
In last week’s column we looked at the increasing phenomenon of Australian wine makers acquiring or developing overseas interests. Spreading risk, increasing total capacity, appealing to a wider audience, hedging against exchange-rate variations, taking advantage of lower production costs and catering for the parochial factor are just some of the driving forces behind the increasing … Continue reading Aussie wine’s global focus — part two of three