Author Archives: Steve Shipley

About Steve Shipley

I am a wine enthusiast and writer without affiliation to commercial wine ventures or firms in the wine industry to ensure my opinions and points of view are strictly my own. I have enjoyed wine increasingly over the last 20 years and present many of my views and learning through this blog. My book, Wine Sense, consolidates what I have learned about enjoying wine and enhancing wine drinking experiences which I look forward to passing onto you.

What a weekend hoot discussing party wines on Food in Focus

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We have had so much going on the last few weeks, both work-wise and personally, it seemed we did not get an evening together at home for several weeks.  This meant I was tired going into my 60th birthday party weekend.  Fortunately, surrounded by great friends, great food and great wine, I was able to pick myself up to make it through the weekend.  And even more fortunately, I had some leftover 2006 Penfolds Yatarnna and some 2005 Chateau Haut Bergeron which I am drinking now while blogging!

With friends from the US and Melbourne in town, we had five of us for a fabulous meal at Fish on the Rocks with great matching wines Friday evening. And then the bigger affair with 11 of us on Saturday evening with an outstanding wine and food line-up cooked by Jay Huxley, Masterchef finalist and his crew.  But first I want to discuss the fun I had participating in Food in Focus radio show Saturday afternoon.  This is a regular Saturday feature at 4 pm which Natascha Moy has been hosting for four and a half years now on FM 89.7 radio.

We had great fun.  Natascha always has three guests from various aspects of the food and wine industry.  I was privileged to be on the show with Lisa Margan, owner and proprietor of Margan Estates in Broke in the Hunter Valley, and with Nick Wills, owner and Brad Sloane, the chef of The Riverview Hotel at 29 Birchgrove Road in Balmain, NSW.

I have been to Margans several times and have some of their great 2003 White Label Shiraz and their 2006 Barbera in my cellar.  It is a beautiful setting for doing a tasting, having a meal, or even for getting married!  I have not been to the The Riverview Hotel, but will definitely try it now that I have sampled some of these guys food!  And if I remember correctly, they do a very nice pizza for $20 and on Tuesday, you can get two for $20!

I was the ‘wild card’ wine guy for the show.  I brought along three bottles of wines as representative party wines.  The wines I brought were the 2010 Vavasour Pinot Gris from New Zealand, the 2009 Tyrrell’s Verdelho, and the 2005 Kelman Shiraz, both from the Hunter Valley.  The winning wine among the guests was the first one we opened and tasted, which was the 2010 Vavasour Pinot Gris.  It had a very smooth texture, and mandarin and a bit of grapefruit flavorings.  And everyone really seemed to enjoy a New Zealand white wine which was not a Sauvignon Blanc!

So what did I have to say about party wine?  It can be summarized as follows:

  • You don’t need to spend more than $20 per bottle for party wines and you can still impress.  All three bottles I brought along were between $12 – $18.
  • Don’t bring Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc as everyone else is bringing those, so bring something else to provide some choice.
  • Parties can get warm if there are a lot of people or if outside, so if you are only bringing one bottle, make it a white wine.
  • Good white party wines can be Pinot Gris or Verdelho which are easy and enjoyable to drink on their own and go with canapes, dim sum, etc.  A Marsanne would not go as well or be appreciated by a wide variety of people.  A Semillon or Gewürztraminer would be ok, but not have the wide-spread appeal that a Pinot Gris or Verdelho would on its own.
  • If you are bringing a red wine, try a secondary grape to treat people to something different.  A Barbera, Tempranillo, or Sangiovese is different and easy to drink.
  • Or bring something unusual or a bit more personal.  That is the reason I brought along the Kelman Shiraz, as it can only be bought at the cellar door, and it is associated with the winery where I have a place to live.
  • Don’t bring a bottle of wine if you do not know how it will taste or are trying to recycle a bottle received from someone else!

I really enjoyed previously listening to Food in Focus and now have really enjoyed being part of the show.  Each week has different topics and guests and is a continual learning experience for anyone interested in food or wine!  Check it out

Talking party wines on Food In Focus on FM 89.7 with Natascha Moy this Saturday!

