Winewise announces the Champion Wines of Australia  

02/03/2010

“Anyone who thinks that Australian wine lacks diversity, individuality or interest has their head in the sand,” said Lester Jesberg, editor Winewise Magazine, announcing the winners of the inaugural Winewise Championship. “In quality terms, the Australian wine industry is alive and well. It’s time to stop the negative talk”.

“In what amounts to a ‘best of the best competition’, the object was to acknowledge Australia’s finest wines, from producers large and small. The Winewise Championship is an exciting new initiative designed to showcase the benchmark wines of Australia” Mr Jesberg said. “And the results demonstrate this well with every State featuring in the awards.”

The best wines from the 2009 National Wine Show of Australia (the premium national show which has become the province of large producers) and the 2009 Winewise Small Vigneron Awards (the premium small producers' wine show) were judged against the best from the major Australian regional wine shows during the 2009 show circuit. To add balance, some “wildcard” entries were invited from producers who don't normally enter wine shows but whose wines were previously judged under show conditions. Mr Jesberg added: “This is a competition amongst peers and gives us an accurate snapshot of the quality of the Australian wine industry at this point in time.”

The overall results:
Champion Dry White: 2007 Penfolds Reserve Bin 07A Adelaide Hills Chardonnay (SA)
Champion Dry Red: 2008 Paringa Estate Pinot Noir (Mornington Peninsula, Vic)
Champion Varietal Red: 2008 Paringa Estate Pinot Noir (Mornington Peninsula, Vic)
Champion Red Blend: 2008 Water Wheel Memsie Homestead Red (Bendigo, Vic)
Champion Sweet White: 2006 Brown Brothers Patricia Noble Riesling (Milawa, Vic)
Champion Sparkling White or Rosé: 2003 House of Arras Grand Vintage (Tas)
Champion Sparkling Red: 2004 Blue Pyrenees Estate Sparkling Shiraz (Vic)

Medallion winners (for individual varieties or styles) were:
Riesling Medallion: 2004 Peter Lehmann Wigan Eden Valley Riesling (SA)
Semillon Medallion: 2005 Tyrrell's Vat 1 Hunter Semillon (NSW)
Sauvignon Blanc Medallion: 2009 Printhie Orange Sauvignon Blanc (NSW)
Sauvignon Blanc Blend Medallion: 2009 Edwards Margaret River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (WA)
Chardonnay Medallion: 2007 Penfolds Reserve Bin 07A Adelaide Hills Chardonnay (SA)
Viognier Medallion: 2008 Heafod Glen Swan Valley Viognier (WA)

Other Varietal Dry White Medallion: 2009 Beach Road Fiano (Langhorne Creek, SA)
Pinot Noir Medallion: 2008 Paringa Estate Pinot Noir (Mornington Peninsula, Vic))
Shiraz Medallion: 2006 McIvor Estate Heathcote Shiraz (Vic)
Cabernet Sauvignon Medallion: 2007 Xanadu Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon (WA)
Merlot or Cabernet Franc Medallion: 2008 Nannup Ridge Estate Merlot (Blackwood Valley, WA)
Grenache or Grenache Blend Medallion: 2008 DogRock Degraves Road (Pyrenees, Vic)
Italian Variety Medallion: 2007 Karanto Langhorne Creek Aglianico (SA)
Other Varietal Red Medallion: 2008 Brown Brothers Cellar Door Release Graciano (Milawa, Vic)
‘Bordeaux Blend’ Medallion: 2007 Capercaillie The Clan (Multi-Regional)
Classic Australian Blend Medallion: 2006 Wynns Coonawarra The Gables Cabernet Shiraz (SA)
Other Reds Blend Medallion: 2008 Water Wheel Memsie Homestead Red (Bendigo, Vic)

All eligible wines were judged on 11 and 12 February 2010 in Canberra. The wines were assessed in small groups of no more than seven and ranked in order of preference by the judging panel comprised of four of the regular Winewise panel and experienced show judges – Lester Jesberg, Debbie Pearce, Len Sorbello and Phil Trickett – and two of the most respected senior judges from within the wine industry – Tom Carson (Chairman of the National Wine Show) and Tim Kirk (Winemaker Clonakilla). The winning wines will each be awarded a gold-plated 63 cm medallion, specially struck by the Royal Australian Mint (as illustrated above).

For further background and a list of the eligible wine shows from which entries into the Championship were invited, see the Winewise Website: www.winewise.net.au

Mr Jesberg also said “Winewise Magazine has taken a big step and no doubt we will learn a lot from our first attempt but we feel that someone had to bite the bullet and cover the gap in our existing national show system.” Chris Shanahan summed it up well in his recent article “National Show shouldn’t ignore gaps in its ranks”, see:

New Releases from Mornington Peninsula boutique winemaker, Nazaaray  

02/03/2010

Mornington Peninsula winemaker, Nazaaray have released their latest wine offerings - Pinot Noir 2008 and Pinot Gris 2009.

