Spicy and suave – the Alsatian sensation – Hugel gewürztraminer

Posted on February 8, 2012 by

Those who follow the Tigchandler blog will know of my passion for this noble grape – gewürztraminer. This is how the Tig blog was born, reviewing New Zealand’s Brookfields and Coopers Creek gewürztraminers. New Zealand continues to excite with stunning examples of this varietal – but it came originally from Alsace in north-east France. One of the most famous Alsatian wineries supplying gewürztraminer to the world is Hugel.

The Hugel cellar door, Riquewihr

I may be a tad biased as I visited Hugel in 2006 and spent the day being hosted by David Ling, originally from the south-west of England like myself. Arriving at the Hugel winery in Riquewihr was like walking through a Hans Christian Anderson story book, as I felt like the Hansel and Gretel children coming across the gingerbread house. I was in awe! Some photos are shown below in a slideshow – up and down and around winding cobbled streets the buildings are stunning, mesmerising, wonky, colourful, delicious! Many of the buildings date back to the 15th and 16th centuries, built by winegrowers who at that time were wealthy and successful.

Alsace wine region – a potted history

While Alsace has been a grape-growing region for over 2,000 years, the history is surprising and shocking, bearing in mind the reputation, individuality and respect that the region has today.

From the extremely prosperous years, particularly in the 15th and 16th centuries, a series of major events almost wiped out the winegrowing industry altogether. A key event was the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which killed 90% of the population of Alsace, through fighting, famine and disease. According to Hugel’s brochures, “the population of Riquewihr was 2,245 in 1610 but only 74 in 1636”. Furthermore, the Rhine, which was such an important route to export markets, became a dangerous frontier between warring states. A third blow to the wine industry was the arrival of settlers lacking the viticultural knowledge of the old Alsatians.

Thus followed three centuries of decline. “After the First World War, in 1918, Alsace wines no longer existed.” Furthermore, with the tough and uncertain economic times resulting from changes between German and French rule of the region, many winemakers had to take second jobs. The Hugels became coopers.

Thereafter, the turnaround began! The passion of winegrowers in the area was manifested in concentrating on the key varieties suited to the region, as well as steadily improving the methods of cultivation and vinification.

The grapes accounting for about 85% of the vineyard area in Alsace are now: pinot blanc, pinot gris, pinot noir, riesling, gewürztraminer and muscat.

Alsace – the terroir

Alsace is the driest wine-producing region in France. It is quite far removed from maritime influences and protected by the Vosges mountains. The cool climate is ideal for the aromatic varieties to ripen slowly with full and intense flavour.

The soil types in the Alsace region vary widely, and winegrowers have used their centuries of experience to match the grape types to the soils. This brings to mind the diversity of soil types in the McLaren Vale region of South Australia, where work is ongoing relating soil types to wine grapes.

Hugel the winery

The Hugel winemaking tradition started in 1639. Hans Ulrich Hugel settled in Riquewihr in 1639 during the devastating period of the Thirty Years War. In 1639 he was made a freeman of the city and he became the head of the Corporation of Winegrowers. He was the first of 12 generations of winegrowers in Alsace.

After World War I, following the industry’s stark decline, Frédéric Emile Hugel, worked to save the vineyards of Alsace from disease and neglect, devoted to the production of high-quality wines from noble grape varieties, and his son Jean continued in this vein. More recently, the Hugel family was instrumental in producing legislation to protect the Vendange Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles. The Hugel winery today is deservedly a global phenomenon, exporting the majority of its wines, to more than 100 countries.

The Hugel family vineyard consists of 25 hectares in Riquewihr, which is hand-picked, with deliberately low yields and no use of fertiliser. The family buys grapes from growers from another 100 hectares in Alsace, also all hand-picked.

After bottling, the wines are cellared for at least two years on average. The Hugel cellars are mostly located beneath the old buildings of Riquewihr. On my tour of the cellar in Riquewihr, David points out a sign over the door that looks like it says 1898 but the strange looking 8 is in fact a 4 – 1494! The history of this place envelopes you with its richness and romance at every turn (I refer you again to the slideshow!).

There are several oak barrels over a century old, and David also shows me the oldest barrel in continuous use in the world, from 1715, known as Ste Catérine. The certificate for the Guinness Book of records, signed in 1990 by Norris McWhirter, sits proudly by the enormous barrel.

So to the Hugel gewürztraminer!

2009 Hugel Classic Gewürztraminer

One key Hugel belief is that: ‘The wine is already in the grape’. If ever you have the chance to taste grapes off the vine, the most delicious by far are those of gewürztraminer. They give such seductive flavours and aromatics of spice, rose petal, honeysuckle, even a speck of ginger… Made into the most glorious wines of the heavens, add in an oiliness, a golden hue and a lingering, dry finish. Suave and spicy is the description on the label of the 2009 (current vintage) Hugel Classic Gewürztraminer (pictured) – you bet!

Great food matches are spicy foods, like Thai or other Oriental dishes, and maybe smoked fish or meats. For me, the wine is heaven in a glass and I need no more food than that!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Tigs

@WineSupporter

Posted in European wine, Gewurztraminer, NZ wine, Old World Wine, Wine varietals and blends | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Rock on! Exciting developments in mapping the ‘Geology of the McLaren Vale Wine Region’

Posted on January 12, 2012 by

South Australia gets another first! I’ve blogged about us having the first ever white (and bronze) cabernet sauvignon grapes (Cleggett Wines, Langhorne Creek) and the oldest surviving shiraz vines (Langmeil Wines, Barossa). Now I find that we are also breaking new ground in mapping the geology of our wine regions, initially the McLaren Vale Wine Region (MVWR) and Barossa Valley a few years ago. The latest is the recently published updated map and brochure of McLaren Vale, with others likely to follow. This has exciting implications for learning about the make-up and therefore the potential and limitations of our wine regions. The wine industry of McLaren Vale has embraced this project and is benefiting from its outputs. More on the wineries below, the types of soils, how you can access the map and PIRSA’s online geological mapping software that we can all play with! First some background…

Background
I spoke to some experienced geologists who work in the Geological Survey of South Australia (GSSA), within the Department of Primary Industries and Resources of South Australia (PIRSA), particularly Senior Principal Geologist Wolfgang Preiss, and also to Jeff Olliver, a consulting geologist who has worked for PIRSA’s precursor (the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy) and who is one of the key drivers and contributors to this project.

Jeff Olliver on Pirramimma sandstone

Along with Wolfgang and Jeff the other two key people involved in producing the map and text for the Geology of the McLaren Vale Wine Region are the geologist Bill Fairburn and wine writer Philip White. Philip was the wine writer for The Advertiser for many years and now writes for The Independent Weekly.

