BREXIT Fail

[Bruce Tuncks]

When I lived in Alice Springs, the abos drank sherry from flagons.  Then when flagons were banned, they started drinking " coolie casks" which was "Coolibah " white wine. They sure homed in on the cheapest alcohol.

I agreed with the change....  would you prefer being hit with a half-full flagon or a half-full cask?

I have a photo somewhere of a metre-high pyramid of empty sherry flagons in the  dry Todd river.

[Jerry_Atrick]

7 hours ago, facthunter said:

Wines exported from here are exempt from the local VAT and are sold at below what we pay here to maintain the Market. American Oak was always too strong and French oak costs a monty.. The strong oak thing is pretty much over and was more a traditional thing than a selling taste thing. Its usually only added by Using "staves' not casks and are sometimes toasted.. Grenache is rare here but always had a good following in the  UK.  It's a very "soft' red and doesn't need to be cellared long . It's a good blend with Shiraz which will always be a more complex and satisfying red than Cabernet which I almost never buy  It's often grown in too hot areas for the deep colour.. One of the "must haves" of good quality is to have evenness of ripening which requires BALANCE of foliage to fruit quantity and light getting into the whole vine. Green berries or any mildew taint the taste of the whole  product.. The vines do NOT have to be old either. That's a MYTH. High output per acre is usually at the expense of quality. Vinyard soils don't need to be too fertile, just managed with trace elements (zinc) and water/nitrogen etc managed well and worms in the soil. makes nutrients more available to the plant. Nev.

I can see you've been in the game, too 😉 Actually, I recall you had a vineyard out Sunbury/Mt Macedon way?

 

Yes, the Aussies are good at selling to the rest of the world cheaper than their own market. Makes you wonder why they pursue other markets, except for volume. When Unwins here were selling Grange at £100/bottle ('96 vintage), Dan Murphys was selling it for about $400/bottle at the same time. Wholesale prices in Aus are better for the local market that the European and US market. I have no idea on the Chinese market.

 

I quite like a heavy wooded Chardonnay; done right and rested, they have a character of their own. The buttery toasty, and vanilla dimensions that they wouild bring brought out the complexity of the wine. Staves are like putting fermented grape syrup into water and calling it wine - at least the ones I have tasted that used them  And that is  another reason I think that wooded wines have gone on the nose, because it all tended to taste artificial and fixed.

 

Your comment on density of the plantation is spot on. I don' like Napa and Southern Californian wines. When you go there, you see how much they have planted, no amount of fertiliser will give all the plants the nutrients they need. The result is a poor grape and ultimate, very average wines.

 

For me, price is not important; it is the taste, body, etc. We cracked an expensive (c. £40) bottle of Barolo last night. Was no better than Wolfie; and yes, we let it breathe, but it was still very average. I quite liked Tyrrels Long Flat White; for a bottom dweller, that was an exceptionally quaffable white. Friends in Aus used to mock me for it.. I didn't care.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon you have a better palate than i do Jerry. I can't tell the difference where many can see it. The son of a friend was even better...  he tasted some wine and said " bacterial contamination from the barrel, and I had not noticed anything. He is a top winemaker, and I am only a cheap drinker.

[pmccarthy]

I took delivery of two dozen this morning. All god Ozzie reds. Where I live in central Victoria we have the best Shiraz anywhere, and now lots of other varietals to make it interesting.

[Jerry_Atrick]

9 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I reckon you have a better palate than i do Jerry.

I doubt it.. Pardon the pun, but my talents with the palate are at the bottom of the barrell. As an example, back in the late '90s, I was working in the Czech Republic (now Chechya). I was befriended my one of the locals because I didn't hold back trying the local cuisine and drink.. On a trip there I bought him a bottle of Rousemount Estate Cab Sav, red label. I like it because, well, I like the taste, body, acidity, etc. I got an email from him after I returned to London about how he is a beer drinker and not a wine drinker, but he quite liked it, describing hints of stuff I had never eaten before (like Gooseberries.. who eats the berries of a goose??), and things that I have had the pleasure of tasting.. such as nuitmeg. I could never discern that crap more than what was really obvious and punches one in the face. Like those old wooded chardies...