This small boutique winemaker is fast making its mark in the boutique cool-climate wine market, picking up a slew of awards and featuring at some of Australia's finest restaurants including Sydney's Aria, Becasse and The Ivy, and Bistro Guillaume in Melbourne.

In recent times they've received accolades from both the food and wine media and their loyal band of customers, and played host to nearly 500 people at a 2009 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival event, cementing their position as 'one to watch' in the boutique wine arena.

Known for their organic and Burgundian approach to viticulture, favouring minimal intervention, Nazaaray is renowned for its high-quality, cool climate wine, which reveals the unique character of the region, with optimum intensity and flavour. In 2009 they were ably assisted by two young French vignerons, who worked at Nazaraay during vintage, providing their traditional expertise.

Pinot Noir 2008 and Pinot Noir Reserve 2008
For the first time ever, Nazaraay was able to make four sizeable, separate batches from seven different clones of the much-anticipated Pinot Noir. Drawing upon the expertise of the two young French vignerons and several barrel tastings, Nazaaray finally settled on this blend from a mix of old and new barrels. Deciding between which barrels went into the Reserve was not easy and was finally decided after seven separate blind tastings of each barrel with different vignerons!!

Delicate berry flavours intermingled with flecks of spice make these single vineyard Pinot Noir wines to be savoured and enjoyed - slowly, very slowly!

Pinot Gris 2009
Searing summer heat followed by a long, cool and sunny autumn has produced in our Pinot Gris aromas of pears, musk and rose petals tinged with honey, a luscious mouth-feel and a delightfully long finish. Both our 2007 and 2008 vintages won Silver Medals and Nirmal and Paramdeep hope that this wine will be received just as well by Nazaaray's customers and critics alike, if not better.

About Nazaaray - Australian Wine, Indian Heritage
The Nazaaray Estate Winery, a micro boutique winery, is one of the smallest and southern-most vineyards on the Mornington Peninsula, with a growing profile as one of the region's most respected and award-winning producer of Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, cool-climate Shiraz and Pinot Noir.

Nazaaray also has a most unique cultural heritage, with husband and wife owners Paramdeep and Nirmal Ghumman hailing from the Punjab region of India.

Nazaaray Awards
Pinot Noir 2008 - Bronze Medal - National Cool Climate Show, Bathurst, NSW October 2009
Pinot Gris 2009 - Bronze Medal - National Cool Climate Show, Bathurst, NSW October 2009
Pinot Gris 2008 - People's choice Best of the Best Victorian White at Federation Square 2008
Pinot Gris 2007 - Silver Medal (Pinot Gris class) Red Hill Cool Climate Wine Show 2008
Pinot Gris 2007 - People's Choice Award for Best White at Federation Square 2007
Pinot Gris 2003 - People's Choice for Best White wine at Federation Square tastings in 2004
Pinot Noir Reserve 2004 - Top 100 New Wine Releases - Gourmet Wine Traveller October 2008
Pinot Noir 2003 - Highly Recommended at the 2003 Lilydale Wine Show
Pinot Noir 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 - Bronze Medal Winners at the Red Hill Cool Climate Wine Shows

Lake’s Folly 2008 Spring Lunch  

13/12/2008

On Saturday 8th November 2008 FirstPress attended the first of the 2008 series of Spring Lunches hosted by the Lake’s Folly winemaker, Rodney Kempe. The lunch was held at the recently acclaimed Rock Restaurant (Chef’s Hats in the 2008 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide), situated in the Poole’s Rock vineyard at Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley. For more information on Rock visit http://www.rockrestaurant.com.au

As we assembled on the terrace overlooking the Poole’s Rock vines, proceedings began with salted blue eye cod in choux pastry and Sydney rock oysters from Merimbula washed down with the very fine aperitif Pol Roger champagne.

While FirstPress guests would have been happy continuing with the aperitifs all afternoon, the serious business of fine dining and tasting aged wines was about to begin. Rodney Kemp had arranged with chef Andrew Clarke for a six course degustation menu of his dishes that would accompany both aged and more recent examples of Lake’s Folly’s signature Chardonnay and Cabernets wines.

First Course: Seared scallops with apple, hazelnut, curly endive, cider and grapeseed dressing. Accompanying this was a 1989 Chardonnay, deep yellow in colour with a light honeycomb bouquet. The wine showed a lovely complex chardonnay fruit mid-palate, finishing full flavoured, and long. The nuttiness of the wine perfectly complimented the apple and hazelnut dressing on the scallops.

Second Course: Crab and zucchini flower fritters with light bisque, baby globe artichoke stuffed with prawn. To contrast the first course matching, Rod Kemp chose the 2007 Chardonnay, a lemon yellow wine with jasmine and lemon bouquet, that while younger than its predecessor, showed apple and light buttery tones mid-palate. The long dry finish held lots of residual fruit, ideal accompaniment for the fritters.

