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Loading ...OWS#11: A Divine Affair
The interview is with Andrew Wood, producer of Divine: Food & Wine, a very good, independent magazine.
Anyway, that's it for this week.
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The Doyen is Gone
It is a sad day for wine lovers not just in Australia, but around the world. This morning, Len Evans died of a heart attack at the age of 75.
I, like many, only knew of Len by his larger than life reputation. He was known globally for his passion, enthusiasm and knowledge and was Australian wine's greatest exponent;
“We can become the third-biggest wine producer in the world and even in time the greatest, but every hatchet has to be buried. We have to pull together.”
Well known UK wine journo Matthew Jukes revealed at the Sydney Royal Wine Show earlier this year that sitting next to Len at a function was 'a mind blowing moment" in his career. Campbell Mattinson has some insightful and heartfelt words at WineFront here. For a list of reasons why Len was, and always will be, the doyen of Australian wine - click here.
Our heartfelt condolences to Len's family and friends.
Addon:
The Len Evans Principle, better known as his Theory of Capacity, paraphrased and abridged (source: freerangegourmet.com):
- There is an awful lot of wine in the world, but there is also a lot of awful wine in the world.
One person can only drink a certain amount in a lifetime.- There are countless flavors, nuances, shades of wine; endless varieties, regions, styles. You have neither the time nor the capacity to try them all.
- To make the most of the time left to you, you must start by calculating your total future capacity….there are only so many bottles ahead of you.
- People who say: 'You can't drink the good stuff all the time' are talking rubbish. You must drink good stuff all the time. Every time you drink a bottle of inferior wine, it's like smashing a superior bottle against the wall. The pleasure is lost forever - you can't get that bottle back.
- There are people who don't want to drink good wine, and are happy with the cheapies. I forgive them. There are others who are content with beer and spirits; I can't worry about everybody.
- Wine is not meant to be enjoyed for its own sake; it is the key to love and laughter with friends, to the enjoyment of food, beauty and humor and art and music. Its rewards are far beyond its cost.
- What part is wine of your life? Ten percentum: Ergo, 10 per cent of your income should be spent on wine.
- The principle should be applied to other phases of life. A disciple kissed a beautiful young lady and she demurred. He was aghast, and said: "Don't get the wrong idea. I've worked out I can only make love another 1343 times. I'm bloody sure I'm not wasting one on you!"
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Setback from the Gods
Last friday, lightning during heavy Sydney rain payed my router, laptop and external hard-drive a visit. In my own defence, there had been no other lightening strikes for about 4 hours previously. Consequently it's all fried and I'm waiting for new gear to arrive. I may have also lost a lot of audio. I had the Ernst Loosen interview ready to go but will have to wait and see if it can be salvaged. Audio and the accompanying post about the new site and our fabulous new contributor (Tess Brown) is also on hold, so stay tuned/subscribed. = )
Hugo
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A Kracher of a Saturday Morning
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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There are Supertasters Among Us
Some talk on the net today about the phenomenon of “supertasters”. Called such for their super tongues which are endowed with more taste buds at the front. I read about it first at vinography but it trails back to an article in the NY Sun. It seams that 20 to 25% of the population are supertasters. The Sun article is more about the fact that with the rise in new, citizen media (blogs, podcasts, etc) some “professional” wine critics are claiming the status of supertasters to discern themselves from us less genetically advanced folk.
Apparently, the extra tastebuds make you more sensitive to bitter tastes. I wouldn’t mind this trait in someone telling not to buy a case on the verge expiration but how does this help with good wines?
You can test yourself with this pdf here. I’ll let you know if i’m a chosen one once i’ve done the test.
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Site Work
Changing the site theme and upgrading the operating software to enable some added features on the site. Should be near complete by tomorrow.
Keep your subscription to the feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ozwineshow) as is and if any repeat downloads occur, just cancel them. For the next day or two that is - don’t delete new postings. = )
You can comment as usual during the process. By process i mean me hacking it together tonight. I’m still in the Hunter region and the only internet i can get with my laptop is wifi in McDonalds. It’s a sorry sight.
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Wine Country Contrasts
Spent the weekend in the Hunter with my girlfriend and some friends. I’ll put up a list of some of my pics during the week but wanted to vent now. I thought i got marketing from the cellar door - it’s a chance for people to spend the weekend seeing where their favourite wines come from and finding new ones. Half the fun is feeling involved. You’re putting in the effort, so you expect to be served by someone that had a hand - however slight that may be - in the wine you’re tasting. Fair enough this is not always possible but it shouldn’t be too much to ask to run into such an experience in at least 3 of the 10 cellar doors you visit in a day.
This struck me most this morning when i ticked a few wineries off the list on the way home. Visited Krinklewood and was served by none other than the wineries’ owner - Rod Windrum. Lovely chap who obliged an interview about biodynamic growing practices. I’ve admired their wines for a while now, they guarantee the phrase “oh this is good, where’s this from” at social occasions. Next i stopped in at De Iuliis Wines and it couldn’t have felt more different. The tasting room was as sterile as a NASA lab and I think smiles were out of season. They had a decent Semillon though but the romance of the experience was totally gone.
I guess the equation for a visit to wine country is; the bigger the sign and more modern the surrounds, the greater your chances of being a number.
It was a great weekend though and the good wines far outweighed the lifeless cellar doors. The Krinklewood interview is in the pipes.
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Wine Australia 2006
Mick and I will be at Plonk Oz this Saturday and Sunday if anyone wants to meet up. We’ll be recording random stuff and would love to chat with listeners, fellow bloggers, etc on or off the mic.
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OWS#10: Zinfandel
OWS#10 is all about Zinfandel - the who, the what, the why. A side note of the show is the reasoning behind wineries putting out two versions of a single varietal wine.
Zinfandel is a big boy amongst grapes grown in the States but it doesn’t get much airplay in Oz. Join Hugo and Mick as they taste two fine Australian offerings. Both are from Kangarilla Road of McLaren Vale in South Australia - 2004 Fleurieu Zinfandel (A$17) and the 2004 McLaren Vale Zinfandel (A$30).
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Virtual Tasting for Episode 10
As mentioned in the last show, OWS# 10 is about Zinfandel. We also take the chance to have a look at why one winery may have two versions of a single varietal wine in it’s range (ie one cheap and one premium version of the same variety). Therefore we chose Kangarilla Road from McLaren Vale in South Australia. They produce two nice Zins - the 2004 Fleurieu Zinfandel (A$17) and the 2004 McLaren Vale Zinfandel (A$30). Kangarilla has distribution throught Oz and the World so try to pick it up in the next week.
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