 

I worked for a dot com premium wine startup for a while. I don't know why, but as the IT guy, I still had to particiapte in the wine education thing, where a master of wine (one of about 130 in the world at the time) would bring in a sample of wines and educate us, I think once/month. Oh, those ex Sotheby's and other fancy wine sellers were swirling the wine, smelling it so hard, there was almost an inverted virga heading up to their nostrils.  The master of wine presented a colour wheel that just provided the differnt types of smells and then around the "class" she went asking us what we could smell. I am amazed at how wines can evoke the senses into thinking there are many smells from which grapes would really struggle to provide in their normal form. Pepper, herbs and spices of all types, small berries, and the like. And as we went around the room, one-by-one, eacher pupil would, with facial expressions as serious as the negotiators trying to get peace in the Ukraine, would swirl their wine,  proclaim what they thought they could smell and label it on the colour wheel.

 

When it came to my turn, I mimmickeed the gesticulations and facial expressions of those ahead of me. I think I may have tirned that virga into upside down red-wine rain (it was Burgundy on this occasion). Try as I might, I could not quite smell any of the cocophony of smells of the others. I looked up and proclaimed I coudl smell fermented pinot nior (actuall, fam) grapes, and there was no category for that on the colour wheel. I was barred from any more sessions.

[Bruce Tuncks]

In a previous life, I actually was at wine tastings where I was the only one who could say something silly and still have a career left.

These tastings were run by winemakers who were actually sizing up the senior students, and of course the students knew this.

What really impressed me was the difference between taste as the fermentation proceeded, and how the experts could tell that it was going to be consistent at the end.

Not that I ever let on. Like you Jerry, I pretended to be wiser than I was.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I have had a couple of pretend moments that came off. First, I was a mid-20 year old yuppie - just and my then fiancée and a friend who I worked with  decided to go to a winemakers dinner advertised in the Epicurean lift out of the age. We were on the tram (64, I think) heading towards a French restaurant in Hawthorn (our footy team's spiritual home, of course).

 

On the way there it suddenly struck me.. "Er, y'know.. most of the people there are going to be in their 50s and above... ". There was a few seconds silence as we pondered how we didn’t think it through before booking. "No matter" I said. "When we get to the restaurant, we’ll find a table for 4 and just enjoy the night.

 

Well, you can imagine our heart sinking was we walked through the door to all the tables arranged as one long mess dining table - but better dressed. The, I recognised a older project manager from work who I got on very well. I motioned my acquaintances to move like crazy, but of course, I was quicker and reserved the only seat available next to this project manager.

 

He greeted all of us warmly, but my acquaintances were rather angry at me for being so selfish and getting the spot next to this project manager. Anyway, the night wore on, and we learned an important lesson. People over 50 are fun and have a well honed sense of humour.. and I personally learned a lot that night.

 

My moment of being a great pretender.. It was something like a 6 course degustation menu, with two winemakers showcasing their wines. It was a fab evening in the end. For some fish course, one of the winemakers, apparently more daring that the other, decided  a pinot noir was a good combination with whatever fish was served.

 

The project manager leaned to me and in almost a whisper – “I have heard that pinots are acceptable with fish these days – what do you think?” Bearing in mind, that I had only started drinking (except for about 5 VBs I had in year 12), and I had no idea, I decided to nod authoritatively. I didn’t even know the colours of the wine should more or less match the colours of the flesh being eaten.. and I may well have popped a Shiraz in the fridge at the time.

 

Anyway, he seemed content that someone so knowledgeable agreed. So I left it at that. When the fish came and the wine was poured, I naturally sampled this new revelation of a pinot and quickly screwed up my face; it was like drinking vinegar mixed with lemon juice. I pushed the glass away, and my perceptive PM saw it and asked if the wine was bad, in a rather loud voice.

 

Well, that questioned garnered the curiosity of a few others around the table. I didn’t want to be seen as a philistine by all these people, so I thought quickly of what I heard from someone tasting at the other Murphy’s retailer (can’t remember, but he is the son of Dan Murphy).

