They were long, hot and often dry summers, but some of my fondest childhood memories are of spending the Christmas school holidays going to the beach, swimming in my friends’ pools, and spending countless hours with eyes glued to a static-ridden tv screen listening to Richie Benaud calling the Ashes. I loved watching Dennis Lillee…
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There’s naturally a degree of hesitation in expressing an opinion about wine, wine regions and winemakers. After all, opinions are rather self-indulgent and often, ill-considered, half-baked and formed in ignorance of the facts. So when I was recently asked for my view as to which region produces the best Shiraz in Australia, I baulked! How…
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The Cowra wine region covers around 1,250 square kilometres in the Lachlan River Valley at the southern end of the Central Ranges zone in New South Wales. Unsurprisingly, the district is named after the largest town in the region and it’s amongst the lowest altitude and warmest parts of the Central Ranges region. And while…
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Sangiovese is the most commonly grown red grape in Italy and presently accounts for 250 000 acres of plantings and almost 10 % of all winemaking grapes planted in the country. It’s a versatile fruit that does best through the middle of the of the “boot” and in recent years it has been expanding its…
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The terms “Vielles Vignes” or “old vines” have become to the wine industry what buzzwords like “superfood”, “natural” and “organic” are to products on the supermarket shelves; terms that sound impressive to the consumers and get the cash registers ringing, but beyond enabling a price premium to be achieved, does it really make any discernible…
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It may not be a universally held view, but to my palate, there is no more noble white wine varietal than Chardonnay. It’s a style that generally combines attractive fruit characters at the front, luscious mouthfeel through the middle and a gentle acidity to tighten and harness the fruit through the finish. And depending on…
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Huntington Estate, in Mudgee, is crafting wines that will stand the test of time. The Mudgee region is often seen as the poor cousin of the Hunter Valley, but it’s a district that produces undeniably good wines. The town is just 3 hours from Newcastle but is frequently overlooked by oenological tourists, perhaps due to…
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These days, everyone with a social media account and a mobile phone is a food or wine critic and the power of these so-called “influencers’ increases exponentially with the increase in reach of every flippant, if not ill-considered post. And it’s a sad reality, that in the wine industry the fortunes of wineries and winemakers…
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Northern Tasmania is a region accustomed to regeneration. Not just in its seasonal scheduled back burning to reduce fuel for forest fires, but in its viticultural endeavours and oenological exploits. While grapes were first planted in the north of the state in the 1800’s, it wasn’t until the industry was re-examined in the 1950’s and…
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The Cowra wine region covers about 1250sqkm in the Lachlan River Valley at the southern end of the Central Ranges zone in NSW. Unsurprisingly, the district is amongst the lowest altitude and warmest parts of the Central Ranges region. And while the oenological offerings of the area have risen to prominence in recent decades only,…
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