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This Saturday (10 November, 2012), at 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm, I will be joining Natascha Moy and two other guests on her very successful gourmet food and wine show Food in Focus on FM 89.7.  This show has been running successfully for four and a half years with a star’s line-up of great chefs, restaurant and specialty food owners, wine makers, winery owners and others who are passionate about good food and wine.

I am privileged that Natascha has asked me to join her party this weekend and excited to participate.  Without giving too much away, I will be talking about Party Wines and bringing along three good bottles which are excellent examples of what good party wine is all about.  This is live radio so it will be exciting to find out what Natascha is going to ask me and the other guests.  I just hope that I can contribute and continue to help her grow her following.  My only goal is to help you be able ‘to impress’ the next time you bring a bottle of wine to a party or other function.

I met Natascha through social media as we share a common interest around good food and wine.  We started following each other on Twitter, became friends and started to communicate and share ideas on Facebook, and now will finally have the opportunity to meet and share some good wine and good ideas and discussion together.  I love witnessing (and even better, be part of!) examples where social media really works!

Natascha is a real ‘pro’ in the radio and journalism game as evidenced by her long-running success with Food in Focus.  She has a background in magazine journalism with a Bachelor of Journalism degree and has participated in traditional and online media for years.  She has published her own food newspaper and now continues to share her insights through her radio talk show Food in Focus on FM 89.7.

Natascha and I also share a passion around gender diversity.  This year, she founded a networking movement called Girl Power which has been founded on the principle that women in business have brilliant brains but deserve something more. She runs bi-monthly networking events attended by approximately 60 women talking about everything from sales to sex, and fashion to nutrition.

Once the show is completed, I will write a blog to summarize what we discussed on Party Wines to share with you, but if you can join Natascha, me and her two other guests for Food in Focus this Saturday at 4 pm, we would welcome it.  Hope you are there with us!

Impact of temperature on wine taste is larger than you think! Part 2 – White Wine

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In Part 1, we discussed the impact of temperature on red wines.  We will now do the same for white wines.  The effect of temperature is even more profound than it is for reds.

In general whites are stored in quite cool temperatures.  My long-term whites like my long-term reds are stored at 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit).  But then I have usually about 6 – 8 ‘ready-to-serve’ whites in my kitchen refrigerator which are stored at 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit).  This is too cold a temperature to serve most white wines.  In general, excellent white wines (Montrachets and other aged Chardonnays and Semillons) should be served at 10 – 14 degrees Celsius (50 – 57 degrees Fahrenheit) to really release their great flavors and bouquet.  Typically good white wines (Most other Chardonnays, Rieslings, Pinot Grigios, etc.) served at 7 – 10 degrees Celsius (45 – 50 degrees Fahrenheit) and bad white wines as chilled as you like!

Boxed white wines and lower quality white wines are usually served very cold as they are lacking flavor anyway.  What most ‘bad’ white wine drinkers are looking for a a refreshing, cool drink and lots of alcohol!  But if you want to get the most flavor out of a white wine that it has to offer, then you should warm it up a few degrees.

In the past, I made the mistake of storing and serving my white wines too cold, especially if I took an excellent white wine directly from the fridge.  Now I tend to take the wine out of the fridge for about 15 minutes to let it rise in temperature a few degrees and become more flavorful.  This is often accomplished by putting the bottle in a carrying case to bring to a restaurant and the time it takes to get to the restaurant is perfect in terms of the wine being a few degrees warmer.  Or if I am going to serve it at home, I let it sit on the counter for 15 minutes before serving it.

For an excellent white wine, especially a great and aged Chardonnay, I now let the wine warm up to about 12 degrees or so.  (Note that I do not actually take the temperature of the wine, but rather just feel the bottle and compare the bottle to room temperature.)  A bottle such as a great Montrachet or the Penfolds Yatarnna deserve this type of treatment and you will definitely notice the improved bouquet of wine in your nose and taste of the wine on your palate.

I love taking a sip when it is still ‘too cold’ and swirling an excellent white wine around my mouth.  The body temperature of my mouth warms the wine almost immediately and over several minutes, you can pick up a variety of different tastes that keep changing over time.  It is an amazing experience and worth savoring!