 

“It’s OK; it’s just a bit young for me.” I said, not knowing exactly what it meant. “Oh” said the PM. “Let’s grab the tasting notes and see what they have to say about it”  pointing to a little booklet this muggins hadn’t noticed had been placed next to every setting on the dining table.

 

I was mortified that I would be exposed for the ignoramus I am, but he read out the notes that “this is a little young at the moment, but after laying for x years,  should bloom into a … “ and I can’t remember the rest, or how many years it needed, but 5 is what I think it is. A wave of relief engulfed me, but suddenly, I was the independent authority on all things wine for the rest of the evening, despite there being two wine journos; one from The Age and one other publication.

 

The next great pretender moment was about, 10 years ago in East Sheen, which is the suburb next to Richmond, where I have so far lived most of my life in the UK (couple more years, and the south west of England will take over).

 

A small independent wine shop opened by a young entrepreneur was struggling and I offered advice of a wine-makers dinner. Well, getting the winemakers was hard, so he had the distributors instead. At the end of the evening, we formed into teams for some trivia. I can’t even remember the question, but it was about fermentation techniques in winemaking.

 

Everyone was stumped on our table. I leaned towards the centre of the table and whispered quietly so I couldn’t be head from other tables and authoritatively so they would at least submit an answer: “Secondary malolactic fermentation”, which I got from my favourite movie:

 

 

You guessed it; it was the right answer.. and won the table a bottle of plonk each. Even though I had been a 1/8^th shareholder of a Mornington Peninsula vineyard (we didn’t make wines, though), I had no idea what it was and decided to finally look it up.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

3 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

and there was no category for that on the colour wheel. I was barred from any more sessions.

Well my darling wife can top that. At a tasting, a somewhat astringent wine elicited a description previously unheard in elite wine tasting circles......

"Well, that's a phlegm puller!"

[facthunter]

Tastes like camels Piss I've heard.  I reply You MUST have more experience than I do in that regard.. Jerry, My vineyard was just West of Lake Boga at a place called Tresco between Mystic Park and Swan Hill..I got nationally accepted viticulture qualifications at Mildura TAFE. That's winegrape growing not winemaking but I knew many of the good winemakers in SA and VIC.  Nev

[Old Koreelah]

My short foray into the wine industry was an eye-opener. We had an infestation of foul-smelling little triangle-shaped beetles just as the grapes were ripening. They all went into the crusher- and some of those wines won medals!

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

[nomadpete]

7 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

I think you might be misquoting there.....

In this case, Isn't beauty all in the eye of the beer (or wine) holder?

 

 

[facthunter]

They all look prettier through the bottom of a beer glass. Beware..  Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

I think that was the message I was subliminally making.. Keep up, chaps!

[Jerry_Atrick]

This isn't worth starting a new thread, and the national election for the UK is still about 14 months away. We hold our elections on a Thursday, and there were two by elections just completed; Tamworth and Mid-Bedforshire. MidBefordshire was held be Nadine Dorris, who I would describe as the UK's cross between Lauren Boebert and Majorie Taylor Greene. A Boris sycophant of the highest proportions, she basically hasn't been seen in parliament since BJ was overthrown; and then when BJ's nomination for her peerage was knocked back, she said she was resigning.. but never did until the press, including the Terrorgraph, piled in on her.

 

Chris Pinscher resigned as a disgraced MP from Tamworth over multiple sexual accusations of which BJ is alleged to have attempted to cover up. I was listenting to an interview of another Tory MP who remarkedhe was known as "Pinscher by name and pincher by nature". Apparently, it is alleged, he had a penchant to grope younger male people in the parliament, especially after attending any of the subsidised bars.

 

Anyway, these were safe Tory seats and they fell with an over 20% (I think mid-Bedfordshire went close to 30%) swing to Labour. It was expected the Liberal Democrats (sort of what the Australian Democrats were) would get up in both. Note, voter turnout was 44% in Mid-Bedfordshire, and 39.5% in Tamworth. While the Labour party are revelling at the impending Tory catastophe, I do hope their tacticians are not taking anything for granted. They seem to be learning of Albos small target approach (which is giving them quite some criticism here); let's hope they also learn Bill Shorten's lesson if they want to get to power. People may not vote quite as you expect when the vote comes to determining a government.

