by Tessa Brown, new Oz Wine Show contributing author.
Elevating myself before nine in the morning on a weekend day is, at best, challenging. Performing same on four hours’ sleep, when Friday night ended at three am after the following: 1997 Billecart Salmon Elisabeth Rosé, 1983 Roederer Blanc de Blancs, 2000 Pierre Usseglio Châteauneuf du Pape, and a cracking 2002 Gunderloch spætlese? Such a feat is nothing short of a miracle.
However, when nine am Saturday presents you with a strong flat white and a glass of Gosset Grande Reserve in quick succession, you do what you must. Winemaker Alois ‘Luis’ Kracher was presenting the Kracher beerenauslese, trockenbeerenauslese and icewines over a degustation breakfast tasting, and the notion of meeting an Austrian dessert wine specialist was more than enough to battle through the fact that I felt like the bluntest pencil in the case.
This is the first time I have heard of a breakfast wine tasting, but the format actually could not have worked more perfectly for the styles of wine being presented. Can you imagine looking through a glaze of late harvest sweetness and botrytis over an afternoon? You’d need a pillow and a blanket and a nap halfway through. Put it at the other end of the day, however, when your metabolism is still primed and it works brilliantly. By eleven o’clock I felt fantastic. Not the least of the reasons being that the wines Luis makes are superb. (more…)