The original idea for this mapping project came from Bill Fairburn, an English geologist, from Yorkshire, who joined the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy in 1962. He visited France on an excursion associated with the International Geological Congress held in Paris in 1984, and toured a number of areas, where he learned about the concept of terroir. According to one of Australia’s leading agricultural scientists, John Gladstones, terroir may be defined as: “the vine’s whole natural environment, the combination of climate, topography, geology and soil that bear on its growth and the characteristics of its grapes and wines. Local yeasts and other microflora may also play a part.” … “Terroir, then, describes the unique geography of a wine’s origin.” (Wine, Terroir and Climate Change, p.2)

Back in Adelaide, Bill presented his findings and suggested that we do something similar in South Australia, essentially to map the relationship between rocks and wine. He started to work on this project in McLaren Vale and produced an early version in 2000. More recently, the chair of the McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association (‘the Association’ – located at the Information Centre at the entry to McLaren Vale), showed an interest in producing a larger and more comprehensive map.

Bill had returned to England to live but came back for this project in late 2008/early 2009. So the team was set – Bill, Jeff, Wolfgang and Philip. The resulting map was released by the Association on 14 July 2010, with the launch attended by hundreds of people. The map covers the region from O’Halloran Hill in the north to Sellicks Hill in the south.

Rocks and wine
Why should wineries be interested in the rocks beneath their vineyards? As the text with the map clearly explains, viticulturalists have long been concerned about soil types. To the geologist soil is the result of surface weathering of underlying rocks due to the atmosphere, water, soil organisms and changing physical conditions: “soil is usually a thin overlay on parent rock which the vine roots quickly encounter. Hence the need for this geological map”. The water that is taken up by the grapes “comes through the vine roots with the flavour influenced by organic and mineral composition of the ground”.

Rock composition then is an integral component of the wine industry of any region. McLaren Vale is a prominent wine producing region of Australia with vineyards established as early as the 1830s. According to the Association’s July 2011 submission to Minister for Urban Development, Planning and the City of Adelaide:

  • McLaren Vale accounts for 25% of state grape and wine production by value and about 10% nationally. The region has a reputation for producing premium and super premium quality wines, particularly shiraz and unique grenache from some of South Australia’s oldest vineyards.
  • McLaren Vale has the highest per litre price for exports of any region in Australia and the highest total value exports of any wine region in Australia.
  • McLaren Vale region produces annually between 40 – 70,000 tonnes of winegrapes from 7,371 hectares of vineyard and provides greater economic returns and employment than any other wine region in Australia, relative to quantity of input.
  • In 2010, the McLaren Vale wine region grape crush had an estimated total value of $51.4m and the region generated an overall contribution of more than $160m in tourism revenue.

There are plans to produce similar maps for the significant and iconic Barossa and Adelaide Hills wine regions too.

The map
“this map provides a key to the complex, constantly unfolding links between geology and modern wine flavours”

The map and text entitled Geology of the McLaren Vale Wine Region can be obtained from the McLaren Vale Information Centre and from PIRSA Customer Services in Adelaide. It is a large map measuring 84cm by 60cm, at a scale of 1:50,000, and extends from Marino to Sellicks Beach and Mount Bold Reservoir. The map shows geological boundaries and faults, and is clearly coded by colour and overprints to show the ages and types of rock in the area, while informative legends provide more detailed descriptions. Geographic features such as main and secondary roads, watercourses vineyards, 84 wineries (the 84 Association members) and the MVWR geographical boundary, are superimposed on the geology.

The great depth of knowledge of this team is shared in this piece of work in an accessible yet sufficiently comprehensive document. I was not previously aware of many of the terms used for types or ages of rock so it read to me like a story book, taking me from 800 million years ago to the present day.

Unconformity between the North Maslin Sand and the weathered Neoproterozoic bedrock

The rocks in McLaren Vale vary widely in age, origin and composition. The oldest rocks date back up to 800 million years to the Neoproterozoic era, and form the bedrock in the Flinders and Mount Lofty Ranges. In the McLaren Vale area, these are seen in the Clarendon-Ochre Cove and Willunga Faultblocks. There are glacial deposits of bouldery siltstone dating back about 660 million years seen mainly in Sturt and Onkaparinga Gorges, both in the map area. There is red Reynella Siltstone from 600 million years ago which is evident north of Hallett Cove, and hard quartzite at Ochre Point and Willunga Scarp from 500 million years ago. During the Permian glaciation about 300 million years ago, large valleys were carved out by glaciers and glacial deposits formed as the glaciers melted. At Hallett Cove, these Permian deposits can be seen overlying polished and striated glacial pavements in Neoproterozoic bedrock.

Much more recently was the Eocene Epoch (about 45 million years ago) which formed the Noarlunga and Willunga Embayments, and most recently the Quaternary Period (2.6 million years ago to the present day), with alternating wet and dry periods and varying sea levels, resulting in a range of erosional features and deposits across the region. There are many more stages and ages than this, but this gives you a taste of the information you will expect to find, and the text with the map explains each stage very clearly.

Today’s rock formation is thus the result of a combination of activity over time, including sedimentary deposits, glacial activity, changing sea levels, advancing and retreating ice ages, and folding and faults caused by compression/movement of the earth’s crust.

The seven MVWR terranes
The MVWR has been defined by geographical boundaries, not geological boundaries. This map divides the region into seven geological terranes – a terrane is defined as “the area or surface over which a particular rock or group of rocks is prevalent”. Wines from similar terranes are expected to have similar characteristics if climate and other conditions are also similar.

The seven terranes are: Ancient Rocks, Limestone Country, Clay Plains of Aldinga, Piedmont, Talus Slope, Alluvial Flats, Sand and Sandstone. The last one is divided into Maslin Sands, Pirramimma Sandstone, Ochre Cove Formation and Semaphore Sand.

The types of geology, their characteristics and location are clearly explained. Each type of soil will have implications for the types of vines planted there. Examples of wineries with grapes from each type of geology are as follows:

• Ancient Rocks – Coriole, Chapel Hill, Samuel’s Gorge, Paxton, Rosemount
• Limestone Country – Kay Brothers Amery, Maxwell, d’Arenberg
• Clay Plains of Aldinga – Hugh Hamilton, Leconfield, Penny’s Hill, Fox Creek
• Piedmont – Pertaringa, Noon, Wirra Wirra, Ingoldby
• Maslin Sands – Yangarra, Kay Brothers Amery
• Alluvial Flats – Tinlins, Woodstock, Shottesbrooke, Dennis

Winery involvement
Improved access to, and sharing of, knowledge of this kind will lead to betterment of the wine of the future. No wonder then that wineries are keen to be involved.

The working party for this project included the following winery owners, winemakers and wine industry contributors: Chaired by James Hook (Lazy Ballerina and DJ Growers); Chester Osborn (d’Arenberg); Kevin Fidderman (Wirra Wirra); Michael Fragos (Chapel Hill): Charles Whish (Serafino); Corrina Wright (Olivers Taranga); Drew Noon (Noon) and Jodie Pain (McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association).