 

Anyway, this is funny (or at least I found it to be funny). The bald guy is Mick Lynch, head of the RMT union who has been leading the charge of strikes. The differnce is, he is certainly very good with the press, and unlikee most times unions strike, the bulk of the population are behind him.

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

When the wine students were at a tasting, I was often the only person present who could say something stupid ( being an engineer) without risk of losing his job, or buggering his chances of being offered one.

The best tastings were when they lined up the same wine from grape juice to finished wine, year by year. It sure takes some skill to know how the taste is going to change, more skill than I ever had.. I do remember the adage that ,while you can't make good wine without good grapes, it is real easy to muck up good grapes and make lousy wine. There are lots of smart students who, like me, lack talent in the tasting department. They get jobs in the labs, of which big wineries always have one these days.

Here's a bit of trivia...   Who trains the most sought-after winemakers?

The answer is Australia. Here, we use chemistry, which makes the winery more money that the froggy "tradition" does.

 

[facthunter]

The yeast used is very important. Good winemakers cultivate their yeasts. Your last line is misleading. Immature grapes tend acidic. Well managed winegrapes are uniformly  ripe with a high Baume. (Natural sugar content)  Grapes grown in a cloudy cooler climate don't achieve the high sugar and often get mildew  infection. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I agree Nev, but in cool areas like Europe, you are allowed to add sugar to the ferment, while in Australia, you are allowed to add acid but not sugar. Acid helps if there was too much sun and for good wine you need a balance, or so I've been told. Thanks for the comment about the yeast. I reckon you studied winemaking more than me.

[facthunter]

Being a grower (at which I AM Qualified) you get to deal with plenty of winemakers and know the good and bad and do plenty of tastings and  become good friends with a few. My policy as a grower was to maintain quality so that if there was an oversupply my stuff would still have a market. Doing that involves an upgrade of pruning technique and other management practices and a lower Yield/acre. . I always got equal to the highest prices in the area. Nev

Edited October 20, 2023 by facthunter

[Bruce Tuncks]

I have to say that IF you are really employing a winemaker, you need to know a lot more about the candidates than where they were educated.
We sure did graduate some dopes. But once I met a frenchman who had inherited a winery from his grandfather. He knew no chemistry, which is terrible for a countryman of Lavoisier, and he answered many questions with "We do it zat way because my grandfather did it zat way"...  I would never have employed him.

[facthunter]

Australia has won it's share of wine awards on the world stage. I once asked a French company what they thought of "Our" (aust.) Chardonnay. They said WE are very worried about it. . We did overstress some of the vines and got some leaf yellowing.  That's a virus I think. When we moved to eliminate virusses by hot water treatment some of the varieties didn't produce enough new buds. There's a lot to learn all the time.  American OAK overwhelms Chardonnay. It's too strong and it's usually only achieved with toasted shavings and staves. Better UN Oaked in my opinion. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I never understood just why " unwooded chardonnay " was more expensive, now I know it must taste better.

[Bruce Tuncks]

When I was in London my host took me to a restaurant, and I gradually got the message that he had paid a LOT for what I thought was a normal white wine. Yep those frogs know how to overcharge rich poms. But we in Australia are spoiled by the quality of what we drink. If a winemaker put poor quality stuff into a bottle, I doubt if he would be invited to the next industry meeting. Yes, they do make some bad stuff, but this is sent to the distillery, or at worst put into a cask.

[facthunter]

Not ALL cask stuff is bad, but why would you put your best in anything but a bottle?. Don't keep whites very long and the malolactic fermentation makes the reds OK without keeping them for ages. Fermentation can stop inexplicably sometimes and become hard to restart. It's the sugar that is converted to alcohol and when the alcohol% gets high enough the yeast will be killed. Fortified wines Port , Sherry etc have alcohol added and generally keep well.  Nev

[onetrack]

I've got a few bottles of S.W. W.A. riesling from the early 1990's that I never drank, because we virtually stopped drinking wines many years ago. I opened one recently and was quite surprised to find it had turned into a very nice port-type, syrupy alcohol.

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by onetrack