The Hilltops wine region, centred on Young, an hour and a half’s drive north from here, emerged at about the same time as Canberra’s. In 1969, just two years before CSIRO Drs John Kirk and Edgar Riek planted vines, independently of one another, at Murrumbateman and Lake George, cherry farmer, the late Peter Robertson, established … Continue reading Hilltops flies solo
Cullens Kevin John Chardonnay 2008 $75 Margaret River, Western Australia Our best winemakers invariably bring a wide frame of reference to their work. Vanya Cullen, for example, stages a tasting of the world’s best chardonnays every year in the family winery. It’s a benchmarking exercise that’s helped lift Cullens Chardonnay, named for Vanya’s late father, … Continue reading Wine review — Cullens, Majella, Shaw Vineyard Estate, Turkey Flat, Grove Estate and Mount Horrocks
Is Australia ready for high quality regional varietal wines in tetra paks? We’ll know soon enough following this month’s launch of One Planet Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2009 and McLaren Vale Shiraz 2008. They’re billed as “the green pour” and the marketing focuses on a zero carbon dioxide output across the product lifecycle. But the … Continue reading Time could be right for tetra pak wine
The late and great authority on beer, Michael Jackson, devoted just one paragraph to Asahi Super Dry in his 1989 The New World Guide to Beer. The beer had been released in 1987. But when Jackson wrote the text, probably in 1988, he couldn’t have foreseen the scale of beer war provoked in Japan by … Continue reading Asahi Super Dry a masterpiece of brewing
What do we look for in back labels and how much help do they give us when we buy wine? Can we rely on the information they provide? In an Australian study in 1999 Larry Lockshin and Tim Unwin found that almost 60 per cent of their respondents said they read back labels regularly when … Continue reading Language of the label
One of Canberra’s oldest vineyards is about to make a comeback under the Little Bridge Wines banner. In December last year Stephen Dowton, one of the Little Bridge partners, bought Brooks Creek Vineyard, at Bywong, from George Brownbill. The 2.8-hectare vineyard includes a block of mourvedre, and possibly other survivors of the original 4-hectare vineyard … Continue reading Little Bridge partner buys Canberra’s historic Brooks Creek Vineyard
YouTube could be onto something. They revamped their website recently, paring the five-star user-rating system back to a stark “like/dislike” choice for content. It seems that under the old system most voting viewers hit the five star button, only a handful voted one star and just about no one voted in between. Overwhelmingly, viewers liked … Continue reading When wines push our buttons
You don’t have to own vineyards or a winery to make your own wine. Ask Nick O’Leary, owner of one of Canberra’s hot new brands. You’ll find his wines on Canberra retail shelves and wine lists. But there’s no winery and no cellar door, just a web site (www.nickolearywines.com.au). And even that bears a ‘sold … Continue reading Nick O’Leary carves a Canberra niche
Australia owns shiraz – not just in the generic sense of making juicy, soft, affordable quaffers (which we do very well) but in expressing a wide spectrum of styles across our dozens of regions. We’ve arrived at an amazing diversity of extraordinarily good shirazes. And the quality we’re now enjoying seems to be drawn from … Continue reading Savouring the shiraz spectrum
The Winemakers’ Federation of Australia’s official vintage report for 2009 has little to say about the much talked about ‘alternative’ grape varieties now being explored enthusiastically by Australia’s winemakers. The report reveals, for example, that our vignerons harvested 117 tonnes of the Italian red, barbera, and 449 tonnes of the CSIRO-bred tarrango. But it offers … Continue reading Exotics grape varieties galore — but will any go mainstream?