Those who are familiar with the Scarce Earth project will see the obvious links (see also Tig’s article on d’Arenberg wines and reference to their Scarce Earth involvement). This project is another McLaren Vale initiative where producers have compared wines from vineyards of one type – for example, Pirramimma sandstone, and find that there is a commonality there – particular aromas or flavours. Members of the Association were asked to submit one-year-old single vineyard shiraz with no new oak influence. A tasting panel then collated the flavour descriptors.

Local council reverses zoning as result of this map!
A huge local issue for McLaren Vale during 2010 and 2011 has been the council’s decision to change an area of land known as Seaford Heights from rural to residential, so it could then be developed for housing. This mapping has shown that this area encompasses Ancient Rocks Terrane, which is prime winegrape-growing land, and includes within it some vines growing grapes of Grange quality. Jeff Olliver wrote a geological summary about the soil and this contributed to the decision being reversed back to rural zoning.

A work in progress
I am told that no geological map is ever finalised, it keeps changing. The field geologist records information about rock types and structures and plots these on a base, which may be a topographic map or one or more aerial photographs. Today, such photographs are georeferenced so that they are spatially accurate (orthoimages).

Relating the maps back to the type of rock is where interpretation comes in. Sometimes geological boundaries are easily visible on aerial photographs, but some must be plotted from careful observations in the field. For this project, in some vineyards the geologists drove around and even walked some boundaries, and subsequently refined them.

Learn more with SARIG
If you are interested in learning more about the geology of South Australia, I invite you to visit the PIRSA site and have a play with the SARIG (South Australian Resource Information Geoserver) tool. It is an amazing tool – you can click on any category on the right-hand-side – for this exercise I chose ‘geology’. Within that, if you click on the ‘+’ you can select the range of geological features to include, and using the scale on the left-hand-side you can zoom in or out of the area. This is a tool that anyone can use and learn about the geology of this region, as well as finding other features such as earthquakes, fault lines, mines, groundwater to name a few.

Take a look for yourself!
You can get your own copy of the Geology of the McLaren Vale Wine Region from the McLaren Vale Information Centre, from a number of wineries who have it available at cellar door, or from PIRSA Customer Services, Level 7, 101 Grenfell Street, Adelaide.

Happy supping!

Tigs
@WineSupporter

Posted in South Australian wine, Wine news | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Revisiting the Indian wine market

Posted on January 7, 2012 by

In September 2010 I wrote about key features of the Indian wine market – bite-sized overview, looking at trade, production, consumption, marketing and opportunities for Australian wine producers. Such a complex market with huge potential deserves to be revisited, particularly since Australia was the largest exporter of wine by volume to India in 2010, and the second largest by value, after France.

What is special about the Indian wine market?

India’s wine market is unique for several reasons. Firstly, the nature of the potential wine-consuming population may be outlined with the following characteristics:

  • the traditional alcoholic beverages of choice are whisky, rum and beer
  • there is no national culture of wine drinking
  • a substantial share of the population do not consume alcohol due to their religious beliefs
  • domestic wine production is significant relative to consumption
  • hotels dominate wine sales

For each of these points, a soupçon of supporting data is taken from the 2011 USDA GAIN Report.(1)

There are an estimated 200 million regular drinkers of spirits and beer in India, consuming approximately 200 million cases of these beverages each year. By contrast, the number of wine drinkers is estimated at between 1 and 2 million, consuming a total of 1.3-1.4 million cases annually (equivalent to 12-13 million litres). This represents a tiny fraction of the Indian adult population.

Wine is not part of the Indian culture, with those who do drink preferring beer and spirits, and a large number of people choosing not to drink alcohol at all due to their religious beliefs. Wine is also not usually consumed with food – at events where wine is served it is more common to have wine before a meal, water with the meal, and resume drinking wine after the meal. Food and wine matching is a new concept in its very early stages of development.

Domestic wine production has grown rapidly during the last decade. There are no official statistics, but estimates from USDA report are of 13.5 million litres (1.5 million cases) in 2010, which is nearly four times the level in 2003. There were estimated to be 60 wineries in production, with another 30 having registered to produce wine. The largest wine-producing state is Maharashtra which accounted for two-thirds of the 2010 total, with the balance made up by the state of Karnataka and port production (estimated at 300,000 cases – included in the 1.5 million total) in Goa. So in theory, India could be self-sufficient in wine, with consumption at a similar level – however, India does export its wine and imports have also been growing, as discussed below.

The distribution and availability of wine in India has been determined by state and federal policy, which is expanded on in the next section. Hotels, restaurants, bars and pubs sell about 50 percent of wine to consumers, the remainder being through retail, mostly ‘wine shops’ – supermarkets are starting to be allowed to sell wine in some states.

Overview of Indian wine market regulations and costs

India’s wine trade is highly taxed at the federal and state level. In addition, the trade and marketing regulations are extremely cumbersome and complex and vary widely according to the particular destination. As a direct result of this, the availability and affordability of wine are seen as two of the key barriers to the growth of the wine-drinking culture in India.

Federal restrictions are as follows:

Prior to 2001, India’s quantitative restrictions on wine imports acted effectively as a ban, with some exceptions for the tourism industry. In April 2001, the federal government lifted the restrictions on imports of wine for general consumption. Therefore import data presented here starts from 2002, the first full year following this change.

The next major development was in 2003 when hotels and parts of the tourism industry were allowed to purchase a certain amount of wine without paying the hefty import duty. This continues to be the case in India, which explains the dominance of hotels in the sales of wine.

Pressure from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) resulted in import duties being simplified and reduced overall to 150 percent and made uniform across the country.

State restrictions vary widely. Four states prohibit the sale of alcohol (Gujarat, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland). There is a government-controlled distribution structure in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In some states there is an auction for retail licences and in others there is an open market, where private sector sales of alcohol are permitted with a retail licence. Each state imposes a range of excise tariffs, sales fees and licensing fees on wines coming in from other states and imported from overseas.

The largest wine consuming cities are Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh and Bangalore, so overseas wine suppliers wanting to sell to India might be advised to consider these areas first, and concentrate on satisfying the requirements of the relevant state.

As mentioned in the previous Tig article, with the import duty, additional state taxes, and 300 percent mark-up on hotel wine sales, wine prices to consumers can be as much as 10 to 13 times the FOB price for duty paid wine and 5 to 8 times the FOB price for duty free. The retail price of even the cheapest wines can be $20 or more per bottle making wine a drink only for the wealthiest consumers.

Indian wine imports

The Indian wine market is clearly a challenge for wine exporting countries. Australia has performed well in recent years, as shown in the table, with the highest volume in three out of four years between 2007 and 2010. By value, France has traditionally led the field, with Australia in second or third place.