Champagnes and sparkling wines are usually served even more chilled than while wines.  For low-end sparklings, you can serve them at 4 – 6 degrees Celsius, but good Champagnes should be served at a somewhat higher temperature.

While difficult to discern by other than expert tasters, Chef de Cave Richard Geoffroy relates the different experiences he has had with the 1996 Moet and Chandon Dom Perignon Champagne:
  • at 8°C, mineral and a little closed, perfect with an oyster tartare
  • at 9°C, moderately open, to be matched with crayfish
  • at 10°, complements wild salmon magnificently
  • at 11°, chardonnay’s butter notes appear, volume amplifies
  • at 12°, delicate mushroom aromas appear
  • at 13°, pinot noir aromas, tannins! serve with a lamb tajine
  • at 14°, smoky flavours and yoghurt aromas are revealed
  • at 16°, aromas of meringue and walnuts, amazing intensity – magical with a tarte Tatin with candied violets

Most of us could not discern such differences in flavor, but some can.  However, we can all learn from this and be appreciative of the difference a few degrees makes!  BTW, if you want to do this experiment with a bottle at each degree between 8 and 16, it will cost you about $2,400 at $300 per bottle!

You deserve the enhanced flavor of letting a great white wine warm up a few degrees towards room temperature to enhance the taste.  A number of people will take a great white wine directly out of their long-term cellar at 14 degrees Celsius (by now you should know this is 57 degrees Fahrenheit!) and serving it.

Right way – no ice

If you have removed white wine from the fridge or a Vintec where it has been stored ‘cold,’ and once it has warmed up a couple of degrees to release the flavors, you should place the white wine in wine storage container without ice (like in the photo to the left).  This ensures the wine stays at the right temperature for a long time (hopefully long enough to finish the bottle!).  If you put it in an ice bucket, it will return the wine to close to freezing, choking off the flavor.  Therefore, I never use ice in any manner with good white wine.  (Or you may consider just using a few cubes to counterbalance the room temperature.) If you are drinking bad white wine, then use all the ice you want, as you want to hide the poor flavor!

Wrong! Do not use ice!

We may not all have the discerning palate of Richard Geoffroy, but we can still greatly enhance our white wine tasting experience by making sure we are storing and serving the wine at the right temperatures.I have learned that there is great benefit in warming an excellent white wine up a few degrees before tasting it.  Do some comparison testing and see if you do not agree!

And if this all seems just too hard, then for white wine, take it out of the fridge for 20 minutes before serving it and leave it at that.  That is as good a rule of thumb as any.

Impact of temperature on wine taste is larger than you think! Part 1 – Red Wine

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Some simple knowledge of wine storage and drinking can greatly enhance most people’s wine drinking experience.  One such area that is easy to understand and can significantly increase pleasure is the temperature at which to serve various wines.  The general rule is to serve red wine at room temperature and white wine chilled.  And sparkling wine, even more chilled!  But what is chilled?  And in fact, what actually is a suitable room temperature?

This will be a two-part blog on the impact of temperature on wine.  The first and simplest post is for red wine.  This will be followed by the impact of temperature on white wine, which is even more profound and important (but no more complicated to understand).

Hopefully, your red wines have been stored suitably at a consistent temperature that is somewhat cooler than room temperature.  I store my reds long-term at 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit) and in my apartment Vintec wine fridge at 16 degrees Celsius (61 degrees Fahrenheit).  My room temperature is usually between 20 – 22 degrees Celsius (68 – 72 degrees Fahrenheit).  Therefore, if I am planning ahead, I take my bottles of red wine out of the Vintec at least several hours up to a day before serving them.  This (1) allows the wine to reach room temperature and (2) to by standing it straight up, draw any loose sediment to the bottom of the bottle.

