Young Winemaker of the Year

On Friday 20th November, Renee and I both had the privilege of attending The Wine Society's Young Winemaker of the Year awards night at the Westin Hotel, Sydney. Now I know it's a little while since the 20th, so apologies for my tardy post!

The awards night was super fun as always, with great entertainment, food and of course wine! Each table got to sample 20 wines, 2 from each finalist. As you can imagine, it was a pretty boozy night!

My personal fave was the 2007 Thorn-Clarke Shotfire Quartage which was a beautifully round wine and Renee knocked back The Ned Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

This year's winners were:

• Young Winemaker of the Year - Ryan Aggiss from Flying Fish Cove, Dunsborough, WA for his 2008 Flying Fish Cabernet Merlot and 2008 Flying Fish Chardonnay.

• Sommeliers' Choice - Jen Pfeiffer from Pfeiffer Wines, VIC for her 2008 Pfeiffer Shiraz and 2006 Pfeiffer Christopher's Vintage Port.

• Members' Choice - Peter Kelly from Thorn-Clarke Wines, SA, for his 2007 Shotfire Quartage and 2008 Shotfire Shiraz.

The Wine Society is Australia's oldest not-for-profit wine club. It launched the awards 9 years ago to recognise young people in the wine industry and I have been lucky enough to work with them on the awards for the past 3 years.

Check out all the winners and details here - Young Winemaker of the Year

Women of the Wine Industry Event

Last night Helen and I scooted off to Moncur Cellars for a Women of the Wine Industry event held by the Woollahra Hotel. There were three sessions on offer: a master class, open tasting and a wine dinner - we opted for the master class hosted by Toni Patterson MW which featured Emma Wood Seppelt, Prue Henschke Henschke, Nadine Cross Wither Hills and Fiona Donald Hardys.













It was great to hear each tell their story as we nibbled on cheese and sampled a lovely selection of nine wines. Props to the 2007 Wither Hills Taylor River Vineyard Pinot Noir from New Zealand - not yet released - sorry you'll have to wait! Also loved the highly decorated 2006 Chateau Reynella Cab Sauv.

Learning the history of Chateau Reynella, a grand old wine label, was fascinating. Its first vintage was in 1842 and today they still utilise very traditional wine making methods.

Renound for their Cab Sauvs since the '60s, the 2006 vintage is pretty much as good as it gets so try it out.

After the class we took a spin around the open tasting which included Bay of Fires, Bowen Estate, Crabtree, Hardys, Heemskerk, Henschke, Seppelts and Wither Hills.

I've been to a couple of events now at Moncur Cellars and the team does a great job. If you'd like to join their mailing list and hear about upcoming events, email amber@woollahrahotel.com.au.

Renee

Photographer: Sandra Schnellhaus

Pop up bars

Is it me or is everyone doing a pop up bar these days?

I read this week that winemakers from the King Valley will be on show at a pop up bar in Sydney from 18-27 November at different locations around the city.

Wineries taking part include Pizzini Wines, Brown Brothers and Dal Zotto Estate who will be sharing their stories from the vineyards.

It's all very secret squirrel though and to find out the location of each pop up you need to register on the website to receive an SMS with the location.

On the beer side of things, Pure Blonde has created a temporary bar and restaurant called The Pond in an abandoned Italian eatery in Sydney.

It will be open from Weds-Sun 12pm-12am until December and will serve a range of beers and wine, along with an organic and local produce focused menu.

So it looks like Ocsober is well and truly buried then!

Bubbles over dinner?

I went to a friend’s house the other night for dinner and promised to take over a bottle of wine.

I could have sworn that I had a good supply in my fridge (decided to take a white as we were having fish), but all I found in there were a few beers and a bottle of sparkling wine.

This led me to deliberate for about 10 minutes about whether sparkling was suitable for dinner or not. It’s great as an aperitif, but is it wrong to drink it with your main course?

So I opted for the beer….which didn’t really go either!

Thoughts?

The language of wine

I came across this today - a snappy article that lists a bunch of 'wine words' and explains what they mean.

I've heard some pretty funny wine descriptions before (wet dog or socks, shag on a forest floor etc), but I've never heard a wine described as flabby! That's a new one.

When discussing wine I try not to be a wanker but here are two additions that I noticed were not on the list:

Legs: this refers to the little trickles that run down the inside of the glass after you have given it a swirl. Lots of legs equals a high volume of alcohol.

Quaffer: this is the name for an easy drinking, cheaper wine that you'd smash at home, but not necessarily take out to dinner (see 'glugger' on their list).

If you've got any favourites, please share.

Posted by Renee

James Halliday goes Gen Y

Proving that you’re never too old school to be new school, James Halliday has launched his own iPhone application.

For those who don’t know, James is a leading wine critic and vigneron whose career spans over 40 years. He has contributed to more than 50 books on wine and has had them translated into numerous languages.

What impressed me is the fact that Halliday, so we’re told, is a bit ‘traditional’ and chooses hand writing his wine reviews over typing them on computer.

So when I learnt about this new app at a Wine Communicators of Australia seminar about marketing wine to Gen Y, I quickly jumped on my phone and downloaded it.

The app is a succinct version of James’s Australian Wine Companion 2009, arguably one of the most comprehensive directories of wineries in Australia. It allows wine lovers to search for wineries across the country by name or region and compile a list of favourites.

Each winery is listed with full contact details, cellar door opening times and reviews, which would come in very handy when trawling round the Hunter Valley looking for your next tipple stop. And the best thing is that’s its completely free.

So good on you James and welcome to the digital hood.