Volume of Wine Exports to India (1,000 litres)

  2002 2007 2008 2009 2010
Australia 89 1,335 1,054 451 722
France 410 1,125 906 879 587
Italy 45 328 273 186 269
United States 64 558 156 135 250
Singapore 4 25 75 159 214
Chile 78 176 180 143 187
South Africa 27 516 686 54 152
Total 811 4,293 3,569 2,203 2,263

Trends and tactics

As stated in the Tig article, developments such as the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and India, pressure from WTO and Europe to reduce taxes, and state-specific changes may ultimately help to make wine more affordable and available to Indian consumers. In the shorter term, suppliers to the Indian wine market must rise to the challenges there in order to be successful. This requires understanding and working with the trends and constantly revising and reviewing tactics. Some key trends to watch are as follows.

Some states are relaxing constraints on the retail of wine, for example, Goa, Karnataka, Delhi, Maharashtra and Haryana have started to allow the sale of wine in supermarkets. Retail restrictions are expected to change across India, so this should be watched closely.

With growing domestic wine production, wine will become more available. The key wine-producing states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa are introducing measures to protect and support their own wine industry by reducing excise on wines produced within their own state, relaxing distribution and licensing regulations and providing financial incentives to produce wine.

Coupled with this increase in availability, the attitude of consumers towards wine is changing as wine becomes more familiar to them and infiltrates the culture. With a large number of Indians travelling overseas, they return to the country with an appreciation for wine. It is becoming more acceptable for women to consumer wine. It is also staring to become part of tine food culture, although it is very early days.

There are tight restrictions on the advertising of alcoholic products across India, for example, it may not be used in the advertising of major sporting events or to support branded products. Promotion of alcohol, including wine, is mostly through events such as specific wine-tasting events and entertainment events. The most obvious route for Australian wine producers to promote their wine is through food and wine fairs. Key annual shows are: Annapoorna (Mumbai); Fine Food India (replacing the International Fine Food Exhibition – New Delhi); Taste (Mumbai); Upper Crust (Bangalore, Mumbai); and IndSpirit (Mumbai).

And finally…

Relationships are key to successful trading relations with Indian importers and distributors. They will prefer suppliers who they can trust to be in the market for the medium to long-term and they prefer access also to the principals in the wine company, rather than simply representatives of the supplier.

This requires visiting the hotels, importers and other retail outlets in person, holding wine dinners and other promotional events and media in India, to create brand awareness and ultimately brand loyalty. Other countries have employed just such tactics, particularly France, which has been successful in capturing the largest share of the market by value. Furthermore, the French sponsored Indians to visit French wine regions, promoting understanding and appreciation of their wines.

Australia has made a fantastic start in India, and Australian wine has a competitive edge, with its reputation for affordable and approachable wines, fruit-forward style, clear labelling, and can-do attitude. This is an ongoing success story!

Tigs
@WineSupporter

Footnote 1: US Department of Agriculture Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report number IN1134, India, 2011. Unless otherwise stated data are for 2010.

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Fassina’s South Australian tasting – variety and character in spades

Posted on November 17, 2011 by

In their last tasting of 2011, Fassina have excelled themselves again, attracting a diverse range of wineries from across South Australia with different grape varieties (I counted 17!), climates, soils (dare I say terroir), histories and approaches. Some I knew well, some I had not tried before. I’ll give you some snippets about each winery and highlight the stars of the night – you’ll be surprised! Check out the slideshow below to sample the atmosphere and see some of the star wines and their fans!

I started with the Mayhem & Co. wines from the Adelaide Hills because I spotted the winemaker, Brendon Keys, the maker of one of my favourite chardonnays, the One Ball, made under his label BK Wines. His philosophy with the Mayhem wines is to produce single vineyard Adelaide Hills wines that are edgy and interesting and food friendly.

I loved the bone dry 2010 Old School Riesling, so fresh, citrus, dry and clean, alcohol 11.5%, with tight acid so that it will age spectacularly well. A great lipsmacking start! Then onto the Sancerre-style sauvignon blanc, also bone dry with a 10% barrel ferment to add texture. Lovely lemon sherbet nose, with a zesty lemon and lime palate and textured mouthfeel.

The 2009 Newcomer Pinot Noir was one of the night’s standouts for me, proof – I bought some! The fruit was from Balhannah, fermented with wild yeast, only 10% in French oak and 30 days on skins resulted in lots of primary brambly fruit and cherries jumping out of the glass, with rich, savoury flavours, and that wonderful earthy, mushroom character.

The 2009 Bells & Whistles Cabernet Sauvignon was the last in the line-up – and oh boy did it have that WOW factor! Airing in the decanter it was a deep dark intense colour (see the photo in the slideshow) – and the flavours were even more intense, complex and concentrated. Brendon described the style as between Napa and McLaren Vale, and definitely not a traditional Bordeaux style, but most definitely a food wine and would cellar for many years. (I didn’t need food with it – fine as it was for me!)

Onto The Islander wines from Kangaroo Island – winemaker Jacques Lurton (pictured). I found their wines elegant and flavoursome with some non-typical blends. Take for example the Bark Hut Road Cabernet/Shiraz/Viognier. This was a 65/30/5 blend, although the shiraz was co-fermented with the viognier so it could be called a 65/35. It had a generous and fresh nose of blackcurrant and a touch of vanilla with dark chocolate, the palate following through and very long.

Their flagship I found out was named after a ship! The 2005 Investigator Cabernet Franc/Sangiovese (just a small amount of sangio) was named after the HMS Investigator which in 1802 took Captain Matthew Flinders on a voyage that included the discovery of Kangaroo Island. Renowned French winemaker Jacques Lurton rediscovered KI as a great winemaking destination a couple of hundred years later! This wine is intense and savoury with dark berries and chocolate. Jacques’s philosophy? To make wines with texture and structure that go well with food. C’était magnifique!

Cape Jaffa wines from Mount Benson on the Limestone Coast, from husband and wife team Derek and Anna (pictured) were all biodynamic, all using French oak and all impressive. The 2010 semillon/sauvignon blanc (50/50 blend) was made with a French twist with some old oak, adding to the texture while retaining fresh, zingy citrus flavours. The pinot gris was a delight – a wine that can sometimes miss the mark. It had some new oak treatment in large (500 litre) barrels. The texture was wonderful – creamy and soft, with subtle flavours of honeysuckle and pear.

Their flagship was La Lune shiraz, fermented with wild yeast and a combination of new and older oak – their aim is for “oak integration not domination” says Derek. Hear hear! It had lovely soft tannins, rich flavour and great length. It was also a favourite with the other winemakers trying each other’s wines!

Cape Jaffa had the only sticky of the night – a botrytis semillon. Bursting with that typical marmalade and honey botrytis semillon character, it had amazing length and lovely long finish – and not too sweet, just perfect. My friends bought some of that and I intend to share it!

