One of Australia’s most underrated white wine grapes must surely be the Portuguese import, Verdelho. It’s a style which for some reason is mainly used for blending in dry white blends, such as Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. But with the intensity of flavour and the delicious overtones of lime and honeysuckle, I reckon it’s an…
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Yellowtail It may not be a label that frequently graces dining room tables in Australia, but overseas, Yellowtail Wines are enormously popular and enjoy high levels of brand recognition across the United States, Asia, Europe and the UK. In fact, in 2017, the Yellowtail brand was recognised by The Drinks Business as one of the…
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You’ve gotta love living in Queensland in summer. Swimming in the pool, barbeques on the deck, long days and even longer walks on the beach. It’s awesome. But as the mercury climbs and the humidity starts to suffocate you like the carpet python that caught my sister’s kitten that time, it can become a challenge…
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It’s what’s inside that really counts In our globalised, digitalised and highly commercialised world, there seems to be a view among many marketers that “perception will become reality” and that you can almost turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse if you dress it up nicely enough! And the wine industry is not immune…
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Well before George Constanza claimed to have invented the “it’s not you, it’s me” routine, sauvignon blanc and I had long broken up. Though as Jerry Seinfeld observed “I thought things were going great”, but that was before the Marlborough Sauv-o-lanche. Back in the days when sauvignon blanc was green, grassy and showed herbaceous and…
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The Yarra Valley, an hour to the north east of the Melbourne CBD, is home to some of the biggest brands in the Australian wine industry and is believed to be Victoria’s oldest wine growing district. The first vines were reportedly planted in the Yarra in 1838 on a property that is today known as…
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Moorooduc Estate 2014 McIntyre Vineyard Chardonnay will enamour your taste buds I may be stealing a song lyric from over a decade ago but, as Fats Domino famously sang, “I’m in love again”! I have always said that Chardonnay is the most regal of white wine varietals, but in recent years, some of the lean…
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Wine Industry Tourism is big business in Australia, and for good reason. We live in a country which is rich in viticultural offerings and blessed with diversity of micro-climates and terroir. While we may be regarded as “new world” by the elitist “old world” producers, the juvenile tag given to our winemakers doesn’t stop them…
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Hahndorf Hill blend impresses They are a producer best known for their successful introduction of Gruner Veltliner to the Australian Wine Consumer and now the team at Hahndorf Hill are pioneering other Austrian styles like Blaufrankisch, Zweigelt and St Laurent and now, it seems, Trollinger as well. They may not be house hold names, but…
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The Yarra Valley is considered a cold climate – but is it really? As I poured a glass of the 2008 Coldstream Hills Pinot Noir to take the edge off last Sunday’s mustard crusted lamb racks (which, I admit, were worthy of a Master Chef elimination), I pondered the “cool climate” regionality claimed by the…
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