Third Course: Duck breast with braised lentils, squab rillette and liquorice sauce. Initially I was a little apprehensive that the liquorice sauce might overwhelm the 1988 Cabernets. The brown brick red colour and dusty cedar aroma gave way to an ultra-smooth, medium-bodied, lightly fruited cabernet that coped well with the juicy duck and the earthy sauce. The wine was well balanced, and proved that Lake’s Folly Cabernets have the structure to age well.  

Fourth Course: Grilled Wagyu rump, bone marrow dumpling, zucchini, oyster mushroom and horseradish cream. As the waiters delivered this dish to the table, my fellow diners were in awe of the aroma. This was a course made for the 2007 Cabernets. The wine was purple red in colour with aromatic plum and cherry bouquet. These flavours dominated the mid-palate, and lingered through to the end, reminiscent of pickled dark cherries.

Fifth Course: Wood roasted lamb rack, carrot linguini, pea puree, spiced bread and light caraway jus.  I am a devotee of the combination of lamb and cabernet, and I was not disappointed. The 1998 Cabernets is a fine wine, medium red in colour with notes of cassis on the nose, continuing through the mid-palate where a hint of saddle leather blends with the soft fruit. This is a well balanced and integrated wine of real elegance.

Sixth Course: Hazelnut stuffed prunes with hazelnut brioche and Bailey’s ice cream. Now Lake’s Folly don’t make a desert wine, and that’s something perhaps Rod Kemp could explore with a small planting of Semillon. Nevertheless we were treated to a 2002 Le Tertre dy Lys D’or. The delicious golden yellow dessert wine, had apricot and honey aromas, a luscious mid-palate where melons emerged over the apricots. The wine had great mouthfeel, and a long honeyed finish.

In between Master of Ceremonies, Steve Abbott (aka The Sandman), assisted with tales of an interesting life, interspersed with two wine options flights.

Option 1: A venous blood red wine, with violets and blackberry aroma and a hint of alcoholic hotness, delivered sweet black cherry and blood plum mid-palate, and a dry, vanilla finish. What could it have been? Perplexed, FirstPress suspected a merlot based wine, but was unaware that Lake’s Folly had ever released such a wine. Indeed it was a 2003 Merlot, made in a special (i.e. very small) batch.

Option 2: A dark purple / red wine, with lifted blackberry bouquet. The mid-palate was full of blackberry and other dark berry flavours, and the finish was big. FirstPress’ assessment of the wine as a Cabernet Merlot Shiraz blend was off the mark. The wine was a Millbrook Estate 2005 Shiraz / Viognier from Western Australia. Today’s owners of Lake’s Folly, Peter Fogarty and family, also own Millbrook Estate.

This was a very enjoyable lunch, with tastings of fine examples of varieties for which Lake’s Folly is renowned, but the Hunter Valley less so. As one of the guests of FirstPress remarked, the lunch re-awakened his palate for well-made Chardonnay, and reinforced the quality in the Cabernets.

FirstPress paid for their tickets to this event.

To learn more about the history of Lake’s Folly, and the efforts of current winemaker Rod Kempe, please visit http://www.lakesfolly.com.au

Featured Winery - Windowrie Estate (Cowra)

The O’Dea Family, believing that Cowra’s potential as a grape-growing region could only be reached by processing its own fruit locally, invested in a state of the art winery which was completed in time for the 1999 vintage. The winery was erected on a hillside overlooking the magnificent vista of the Estate’s vineyard and has the capability of processing up to 6000 tonnes of grapes. The vision for the winery was to combine the latest technology with traditional techniques, and most importantly to reduce the critical time between picking and crushing the grapes. Because the Windowrie Estate vineyards surround the winery, winemaking can begin within minutes of harvesting. [... more]

Featured Wine - 2007 Windowrie Family Reserve Cowra Chardonnay

Chardonnay has been synonymous with Cowra since Brian Croser won acclaim with his Cowra Chardonnay during the 1970s. These early wines showed the potential of this variety within the region and paved the way for future winemakers. [... more]

NEW VERSION  - WineBanq® 10 wine cellar management software. WineBanq is an easy to use but powerful software database solution for managing your entire wine cellar collection. Just some of the many features are:

• At a glance, always see the state of your wine cellar.
• Easily add new wines to your cellar.
• Rate wines from your cellar.
• Colour code wines by optimal drinking years.
• Reporting, charting and export data to popular formats including PDF.
• Create shopping lists of wines for purchase.
• Create your own custom reports and charts.
• Use a powerful data grid that shows you your wines in the way you want to see them.
• Customise the layout of your forms and grids
• Download updated winery, region and variety information from our server.
• Support for multiple cellars,

Download the trial version of WineBanq 10 wine cellar management software.

View the full list of WineBanq 10 wine cellar management software features.

View Knowledge Base and User Forums.

Purchase WineBanq 10 wine cellar management software and tasting note subscriptions from the WineBanq giftshop.