As well as a particularly enjoyable cabernet sauvignon, Kalleske from the Barossa Valley had a couple of less usual varietals – a 2011 chenin blanc and a 2010 durif. The chenin blanc had great texture and soft fruit. The durif I lingered on for a while. It is from a single vineyard, from hand-pruned, low-yielding vines and grown in “shallow, sandy loam soil over superb deep red clay, providing ideal conditions for durif”. (I copied their tasting notes!) It had 16 months in oak, mostly used American hogsheads.

The colour of the durif is the first thing you notice – solid ink black. The nose was deep and rich with licorice, with very very dark berries and plum. The palate was just as rich and intense with the dark fruit characters and dark chocolate and big velvety palate, rounded off with drying tannins. This is a wine that must be tried by any wine enthusiast!

Bremerton wines I am familiar with, having been to their cellar door in Langhorne Creek several times. They have a number of outstanding wines and at very competitive prices. They didn’t bring their reserve cabernet sauvignon which I love – and have some at home. They did bring the Old Adam Shiraz though, a flagship of theirs and never disappoints. Rich flavour, great texture, a classy wine. The Coulthard cabernet sauvignon is also excellent, a worthy little brother of the reserve. Their white standout for me was the verdelho, fresh and lively, a perfect summer wine.

The Wilson Vineyard from the Clare Valley had a fantastic – surprise surprise – Polish River riesling – proof – I bought some of that too. It was made with cold whole bunch pressing which helps to lock in flavour and aroma. The wine is wonderful, great varietal aromatics, with a zingy fruit-driven palate, nice and dry, with a soft mouthfeel, and fresh clean fruit. I loved it.

The Coonawarra was represented by the Flint family (pictured), presenting three reds – a shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and merlot – the only merlot of the night. It was a little corker! They reeled off a number of medals it had won, including a gold in class at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show and a runner-up in the 2007 Jimmy Watson Trophy. The reds all had some nice age on them, the merlot and shiraz both being 2007s and the cab a 2008. Great ambassadors for Coonawarra reds.

Thank you to Fassina for yet another fabulous winetasting with interesting bite-sized presentations from each winery represented. Enjoy the slideshow and come along to the next event!

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Posted in Barossa wine, Cabernet sauvignon, Chardonnay, Langhorne Creek wine, McLaren Vale wine, Pinot noir, South Australian wine, Syrah/Shiraz, Wine events, Wine varietals and blends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Making good pinot is like reaching for the stars!

Posted on October 18, 2011 by

Brian Schmidt

This interview is one that I will remember forever – talking to Australia’s 2011 Nobel physics prize winner about his passion for making pinot noir. Professor Brian Schmidt is not only highly accomplished and respected in his field of astronomy but he also has many qualities that I admire – pragmatism, tenacity, energy, enthusiasm, and enquiring mind and a healthy level of humility. As his friend Tim Kirk, the Clonakilla winemaker states:

“Brian is a genius scientist. It means he’s got an inquiring mind, but he hasn’t got a closed mind.” (‘Restless Experimenter’, Canberra Times, 6 April 2011)

He is also a self-professed perfectionist – making his experiences with the notoriously fickle pinot noir grape an interesting juxtaposition – interesting to all concerned – as Brian says, “The Swedish academy asked me about 2011 vintage when they told me about my Nobel prize – that kinda floored me!”

This article focuses on Brian’s wine and his love for pinot. For anyone who wants to know more about his scientific achievements and theories, there are endless articles available. In layman’s terms, the Nobel prize was to recognise his findings that in the last 6 billion years since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, the universe has been accelerating in its expansion. In his words,

“Space is made up of more than three dimensions, it’s made up of at least four. And that fourth dimension is related to time, so when I say the universe is expanding, it’s really expanding into the future. That’s what’s so difficult for people to get their head around, including myself.” (‘Restless Experimenter’, Canberra Times, 6 April 2011)

Not only that but the pace of expansion is accelerating, with galaxies “racing away from each other at ever-increasing speeds”.

I have enough difficulty getting my head around wine! Deep breath – pinot time…

A suitable wine with which to celebrate!
I asked Brian – which wine does a Nobel prize winner celebrate this milestone with?

“I went into the cellar and I pulled out a 1990 Château Montrose, Bordeaux. Why did I choose that – well it was the first wine I bought back in graduate school.”

It was also the first expensive wine he ever purchased, something all of us wine lovers would remember. Clearly his interest in wine has always been there. I was interested to see that the 1970 Château Montrose, from the Médoc region, placed third out of the 10 French and Californian red wines at the infamous 1976 Judgment of Paris wine competition (as featured in the movie ‘Bottleshock’).

Cosmic Pinot!
With the Twitter name @cosmicpinot (bit of a clue there…), clearly Brain’s passion leans towards pinot noir, an intriguing, fickle and ultimately rewarding variety that can never be totally conquered. He says:

“I know I’ll never conquer it, there is no way to conquer pinot. Even the best pinots I’ve had in Australia – I’ll have a great one and the next year it’s like ‘ah it’s OK.’”

Canberra’s winemaking fraternity
I asked – where did you learn your winemaking skills? “I mainly learned on the fly. I did a vintage in 2001 at Lark Hill” – Lark Hill are pinot noir specialists, and Brian worked with David Carpenter, who has a PhD in physics.

“We’re a very academic group here in Canberra, plenty of winemakers here have PhDs.”

Brian chose the hands-on approach to learning the winemaking skills, and applied his methodical and thorough mind to reading a lot of books on the subject. Being a scientist is a seriously solid basis for any winemaker. It was more the specifics he needed to pick up, and this he learned by doing.

“I have certainly made my fair share of mistakes”… “Yes, pinot noir is the perfect wine for people who are not afraid of failing”

She’ll be right!
In true Aussie style, this pinot fan’s own wine label has the name Maipenrai – Thai for ‘she’ll be right’, the name given to their property by the previous owners. What a great (and somewhat ironic) name for a pinot label!

I want to know what this wine is like:

“Canberra is a continental cool climate. It has the full spectrum of flavours depending on the year.” Describing the Maipenrai wines: “2008 aromatic briary; 2009 very rich, quite a bit of structure; 2010 between the 2008 and 2009; 2011 very light and fruity.

“Unlike most wine regions in the rest of Australia we are not affected by maritime, we are cool and inland. In that sense we are not dissimilar to Burgundy. Every vintage in Burgundy is a little different to every other one and we are in the same boat. That’s kind of interesting but also challenging.”

Brian does not fine or filter his wine and relies entirely on natural yeasts. He and his family undertake every stage of the winemaking themselves, although he gets a team in to help with pruning, as he just doesn’t get the time to do this around his day job.

The Maipenrai style? He describes the Maipenrai pinot as having fruit flavours of cherry and plum, with complex savoury characters, such as briary and forest floor.

“I’m trying to make pinot noir with a bit of substance, not just primary fruit, some interest in terms of savouriness, complex gaminess, not just strawberries and intense fruit.”

