Chris Shanahan is an Australian wine writer, wine show judge, beer writer and beer show judge. In 1976 Chris joined Farmer Bros Wine & Spirit Merchants, later becoming a partner and Director of Marketing for its Australia-wide retailing and direct marketing operations. Chris was one of three Farmer Bros wine selectors and travelled extensively throughout … Continue reading About Chris Shanahan
The 2007 vintage ends a difficult season for wine makers in which drought, frost and bushfire trimmed the national grape harvest by hundreds of thousands of tonnes. But the small vintage, harsh as it will be financially on many winemakers and grape growers, appears to have brought a profit-sapping surplus to an end. Visiting Canberra … Continue reading Australia 2007 — a vintage to end the surplus, or vintage from hell?
Few people drive the cars that win motor races. Yet motor sports contribute considerably to safety and performance developments in motor vehicles – improvements that finally trickle down to the family sedan. Similarly, relatively few drinkers enjoy the Ferraris of the wine world – the great and enduring names that excite drinkers, inspire winemakers and … Continue reading Driving the Ferraris of the wine world
In the wine industry the lead-time from vision to realisation can be twenty years. It takes that long for vines and winemaking skills to mature. Indeed, in some cases, it may be even longer before consumers perceive the benefit of a visionary decision made decades earlier. For example, when Karl Seppelt established vineyards at Drumborg, … Continue reading Viogner — blended or straight
In the eighties and nineties, New Zealand, led by the Marlborough region, carved a global niche for itself with sauvignon blanc. This century it’s set, I believe, to create a similar niche for pinot noir, the difficult-to-make but seductive red originating in France’s Burgundy region. Already it’s New Zealand’s number one red variety in tonnes … Continue reading Look out Burgundy, here comes New Zealand
Well known Barossa winemaker Grant Burge passed through Canberra this week, promoting Meshach, his flagship red, and commenting on the most extraordinary vintage in living memory. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’, he said. ‘Reds are down in volume by seventy per cent and whites by thirty five per cent. It’s the vintage from hell’. … Continue reading Barossa 2007 vintage blighted by frost, drought
Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2004 & 2005 $15.75-$27 With prices spiralling to new lows – as little as $15.75 for Bins 128, 138 and 28 — the new-vintage Penfolds reds present a great buying opportunity. A personal favourite from the release is the 2004 Bin 128, a French-oak-matured shiraz from the Coonawarra region. The … Continue reading Wine review — Penfolds Bin 128, Bin 28, Bin 389 & Bin 407
It’s been a field day for wine drinkers. But Australia’s benchmark red-wine brand, I believe, has never seen such grim times. Caught in a three-way pincer of wine glut, fierce retail competition and a parent company seemingly desperate for sales, Penfolds annual ‘Bin’ wine release hit new lows in 2007. Retail prices slumped to unprecedented … Continue reading A great brand confuses
A few years back, says Ross Brown of Brown Brothers, the Winemakers Federation of Australia discovered something startling: sixty per cent of Aussie wine drinkers enjoy a glass only infrequently. Asked why they didn’t drink more wine, the occasional sippers said they didn’t like the flavour. Shock! Horror! The revelation floored the WFA. Why, they … Continue reading Ross Brown’s sweet lesson on how it pays to listen
As far north and as coastal as it is, the lower Hunter Valley ought to be too warm, too wet, too humid — and with Sydney so close — too expensive to make wine. But it’s done so for 170 years and is today probably more varied and more innovative than at any time in … Continue reading Hunter paradox