By raising the temperature 4 – 5 degrees (Celsius), you really release the flavor.  The wine goes from being a dormant, tight, flat wine to a more open and interactive one.  The flavors become fuller and more robust.  It is always a good idea to drink red at room temperature if the room temperature is between 18 – 25 degrees Celsius (65 – 77 degrees Fahrenheit).  But what do you do if room temperature is above that or you are outside on a hot day?  If the temperature is only a few degrees higher, then you can still drink the wine well enough.  However, as the temperature starts to approach or go beyond 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), drinking red wine at room temperature becomes less enjoyable.  This is because it becomes a bit stickier and may even taste a bit cooked.  Additionally, at those temperatures, you are probably looking for something cooler and more refreshing to drink, like a cold beer or a chilled white wine.

Reusable ice cubes – store in freezer

Therefore, if you are outside and it is 30 degrees Celsius or higher, you may want to chill your red wine slightly.  To do this, I would not recommend putting ice cubes into your wine!  This will water down and flatten the flavors. You may however want to put in one or two reusable ice cubes which are plastic encased ice cubes.  Therefore, you can reduce the temperature of the red wine a few degrees without watering it down.

I am currently drinking a very nice 2005 Bannockburn Pinot Noir at room temperature of 23.5 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) and this temperature is working well.  However, if it was a few degrees warmer, I may consider putting a reusable ice cube into my wine!

My next blog will focus on the right temperatures to serve white wine.  The temperature setting has a far more important impact on white wine than it does for red, and this is true to get the most out of both bad and good white wine!

Apologies in advance to Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc fans

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I enjoy drinking wine and drink it regularly.  I try a variety of different grapes and styles from different regions around the world.  I love my wine and am willing to try a lot of different wines.  However, I also value knowing I will be drinking a good to great bottle almost every time I open one.  Therefore, over the years, I have settled on a number of different grapes (or blends) in different styles and from different regions.

Upon moving to Australia almost 15 years ago, I became fixated on the Australian wines.  There are a number of different wine regions, each well suited to various grapes and each region known for producing several great wines.  To get an overview of the different regions, review my 4-series post on the Australian wine regions.  Australia makes a lot of magnificent wines and at great price points.  It is only recently that I have been experimenting and coming to enjoy a broader range of wines globally.

There are four primary red wine grapes and four primary white wine grapes:

Red wine grapes:

  • Merlot
  • Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Shiraz
  • Pinot Noir

White wine grapes:

  • Sauvignon Blanc
  • Chardonnay
  • Riesling
  • Semillon

A majority of the world’s wines are made with these grapes and that is why they are known as the ‘primary’ grapes.  In the ‘secondary’ grape category, among the reds, we have Zinfandel, Grenache, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, etc. and among the whites, Marsanne, Verdelho, Gewürztraminer, and so on.  Some of the world’s best wines are blends of several grapes to provide some unique characteristics and tastes.

Great wine always starts with great grapes, but the effects and magic of the wine maker can also make a large difference in the finished product, starting with the wine maker determining the best time to pick the grape to get the right characteristics (often sweetness or alcoholic content) from the grape.  Then there are many other techniques the wine maker uses to craft the best wine he/she can make from the grapes.

Probably 60% – 65% of what I drink comes from the the primary red and white grape families – excluding Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.  The remaining third comes from secondary grapes.  I drink very little Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc and simply do not enjoy the grapes or what the wine maker can possibly do with them as much as most of the other grapes.  Occasionally, I may have a wine with some Sauvignon Blanc blended with Semillion, or some small percentage of Merlot in a red blend.  A Merlot can be used to soften a red wine blend, for example.

I believe the main reason that I do not drink Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc is that there is little the wine maker can do with these grapes compared to most of the others.  The impact of terroir and the influence of the wine maker is less influential on the Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc grape varietals.  Pinot Noir, by comparison, is very highly influenced by the terroir and the wine maker’s craftsmanship, which is why the very best Pinot Noirs are very high in demand and almost hallowed.  It is tough to make a bad Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc, but it is even tougher to make a very good, yet alone great one.  (I know some of the very best French Sauvignon Blancs may be argued to be exceptions to this general rule.)