Would you consider growing whites?
“Riesling is very popular in the area and we seem to have a lot of success here with riesling. In my case I am a full-time astronomer and so I wanted to concentrate on one thing and I wanted to do it as best I could and I personally find the red winemaking more interesting and challenging, whereas most types of white winemaking is pretty clinical, relatively speaking.

“As in Burgundy where you don’t usually find the little Burgundy guys doing a red and a white, they usually focus on a red or white.”

In my research I saw that the Maipenrai pinot had sold out this year “We were down to our last few cases before the announcement of Maipenrai’s Brian Schmidt winning the Nobel Prize, and what remained has literally gone in 60 seconds.” (Source: www.maipenrai.com.au/)

So where can a pinotphile like myself find a bottle?
“I sell to local restaurants, I have exported it in the past to the US, but with the US dollar where it is and quite frankly when you are my size, the costs of exporting it are huge and it doesn’t make it worthwhile. So mostly local restaurants and mail orders.

“I have a Burgundy-sized operation, I make 250 cases a year, so it is pretty scarce. I like that though because one part of the winemaking that I misjudged – I understand the time it takes to grow grapes, make wine, but marketing is the part I grossly under-estimated.

Just like the wine itself, wine marketing is a moving feast anyway isn’t it?

“Yes! It’s a challenge – but I have done pretty well in the past year and a bit and the wine has gotten good reviews so even before the Nobel prize we managed to more or less sell out on its own so that was great.”

Reviews have been published in the magazine Winewise; by Canberra Times wine reviewer Chris Shanahan; and by wine critics James Halliday and Nick Stock.

Brian’s pinot picks
What would be your picks of Australian pinot?

“Like anything it varies a lot, it’s a movable feast. I’ve had great bottles of pinot from a variety of places. If I had to pick a single wine that’s really knocked my socks off, I’d pick 2006 Curly Flat pinot from the Macedon Ranges. It’s a wine that has structure. I really like that style, it is the style I am trying to do here and their climate there is not dissimilar, it’s more continental. That’s what I’m after. There’s a lot of people who love the Mornington Peninsula style and there are some there that I am quite fond of but they have less structure and I prefer the more continental type that’s where I live and I guess that would be my favourites.”

What do you think of the New Zealand pinots?
“Some of them I’ve had I am very fond of – the right Felton Roads are magnificent. Having been to that area, Central Otago, it is not dissimilar in climate to what we have here in Canberra. It is continental, it’s cool, their soils are a lot more fertile than here , the basic ideas of what they are trying to do are similar. I do like some of the Central Otago ones, they really are my style, as long as they are not too rhubarby.

“At Gibbston Valley I know the winemaker, Grant Taylor, who now makes Valli, they make some good ones. The actual Gibbston Valley is very cool so I find those less ripe. Those down in Bannockburn are very ripe – I would say Bannockburn is a warmer grape-growing region then we are, plus they have this very fertile soil, so it makes a very nice compelling wine and I do like the best examples of these.

“I like a Burgundy style. The Burgundies have structure and finesse. Pure fruit is good, but you need the structure. You wouldn’t be drinking a 2010 Burgundy right now but you wouldn’t think twice about drinking a 2010 Martinborough or 2010 Mornington Peninsula.”

Brian has visited the region and knows the intricacies of the style and the French traditions and approaches to making good Burgundy – the style he most covets.

@cosmicpinot is also a foodie!
Brian spent the first part of his childhood in remote mountain country in Montana, and from age 13 lived in Anchorage, Alaska, before doing his PhD at Harvard where he met his Australian wife, and moved to Australia in 1994. He grew up with hunting being part of the way of life – elk in Montana and duck and geese in Alaska. Wild duck was often on the menu after a cold, wet day of hunting, and is interestingly now his number one food match for his top Maipenrai drop.

He learned to cook from the ripe old age of six and has been keen to master some tricky dishes ever since – including croissants, mozzarella and prosciutto. He has his own Beech pizza oven and Rancilio de Silvia coffee machine and has even planted 30 trees to establish his own truffière, to grow truffles for his own consumption.

How on earth do you grow truffles I asked…

“You can purchase truffle-inoculated trees where the people who grow the trees get the truffle fungus growing on the roots of the tree. When you plant it getting the pH right is the most important bit – it has to be up over 8 in your soil and that’s a bit of a challenge here. In time you get them. Canberra has shown itself to be a really good place to grow truffles of high quality and high quantities.”

The obvious final question
So Brian, do you think you will ever conquer pinot or is that half the fun?

“No I know I’ll never conquer it, there is no way to conquer pinot.

“I live in a challenging climate. The climate is probably changing. I may eventually have to move to a warmer variety I don’t know. At this point I don’t want to. It’s too cold for example for shiraz here still. So no you can never conquer pinot and it’s always a challenge. I want to make sure I keep on doing as good as I can and that’s the thrill of it, I know I’ll never get it perfect but I can try to do as good as I can and I like that.”

And so do we!

Thanks so much to Brian for such an enlightening and invigorating chat about a shared love – the mighty pinot noir.

Tigs (@WineSupporter)

References:
Wine review by Chris Shanahan — ‘Lark Hill, Maipenrai Amungula Creek, Balnaves, Majella and Peter Lehmann’, posted on 17 August 2011.
Canberra Times, ‘Restless Experimenter’, 6 April 2011, by Kirsten Lawson.

Posted in New World wine, Pinot noir, Wine news, Wine2030 | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Meet the Australian flying Swedish-Italian winemaker in the hills!

Posted on October 6, 2011 by

On a clear sunny spring day I drove up into the Adelaide Hills to interview a very interesting man I had met a couple of weeks earlier at an artisan winemaker tasting in McLaren Vale, where he was presenting his Ochota Barrels grenache and syrah – premium boutique wines. This man is Taras Ochota and his story was so interesting I had to share!

Taras in mid-flow!

Taras is a friendly, relaxed, open Aussie winemaker of Ukrainian descent. But he is much more than that too – he has worked as a winemaker in diverse regions around the globe, in terms of culture, climate, language, grape variety and working conditions. I sat through the interview with my mouth open and eyebrows raised, wondering how one man could fit so much into his not-so-many years!

What had caught my attention was the reference to being a winemaker in Sweden – not the most obvious country in which to make wine. I had to know the background and to understand more about the Swedish wine market.

How did it all start?
Taras has always had an interest in wine and his first job after completing a business degree was working in vineyards, eventually becoming a vineyard manager in the Adelaide Hills. He studied wine science by distance learning at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga and then completed a postgraduate oenology degree at the University of Adelaide. He also worked as a cellar hand in wineries in South Australia and California for several years, travelling back and forth doing vintages in each hemisphere.

