If I had a “tenner” for every time I’ve heard people say that “the sulphites in red wine give me headaches”, I reckon I’d probably be on a plane to the Bahamas right now! Rightly or wrongly, sulphur dioxide (SO2) is often blamed as being the cause of hangovers and headaches on the morning after…
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Marsanne is a troublesome white wine varietal that originated in the Northern Rhone region of France and has challenged winemakers and their viticultural practices for centuries. Notoriously difficult to grow, it struggles in heat or freezing conditions and it is susceptible to a wide range of vineyard diseases. Depending on the conditions and terroir, it…
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Low Alcohol Wines It is a well-known industry deception, that the alcohol content of a wine as described on the bottle, is largely understated. The Food Standards Code in Australia allows a level of tolerance which generally means that wines are labelled as being lower in alcohol than they actually are. A recent study by…
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They’ve got in wrong in the Clare Valley! It’s easy to be critical from the sidelines, but as a spectator watching the wine industry blossom in South Australia’s Clare Valley, I can’t help but wonder if players and coaches alike might have made the wrong call. I’m probably going to be howled down for saying…
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Maybe I’m becoming sentimental as middle age takes its grip, but when I recently learned that a cellar door outlet for a Granite Belt Winery has opened a few hundred metres from my childhood home, I couldn’t help but feel a wistful longing for a return to my childhood stomping ground – even if it…
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We all love drinking wines that come with a story, and while much is written about wines, wineries and even their wine dogs, rarely do we get told about the background of the winemaker themselves. After all, these days, major producers are more concerned about corporate branding and profiling their product rather than any back…
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I was wrong. There it is. My wife will chime in that it “certainly isn’t the first time”, and she’s right – and it won’t be the last. But when I first heard that the Buderim based Founding Director of the Coast’s largest construction company Evans Harch was uprooting to move with his wife to…
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If we think if Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia, the mental picture is typically one of seals, sea lions, penguin colonies and picturesque national parks. Sadly, it seems, us Queenslanders are largely unaware that the Island also possesses a perfect climate for viticulture and is home to about 30 vignerons and around…
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“Monastrell, Mourvedre or Mataro?” I asked my friend’s Rebecca, John and Michael when they recently called over to pick up their 10-year-old sons after a post-rugby playdate late on Saturday afternoon. Darkness was imposing itself on what had otherwise been a glorious day of autumn Queensland weather and it was most certainly wine o’clock. So…
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Are Queensland wines good enough to serve to international visitors during the April 2018 Commonwealth Games? If you ask the Queensland Wine Makers from the Granite Belt around Stanthorpe, they’ll probably tell you that their wines are not just the equal of their southern counterparts, but even better! So the umbrage of local producers was…
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