Sauvignon Blanc is often described as tasting like “stewed green tomatoes” or “cat’s pee!”  When you start with a grape described like that, I don’t expect the wine maker can do much with it!  Both Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot are safe grapes to grow (resistant to changes in conditions) and are often used as an insurance policy for any given vintage to make sure some wine is available in the region.  But by definition, this is the reason the grapes cannot be influenced or crafted into truly great wines.  These two grapes are very common and middle of the road in my mind.

So what do I do for food matching when it obviously calls for a Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc?  For Merlot, it is easy as there are so many different red wine grapes and styles to be able to pick a perfect match to any food, even when Merlot is not considered. 

And everyone knows that Sauvignon Blanc is a natural for fish and seafood, right?  Wrong!  If I am eating fish, and it is a gamier, thicker, or oilier fish, I will have a Pinot Noir, especially if it is served with a tomato sauce or topping.  And if it is a lighter, flakier white fish, then I will opt for a Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon blend.  The Semillon provides some structure and character to the Sauvignon Blanc and is a great match for this type of fish.

For crustaceans or lobster, I love a rich, aged Chardonnay, such as a Montrachet.  And Semillon goes really well with scallops, and a Riesling with crab or prawns.  Therefore, I feel I have it covered and do not need to ‘compromise’ by drinking a Sauvignon Blanc or Merlot.

This blog was inspired by a comment that Merlot would go really well with pizza, and it probably would, but given the choice, I am going to drink a Sangiovese or Cabernet Sauvignon (like the 1996 Lindemans St George I had with pizza the other night).  I just cannot fancy desiring a Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc when  I have so many other choices available.

If you are a regular Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc drinker, then I apologize if I have offended you, but I encourage you to try some other grapes instead.  We have a great friend with a very good palate and she started drinking Merlot for her first wines, but quickly grew out of that and to a broader and richer spectrum of good wines.

Therefore, if you think Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc are your main and easy choice for wine, then you should experiment a bit and I expect you will be happy with the results.

1996 St George makes great pizza even better

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I love making a good pizza and drinking a great wine to go with it.  My lovely bride asks me if we aren’t over-doing the wine we sometimes have with pizza and I tell her simply, “no!”  We often drink a Chianti or a Cabernet Sauvignon with pizza.  And tonight, the Cabernet Sauvignon was the 1996 Lindeman’s St George, one of my all-time favorites!

I remember tasting a bottle of this in 2000 and then securing four dozen bottles.  This was one of my all-time great buys and the wine has improved and served me well over its lifetime.  I was running down to my last few bottles several years ago and topped off my holdings by buying four more and six of the 1998 St George (an even slightly better vintage).  We also have a couple dozen of the 1997 St George which is a great wine, if not quite as complex as the 1996 or 1998.

This wine has large berry flavors, most closely to raspberry or sweet (over-ripe) blackberry.  It is beautifully balanced.  However, this wine is starting to show its age and should be drank in the next year or two.  I think I have about three or four bottles left, so this should not be a problem.  The fruit is not as lively as it was three or four years ago.

I have always liked the St George Cabernet Sauvignon as one of my go-to Cab Savs.  An even better one (but with more variability vintage to vintage) is the Wynn’s John Riddoch.  The Wynn’s John Riddoch also tends to cost about 50% more per bottle, but for great vintages, can be worth it.  But my love affair with the Lindeman’s St George has served me well year-to-year and I have bought so much volume that I am always able to get quite good prices for it.  In totality, I have had the 1989, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 (only available as a clean skin), 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009 vintages.

Is this too good a wine to drink with pizza?  I don’t think so.  “Yes,” I could have a decent and much cheaper Chianto to go with pizza, or a cheaper Cab Sav, but why should I when I have a bottle of the 1996 St George staring me in the face when I open the Vintec?  If it needs to be drunk in the next several years, there is no time like the present!  And I can guarantee that it makes a great pizza even better!

Great success with Wickman’s Fine Wine Auction

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As many of you know, I have been clearing wine out of my cellar.  Once I had inventoried the total amount I had, and also realized that my tastes had changed somewhat over the last decade, I realized I needed to get down to a more reasonable sized cellar.  Plus I made a commitment to myself that I could not buy any more wine until I I had cut the cellar in half or down even further.

This is really a bad time to sell wine, as there are far more sellers than buyers and prices are quite depressed.  I have been fortunate to sell about 1,500 bottles direct to friends who know I have done a good job buying quality wines in the past and storing them well.  For the first 600 bottles I sold, I was getting between 90% and 120% what I initially paid for the wines.  Yet, my friends were getting a good deal as (1) I usually secured the wines at a better price point than they could have, and (2) I put some age on the wines and these were now some special wines not available through normal retail, or only available at higher price tags at auction.

I then move an additional 900 bottles by offering a 25% discount on the wines and sold quite a lot over a one-month period.  With the discount, I was now getting between 70% and 95% the price I had originally paid.  I also sold about 50 bottles through the Wine-Ark Exchange (now run by Langton’s), and got about 90% what I paid and had to pay an additional 12.5% commission over that (as did the buyer).  And the wines on the Exchange did not sell fast at all.  I think I have cleared about 35% of the wines and have been doing this for eight months now.

I had been following Wickman’s Fine Wine Auction for 18 months and was impressed with how much stock he moved and how he achieved the best buy and price point for buyer and seller.  I worked with Mark to go through my inventory, and he gave me an appraisal of the likely Reserve prices he would establish and the range each bottle would likely sell for.  I then packaged up 400 bottles to send to him for his October auction.

Mark was also insistent about the provenance of the wine to ensure it has only been stored under the best conditions.  He asked me to take pictures of the how the wine was properly stored, and provide the history of where I bought and stored the wine.  For 95% of my wines, he gave me the second highest rating he has.  Had I worked harder, and pulled from my files the purchase records of the wines I bought direct from the cellar doors and their receipt in Wine-Ark (where I store all my wine), I expect I could have got the highest provenance rating he had for about 85% of my wine.

Mark then sent me a final listing of Reserve prices and while lower than I was hoping for some of the wine, it was clear that he knew the market far better than I did and how to move the most product in a tough market.  Therefore, I went with his recommendations (except in one case for two bottles which did not sell BTW!).

For the one-week auction, I was amazed at the results!  We sold 56% of the wine at an average price of $44 per bottle.  I had evaluated my stock overall at $50 per bottle and it is true that Wickman selected and was trying to move some of my more expensive wine, but overall this was still a great result.  And I sold almost $10,000 of wine in one week, which would have been far harder and taken more effort to sell doing it myself.  I was hoping to move between $2,500 – $4,000 worth and did far better than that.  And I still have the November auction to sell most of the rest.

I am definitely looking forward to the results of the November auction, and may also look at sending Wickman another 150 – 200 bottles for his auctions starting up again in 2013..  It is very tough selling wine in today’s market and receiving a good price for it, but Wickman understands the market extremely well and certainly knows how to move wine!  I had far better results than expected because I trusted in him and his knowledge of the market.

If you need to move some serious volume and have been having trouble with Langton’s, or other big-named players, then I suggest you give Wickman’s Fine Wine Auctions a call!

Masterchef, with master friends and wine!

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We had a great dinner party last evening.  As usual, the most important ingredient was great people full of life, fellowship and great conversation ranging from food to work, charity work, working out, finding a partner and much, much more.  But there were also some other great ingredients including having Masterchef and cook extraordinaire, Jay Huxley, cooking for us and some very nice wines to match.

But let’s start with the people.  We had all worked together before, doing amazing things together and with great respect for each other.  While we all had some overlap with each other, there were also a few new relationships formed last evening which is always nice to see.  I love being around really nice, fun and funny people who are all so charitable.  And while we told everyone not to bring anything, they brought magnificent chocolates, a bottle of Bollinger champagne, and ordered flowers (which I need to check with concierge on as we did not get any today).

Jay cooked up a magnificent meal, starting with a Alaskan king crab and prawn bisque which was to die for, followed by osso bucco for some of us and ‘fish and chips’ (Balina Mulloway with taro chips!) for others with caramelized pineapple with lychee sorbet for dessert.  Simply fantastic.

And why is Jay’s food so good?  Bisque from scratch, lychee sorbet from scratch, 15 kilogram Mulloway caught and cleaned by Jay himself – well, you get the point!  And he is an amazing chef who connects with his audience through his food and his personality.

And the wine line-up to match was something also.  We started with the 2006 Annie’s Hill Riesling upon arrival, followed by the 2008 Little’s Gewürztraminer to go with the bisque, the 2004 Thompson Estate (Margaret River) Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2005 Stags Leap (Napa Valley) Cabernet Sauvignon to go with the osso bucco, and then the 2007 De Iuliis Late Harvest Semillon to match off against dessert..

And if that was not enough, we then cracked into some 1980 Lindeman Vintage Port and had great affogados using the Rutherglen Buller Tokay.  For the late stragglers who still had not had enough, we finished off the magnificent 2007 Maurice O’Shea Shiraz from the night before, and then opened yet another bottle, this time the 2006 Coldstream Hills Cabernet Savignon.

But the amazing thing is that I was so relaxed and comfortably just drinking and enjoying the fellowship, food and wine, that I really did not take the time to think about how the wine tasted in any particular detail.  It was all just really great!

I do remember the 2006 Stags Leap being more complex and like a traditional Bordeaux than the 2004 Thompson Estate, which was lighter, and both being very well balanced and with big fruits.  But that was from a tasting of both wines when I decanted them before the guests arrived.

Therefore, there is no detailed analysis of the wine in this post.  Just a remembrance that with the right people, right food and right wines, you too can have a perfect evening even if you cannot remember much of it!

A super red – the 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea

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I got quite excited this evening picking out the wines for tomorrow’s Master Chef dinner being prepared by Jay Huxley and attended to by a great group of work colleagues.  I am so excited about the friendship, wine and food!  All the ‘work’ selecting the wine line-up (in a post soon to come!) got me excited to have a nice drop of red while blogging tonight.

That nice red ended up being the 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz.  WOW!  What a wine!  Having had glasses of the 2005 and 2006 Maurice O’Shea in the restaurant associated with McWilliams Mount Pleasant winery in the Hunter Valley, I had the impression that the Maurice O’Shea Shiraz was not worth the bottle price and was another over-priced red wine living on its previous reputation.

But one Sunday morning about 11 am having just finished breakfast in their restaurant (and complaining about how the Maurice O’Shea was overpriced!), Nick (who was the restaurant manager at the time) brought me a glass of red to try.  It was magnificent!  He then told me that it was the 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea and was about to be released in the next few days.  I bought four dozen on the spot.  I then found out a few days later that Campbell Mattinson rated it as the best Shiraz that year (2010/11) in his great book, The Big Red Wine Book.

I have been laying it down in the cellar to develop over the last two years, but decided it was time to try one of the bottles.  This wine is spectacular now, but will probably be even slightly better in a couple of years.  Within minutes of decanting, it really opened up.  It is smooth, perfectly balanced, with good tannins.  It has very big, fresh fruit tasting of blackberries and chocolate liqueur.  The hue is a vibrant, deep red, almost purple color.

The only problem now is figuring out the best time to drink this wine!  I expect it will last a long, long time, but is so approachable now.  I will probably have a bottle every three months until I can’t stand it any more and then make this my every day drinking wine until it is entirely consumed.

I bought a lot of the 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz’, including the Tyrrell’s Vat 9, Tyrrell’s Stevens, the De Iuliis Limited Release Shiraz, the Meerea Park Alexander Munro, the Thomas Kiss, the Pokolbon Estate (made by Andrew Thomas), the Brokenwood Graveyard, the Tulloch Hector, the Glandore Hamish, the Tintilla Estate Patriarch, and about five more to be able to do a side-by-side comparison.  They are all excellent, but the only one I think can compare to the Maurice O’Shea is the De Iuliis Limited Release Shiraz.  I just need to do a comparison of those two wines, and do it soon!

I was hoping to save some of this great wine for one of my American friends who is coming to dinner tomorrow night, but I am afraid, I might just drink the entire bottle tonight.  WOW! What a wine!

What wine to match with Korean BBQ?

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What is Korean BBQ?  It is a meal where you select some meats to cook on an in-table BBQ until cooked.  Then you wrap the meats in a leaf of lettuce and add some chili sauce and roasted garlic slices to taste.  The meats can be a variety of pork, beef rib, beef brisket, or tenderloin.  You can also choose to cook some prawns or other types of seafood or vegetables such as mushrooms or eggplant.  Additionally, you are usually provided some sides of kimchi, garlic potatoes, pickles, and other Korean delicacies which you probably do not want to know what they are!

Given that assortment, you may wonder how it is possible to match any wine with Korean BBQ! 

I have tried a number of wines with Korean BBQ previously which were ok, but not a great match for the food.  I have tried a Gewürztraminer, Semillon, and some spicy Shiraz’.  But then I realized that the secret was not to match up the wine with the meat, but rather to match it to the chili and garlic flavors which my wife, my friends and I tend to enjoy in quantity.  Therefore, we had two quite different Rieslings and a Grenanche which were all perfectly matched to the food.

While I love an aged, kerosene type of Riesling, it would not be a good match for Korean BBQ.  Korean BBQ has powerful flavors coming from the chili and garlic, but is also delicate and cooling from the leaf of lettuce and other cold side vegetable dishes.  Therefore, a younger to medium aged, crisper Riesling is far better suited.  I had about a half bottle of the 2006 Annies Lane Clare Valley Riesling from the night before and knew it would do nicely.  This was an older, richer Riesling, perfectly balanced and a joy to drink on its own and with Korean BBQ.  It still had a crisp edge to it, but had developed some complex flavors and a beautiful texture on the tongue and cheeks.  The important thing was that there was no oily taste that I often love on a Riesling when drinking it with cheese, or with certain types of seafood.

That was followed by a much younger, lighter Watervale Riesling, the 2011 Mount Horrocks.  This was a highly recommended Riesling gifted to us a few nights previously as we selected some other white wines to drink that evening.  This wine certainly lived up to its reputation!  After attacking the food with the 2006 Annies Lane, we took a breather with the much lighter Watervale Riesling.  The 2011 Mount Horrocks had a citrus lemon-lime flavor and was sustaining and refreshing at the same time.  I usually try to go from lighter whites to heavier reds during the course of a meal, but tonight we started with the heavier Riesling (primarily because it was already opened) and then onto the lighter one.  This really worked well!  It was similar to the middle movement in a symphony where you are taking a bit of a breather (an adagio or andante) between the opening usually brisk declaration (allegro) and the final movement where everything comes together in a resounding climax.  The 2011 Mount Horrock Riesling was our ‘andante’ that evening!  (And you probably were thinking I was just a wino!)

I need to consider other meal plans where I mix it up a bit like this instead of building continuously to a wine climax.  This really allowed us to pace the meal and enjoy the time we had together without ‘rushing’ my wine drinking.  (I did not even realize that I might have been doing that!)

We then finished the evening with the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache.  This grape is most often associated with the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region in France.  The Grenache grape has a smooth soft texture to it, yet still possesses good body.  To me, it combines the best elements of a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Shiraz.  I have had a number of different wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but admittedly not some of the very best (as they can be very expensive!).  One very nice bottle I had recently was the 2006 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Perrin & Fils Les Sinard with turkey, mash and gravy and it was exquisite!

There is not a lot of Grenache grown in Australia and this is the first one I have had.  I was blown away!  So smooth and far better than the medium range Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines I have had (the 2006 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Perrin & Fils Les Sinard being the exception!)  It had big, fresh fruit flavors of cherry and raspberry.  The 1850 on the bottle actually is the year the vines were planted.  These are some seriously mature and hearty vines!  I am looking forward to getting some more of this wine!

I asked previously, “What is Korean BBQ?”  It is really a cacophony of flavors going on in your mouth.  That is why I believe a Grenache or a Tempranillo goes better than a primary red grape such as a Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz with Korean BBQ.  We are more conditioned to knowing what a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Shiraz tastes like, whereas a Grenache or a Tempranillo is a discovery in new taste and therefore seems to match better with Korean BBQ.

Next time, I will try a Tempranillo unless I get my hands on more of the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache – that wine would be tough to pass on with any meal!