His winemaker break came when he got the assistant winemaker role at Two Hands Wines in the Barossa Valley, where he stayed for about three years. Then by chance Taras saw an advertisement in The Australian for a ‘world winemaker’ who was ‘young’, ‘dynamic’, and who would ‘make wines from all over the world and based in Northern Europe’. Intriguing and mysterious, he applied. The interviews were in Adelaide for two positions – winemaker and chief winemaker. The chief winemaker role went to Scott Rawlinson who was the Serafino winemaker at that time and had won the Bushing King title in 2007. Great wines, I have some in my cellar! Taras got the winemaker role and the Aussie team was set!

Why Aussies? The company owner had a belief that Australian winemakers have the technical knowhow, the can-do attitude and the flexibility to experiment and try new things, and make the styles that he wanted.

Arriving in Sweden
Taras, Scott and their wives arrived in Stockholm in May 2008. They were working for the large Swedish wine-importing company Oenoforos. As part of this role they had to assess wines from all over the world – Europe, South Africa, Australia, etc. – to see which wines to import. They travelled to many wineries and gave them protocols of what wine they wanted, and how they wanted it made. They were involved in vineyard selection right through to making the style of wine to their specifications .

Scott’s main role was to set up the facility in southern Sweden – the Nordic Sea Winery – to process the wine and to take on more of the winemaking processes – the company’s owner wanted to bring as many of the processes to Sweden as possible. He wanted more control, so that the quality could be maximised, prices kept down for the Swedish consumers, and more of the value added happening within the country. Scott was in charge of sourcing and setting up equipment for bottling, packaging, making and storing wine at the facility.

Wines were sent from the originating country in various ways, mostly in tankers driven across country (taking around three to five days from France, Spain and Italy), or if there was no rush, by sea in flexitank which was effectively a 24,000 litre bag-in-box in a shipping container (taking about four weeks).

The company selected the minimum processes that the satellite country would do. The facility in Sweden would then finish and bottle the wine. In general, the reds would have gone through malolactic fermentation in the satellite winery and sent in bulk to Sweden. White wines had usually just finished fermentation so they did the cold stabilisation in Sweden and the satellite country would have already done the protein stabilisation. Some wine was also imported finished and simply bottled in Sweden, such as that from Australia.

As well as the quality control and selection of imported wines in Sweden, Taras had a flying winemaker role, visiting wineries and vineyards in Italy to have the wine made for the company. As an example, one of his jobs was to spend time in a seaside village in southern Italy, where he was involved in the modification of a run-down cantina (winery). The idea was to make Italian wines in the more ‘New World’ fruit forward way, suiting the Scandinavian market. He would regularly travel from his home base in southern Sweden on the Baltic Sea by train to Copenhagen, then fly to different parts of Italy to check or source wine for the company’s many products.

Taras and Amber

Taras concentrated mostly on the regions of Puglia, Sicily and Abruzzo, with varieties such as primitivo, negroamaro, nero d’avola, montepulciano and sangiovese (reds), and cattaratto, fiano and grecanico (whites). He was the only Australian in these Italian towns he stayed in and soon picked up the language (with the help of pictures and often animated actions), while his wife worked for the Nordic Sea Winery and picked up Swedish! Amber also spent considerable time in Italy working for the company in laboratory and cellar hand roles. They were also joined by select Australian cellarhands who were flown over to help with the vintage period.

The Swedish wine retail system
In Sweden, all liquor sales (except with less than 3.5% alcohol) are through the government monopoly distributor Systembolaget, which literally means the ‘system company’. It is government owned and run. Alcoholic beverages may not be sold to anyone aged under 20 and opening hours are strictly adhered to – generally Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm and Saturday 10am to 2pm. Nothing is refrigerated as no product may be seen to be favoured – if one thing was refrigerated, then everything should be available as such (as appropriate). There are no discounts or deals. The retail monopoly of Sweden is accepted by the EU. (There is also a retail monopoly in Finland, Norway and Iceland.) With a population of 9 million, this makes Systembolaget one of the world’s largest buyers of wine and spirits.

The on-trade market is not controlled by Systembolaget, so any licensed importer can sell to restaurants. In the on-trade market, sales of beer dominate.

According to the Oenoforos website, in 2005 Systembolaget sold 143 million litres of wine in 2005. It also states that Sweden was an early adopter of Australian wine back in the late 1980s – well spotted Systembolaget!

The Swedish wine consumer
Some statistics on the Swedish wine market are shown in the table below for your interest, sourced from the Global Wine Markets statistical compendium produced by Kym Anderson at the University of Adelaide, with a little help from yours truly. The first number is for 2009 and the number in brackets is for 2000 to give an idea of the direction that consumption went in the last decade.

Country

Wine consumption per capita (litres)

Beer consumption per capita (litres)

Spirits consumption per capita (litres of alcohol)
Sweden

21.21 (14.07)

51.29 (62.72)

0.94 (1.00)
France

39.39 (58.10)

30.05 (36.20)

2.47 (2.41)
Germany

26.33 (22.36)

107.13 (129.20)

2.29 (2.17)
Italy

43.45 (46.63)

28.69 (31.23)

1.01 (0.50)
UK

22.19 (15.46)

80.95 (105.88)

2.05 (1.57)
US

8.66 (7.65)

80.10 (80.54)

2.09 (1.93)
Australia

23.48 (19.50)

88.10 (89.36)

1.14 (1.64)

It is interesting to note that Sweden’s wine consumption has been rising in a similar fashion to the UK and Australia, and is at similar levels, at 21.21 litres per capita in 2009. Meanwhile consumption has fallen sharply in France, albeit to a level still nearly double that of the other countries shown – besides Italy – France and Italy are clearly wine-based cultures as opposed to beer. Sweden’s consumption of beer and spirits is low compared to the countries shown. Beer features most strongly for Germany, followed by Australia, UK and US. Beer consumption has notably fallen in Sweden, the UK and Germany in favour of wine.

With 9 million people and a per capita consumption of 21.21 litres that’s a lot of wine! Sweden produces a tiny amount of wine but basically imports all (99%) of the wine consumed. Oenoforos is onto something!

Furthermore, Oenoforos is operating in a highly taxed environment, so it has a challenge to provide wine to Swedish consumers at competitive prices. Alcohol products in Sweden are taxed on alcohol content not on price. Examples of wine excise rates provided in Global Wine Markets are for a bottle of commercial premium wine (A$7.50 per litre) being taxed at 50%, super premium wine (A$20 per litre) at 19%, and at the non-premium end of the scale (A$2.50 per litre), wine taxes are a whopping 151% (2008 figures).

Wines available through Oenoforos
I had a look at the Oenoforos website and saw that they are importers of a huge range of wines in terms of grape variety and originating country. They say that their whites are dominated by South Africa and reds from Spain. Also significant are Italy, Australia, France, Chile, US, Germany, Hungary, Portugal and Argentina. Here are some examples I found as I scouted around the site:

French syrah, cabernet sauvignon, viognier and chardonnay; New Zealand gewürztraminer, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, pinot gris and riesling; Italian chardonnay, primitivo, sangiovese, canaiolo, merlot, nebbiolo and grecanico; Spanish grenache, tempranillo, bobal, airen and macabeo; Greek moscofilero and cabernet sauvignon; South African chenin blanc, merlot and cabernet sauvignon; German riesling, pinot noir and scheurebe; and yes – Australian shiraz!

Cheers in Sweden!
Cheers in Swedish is skål, as most people would know. The word means bowl and comes from the sharing of a drinking vessel around the table. You can say skål to congratulate someone, wish them well, welcome them, or to celebrate something like a birthday or wedding, just like cheers. Importantly, you look into the eyes of all of the people you are toasting to, one at a time and after drinking you look into their eyes again and then put down your glass. I was taught that this was the tradition with ‘cheers’ too and am quietly disappointed when people look away or do not drink after saying cheers. Follow through I say and do it properly! So skål to my readers!

Skål to Taras

Taras enjoying Swedish fare!

Finally, skål to Taras for a peak into a very exciting life. He is a fabulous advertisement for Australian winemaking – both skills and attitude. He is also a great reflection of the high standard of Australian winemaking education including the University of Adelaide. The Wine2030 network loves to share this kind of success story.

We are lucky here in South Australia to be keeping Taras around for now as he has the position as the contract winemaker for Revenir Winemaking Pty Ltd (the former Nepenthe winery in Lenswood) and continues to produce his highly regarded premium Ochota Barrels wines.

Tigs @WineSupporter

Posted in Barossa wine, Chardonnay, McLaren Vale wine, New World wine, Old World Wine, South Australian wine, Wine events, Wine news, Wine varietals and blends, Wine2030, Winemaking, wine appreciation and viticulture courses | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

#CabernetDay – the Adelaide contingent plays its part!

Posted on September 2, 2011 by

Wine and social media – that pairing again! Those following my blog will have read about #ChardonnayDay on 26 May 2011 – well 1 September was the second year for cabernet to take the stand. Rick Bakas, the wine and social media guru from California who toured Australia in April this year, was the brains behind this idea of themed wine days, combining those two elements – wine and social media.

In Adelaide, the Qwoff Boys – Justin and Andre – have taken up the baton and run fabulous events for wine drinkers and tweeters – not only do you get to try some excellent wines – and lots of ‘em – but the networking is incredible – online and face to face. There is also the conversation before and after the event online.

At this event the same was true for cabernet – this included cabernet franc, not only sauvignon so there were a few francs there, such as an elegant number from Howard Vineyard in the Adelaide Hills. I wouldn’t like to guess how many wineries had contributed wine for the event but safe to say you couldn’t realistically try every single one. I tried very hard though you’ll be relieved to know! There are some photos in a slideshow below showing the wines that I loved and some of the great people I chatted to at the event. The atmosphere oozes from the pics!

The GWA app
With this event, the Qwoff Boys had stepped up a whole new level in their use and inclusiveness of social media. As well as the #cabernetday Twitter reference to follow the conversations around the world, prior to the Qwoff event we were asked to sign up to the new initiative – the Great Wine Adventure – and put the app on our phones and link this through to Twitter (@GreatWineAdv on Twitter). At the venue there was a screen on the wall showing these tweets – which show up on Twitter but are in a single stream on the GWA website too. The app was excellent and easy to use with a tincy wincy bit of help from Justin, Andre and Jason, their web wizard. The app asks (i) where you are – at a winery, restaurant, wine bar or pub, at home or somewhere else; (ii) what you are drinking – it lists the wineries taking part in the event so you don’t even have to type it in, just select from the list; (iii) you have the option to attach a photo or video and write something about the wine, and then just hit the ‘Check In’ button.

Why do this?
Lots of reasons and feel free to tell me more – blogs can always be added to! As with many people I am constantly learning about these media and their benefits – because the benefits often surprise me in their nature and reach!

Well the app links the check-ins through to the wineries who then see who is saying what about their wines – Jim Barry answered me thanking me for my comments and retweeted it. Retweeting is gold as all tweeters will know!

I noticed with several of my check-ins (I did about eight or so I think, through the evening…) I earned a reward, such as a free tasting of a wine – for example the d’Arenberg check-in rewarded me with a free tasting of the 2002 Custodian Grenache. This encourages people to go to that cellar door to claim their freebies and helps cement that winery in that customer’s mind, and hey presto you have the all-important ‘attention’ that Rick Bakas tells us that social media is all about, in our busy, media swamped lives.

Of course, it helps the wineries themselves see what people think about their wine, where it is being consumed – geographically and venue type – and which wines are getting the most accolade, etc.

The tweets for me personally are a great record of what I tried and what I thought of them. I only checked in with the wines I really liked, although in fairness I struggled to dislike any at this tasting – well done Australia for some most excellent examples of cabernet!

I had many leads from the #chardonnay day event at Qwoff HQ, where I stayed for hours, trying a whole range of styles of chardonnay from all over Australia and New Zealand and tweeted and subsequently blogged about it. I have ongoing Twitter relationships with many of these people, it has added to my number of followers on Twitter and readership of my blogs (so it widens my online reach and networking), and I have subsequently met these people again at these kinds of events and even at cellar doors. My circle of contacts has been greatly widened by Twitter, not just online but also face to face.

Of course I learned about the wines too – more exposure to your area of interest widens your knowledge. More exposure shows people that you are serious about what you do, enough to take part in events and have your say. While fun, these events are extremely educational, that has to be a central theme, but the most fun kind of learning!

The networking though is infinitely valuable. How else could I meet so many people with interests and expertise in areas relevant to me without attending a conference every month designed for my own purposes! This is like conference networking with the face-to-face element and involving a whole range of people who aren’t physically there. They may be at other events around Australia or around the world or sat at their home or restaurant or pub tasting a cabernet and taking part in the global conversation. You get the idea!

Thanks Qwoffers!
A massive thank you again to the Qwoff Boys, driving the Adelaide contingent in these themed wine days and opening up more avenues to learn about wines, wine events, share our wine thoughts through their apps, websites, Facebook pages, events, and engage in some networking – be it for work reasons, fun, or realistically a combination of the two. I love my work!!

Sit back and enjoy the slideshow – some of the wines we loved are pictured. Thanks also for the great wines from d’Arenberg, Zema Estate, Saltram, Kilikanoon, BK Wines, Plantagenet, Brash Higgins, Jim Barry, Voyager Estate, Penfolds, Raidis Estate, Chain of Ponds, Wirra Wirra, Haselgrove, Serafino and more.

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Tigs
@WineSupporter

Posted in Barossa wine, Cabernet sauvignon, Langhorne Creek wine, McLaren Vale wine, New World wine, South Australian wine, Wine events, Wine news, Wine varietals and blends, Wine2030 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments