Paymasters Cafe provides great food and great wine

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Steve Shipley

I have been anxious to return and have a meal to order at Paymasters Cafe in Newcastle, NSW. We had a specially prepared Christmas in July meal there about six months ago which was outstanding and the wines provided by McLeish Estate winery. But I wanted to explore a broader set of options from the menu and wine list. And I am glad we did; I am not sure I have had a better meal anywhere! The entire experience was done to perfection. First of all, we were in a refurbished historic building overlooking the waterfront, the front windows opened wide, and we had a table with a magnificent view and perfect weather. This was all a real plus and set the scene, but we came for the food and wine and were not to be disappointed.

We always look for things we would not be cooking at home and there were a few entrees and mains to choose from which satisfied that requirement. We started with the best bruschetta I have ever had and DAZ in the Kitchen had Baked Camembert Cheese for an entree and a robust Spanish Style Paella for the main. I had the Beef Carpaccio for an entree and Garlic Prawns in pastry for the main. We shared a most magnificent Golden Rough Lindt Chocolate Pudding for dessert. Everything was cooked to perfection and served at just the right time and temperature.

But this is a wine blog, so let’s talk about the wine! Let me start by say this: “This is the best-valued wine list I have seen seen that fits on one page!” Paymasters Cafe wine list has been extremely well thought out and reflects the effort Executive Chef Rodney Scales puts into ensuring the dining experience is without peer. Most wines were priced between $30 – $45 per bottle, with a few exceptional wines being just under $100 per bottle. Having bought some of those wines direct from the wineries, I also know that the markup on the wines is very reasonable. There are many easier ways to build a wine list, but you can discern the effort Rodney has put in to create such an outstanding wine list. You can easily have a larger list to cover your basis, but that comes with a high capital and operating cost and lower turnover of inventory. You can buy more iconic brand name wines but are paying more and then have to pass the cost onto the customer. Rodney has worked hard to find a great variety of Australian wines from NSW, VIC, and SA plus some outstanding wines from New Zealand.

Rodney has worked to perfection a wine list that matches the food he prepares and the taste of the Australian customer. He knows and can describe every wine on the list and every food dish it pairs with well. And his food menu has a recommended wine for each dish if you do not want to try to decide which wine goes best with any dish. And most wines can be bought by the glass. I had to drive an hour home so did not want to commit to an entire bottle. Yet, I had ample choice of excellent wines by the glass to match the food we were eating. I have been to restaurants with 100’s of bottles of wine on the list that only offer less than ten wines by the glass. Paymasters Cafe offered 33 out of the 52 wines on the wine list by the glass!

I noticed in July and again last night that Rodney is a chef who works the front room as well as any chef I have met. He ensures each customer’s satisfaction and is there to watch over their experience. This compares to many good chefs I know who cannot seem to leave the kitchen, either because they have not built a good team behind them or they believe it is more important to pay attention to the food (and be their own judge of if the food is OK) than how their customers are reacting to it. I have had some great chef friends who will never make it big because they cannot escape the kitchen. Rodney spends far more time in the front room than in the back and it shows in the dining experience.

And the best part came at the end when I went to pay for dinner. The price of the meal was only 50% – 60% of what I expected to pay and have paid at other comparable restaurants. Great food and great wine at a great price point! Paymasters Cafe – without peer!

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013. Steve Shipley
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Review of 2002 Finca El Puig from Spain

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I have had this bottle of Finca El Puig lying around for a while now. I am not sure who I got it from, when or why. I was not sure of the quality of this wine, even though my first impressions is that it is quite nice. For being a decade old, the fruit is extremely lively, tasting of blackberry, boysenberry, other berries and plum. It is well structured with heavy tannins which cause a pucker with the first mouthful. The tannins are truly integrated, but strong. What really surprised me was how long it took to decant. I have never spent more time decanting any wine in my life and I have decanted several thousand bottles! Yet, there is no obvious ‘excess’ sediment. There was some sediment towards the end of the bottle while decanting, but this wine was slow to decant from the very beginning. I am guessing this wine was never filtered. It is thick and heavy – the alcohol content is 14.5%.

This 2002 Finca El Puig is very drinkable now, but I am wondering if I opened it too early. It certainly has a lot of life yet. It is a blend of Grenache, Carignan and Cabernet Sauvignon and the vines are from the Priorat region of Spain. I was a bit worried that it may not line up well with the food we are having tonight which is leftover ravioli. When we made the ravioli fresh over the weekend, we had a Chianti that suited ravioli perfectly. I was a bit worried that the Grenache would be a bit gritty and overpowering for the food. I think it will work and I will be certain of that within the hour. But this is a big, big wine and would have gone really well with a Shepherds Pie, or a dense cut of beef.

I have never heard of the Carignan grape before. In researching it (Wikipedia!), it appears to be a popular grape used in wines from the Rioja region and grown across the Mediterranean. It is valued for its high yields (this has commercial benefits, but not sure it speaks well for quality).

Overall, it is a beautiful wine; heavy, but big and fruity. I love the mouth feel sensation of a wine with heavy tannins, but this may be too much for some people. I have not been able to find many tasting notes for this wine. I did for the 2000 and the 2001 and for later vintages, but not the 2002. Yet, the 2002 vintage seems to really stand out in terms of structure and longevity. Very little seems to be known about this wine, at least this particular vintage. Other vintages have sold for between $30 – $40, but the 2002 drinks better than that. I am really enjoying this wine, even if I will need to sandblast my mouth out later this evening from the heavy tannins! Just wish I knew who gave it to me so I can thank them! Drinking this wine appears to be a single event not to be repeated.

How cooking improves your wine tasting abilities

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Through tasting more and learning more about tasting wine, I have continued to improve my wine tasting abilities and experiences. Yet, I was always surprised how many of my chef friends seemed to have a better palate than mine. I assumed it was because they were super tasters (people with significantly more taste buds and lower sensitivity to certain tastes) than me. I attributed their skills to their in-born capabilities. My wife was taking cooking lessons several years ago and I was highly supportive because I was benefiting from eating better at home. We ate better, more healthily and far less expensively now at home than when eating out (except for a few known restaurants that are among our favorites).

I decided to follow my wife’s lead and took about 10 cooking lessons myself, including a 6-part beginners course for ‘blokes,’ a knife skills lesson, a pasta making lesson, and a Christmas dinner banquet lesson (including ham and turkey). But it was really practicing making meals from beginning to end at home that opened my nose and palate to being able to smell and taste many more flavors and with greater sensitivity. What became apparent to me was importance of sauces, spices, and all the ingredients necessary to alter or enhance the flavors of the primary ingredients be they meat, fish or vegetables. Noticing what a teaspoon of paprika (or smoked paprika), saffron, chili flakes (or freshly cut chilies) or nutmeg could do to enhance flavors became noticeable. Understanding why chopped basil worked better than mint or parsley (or Spanish onions better than spring onions) in certain circumstances also became apparent.

By learning to understand and appreciate various flavors, I was able to more immediately determine when to drink a softer, more versatile wine such as a Verdelho over a Pinot Gris (or vice versus) with the meal, or a sharper, edgier wine such as a Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc worked better. What I really noticed though was that instead of being able to match up broad categories of wines with food, I was now able to much more easily ‘micro-match’ a wine style with a particular meal. I was able to determine which sub-category (young or aged Semillon, for example) and sub-style (Hunter Valley versus Barossa Valley Shiraz) and determine which wine more uniquely was a better match with food, even to the level of individual wine makers (a young Andrew Thomas Semillon versus a Tyrrell’s Johnno Semillon) and vintages.

Most people believe they are limited in their ability to taste and appreciate good wine (and often as a result, buy wine based on price, thinking a higher price is better quality), but this is simply not true. There are rare exceptions of people who were born or through a severe illness, have lost the ability to smell. However, for the most part and within usable tolerances, almost every one of us is able to with a high degree of accuracy be able to smell and taste wine. Through practice and learning, any one of us can influence our abilities to taste and enjoy wine more so than through our natural abilities. And by learning some basics of cooking and what ingredients are used to make meals, you can learn much more quickly.

“Learning to cook has improved my ability to taste wine more than any other activity over the last several years!”

My book Wine Sense helps you understand how to train and use all of your senses to improve your wine tasting experiences. But on its own, learning to cook (even a little as in my case) has greatly improved my ability to smell and taste. I am able to much more quickly identify flavors and nuances and determine why I like one wine over another with a particular meal, whereas before I would have thought they tasted pretty much the same. Do not limit your ability to enjoy wine far more than you currently do, and make learning to cook an important part of that training.

Paymasters Cafe – without Peer?

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Steve Shipley

It may be a bit of a stretch to say any restaurant is without peer, but Paymasters Cafe would be close, and I did like the play on words! We had a most delightful Christmas in July meal there recently and the food was outstanding. Rodney Scales is the head chef. What I really like about Rodney (in addition to being a great chef) is his passion, his absolute need and personal attention to make sure his customers are having a great time, and his sociability. Rodney likes to engage with his customers and is also very active on social media. Rodney took the time to show us his kitchen, his dining rooms, and even the surrounding area, while explaining the Newcastle history behind the building that ultimately become Paymasters Cafe.

We had four great meals in July around the Hunter Valley and surrounding cities such as Newcastle and Singleton. It would be a toss-up as to which one was the best. Our Christmas in July meal at Paymasters Cafe would have been number one or two along with the meal we had at Two Naughty Chooks considering the food, the ambiance, and the overall experience. I felt though that the food at Paymasters Cafe was the most approachable though in terms of a good family outing. I identified with the food and style of cooking and want to go back again and again.

Our Christmas in July meal was special. We started with several ‘beyond’ canapes including the Tourtiere Quebecois Meat Pie and the Gravalax Salmon with Toasted Saffron Brioche. These were complimented by the McLeish 2012 Dwyer Rose which was a great match. The entree was a Brined Pork Loin with Molasses Mustard Glaze, Sour Mash Sce and Apple Butter matched by the 2013 McLeish Semillon and McLeish 2011 Chardonnay. We then had a main meal assortment which included Pineapple Chipotle and Coca Cola Glazed Ham, Roast Turkey with Cranberry Sauce, and Braised Red Cabbage with Bacon. The mains were served with a 2011 McLeish Tri Moir. Dessert was Baked Walnut Stuffed Apple with McLeish Semillon Chardonnay and Polish Bowtie Fritters and Eggnog, served with the 2009 McLeish Jessica Botrytis Semillon.

The food was outstanding and I admire the adventurousness that Rodney and Jessica had in matching up the wines with the food. They bucked traditional match-ups, but the pairings worked very, very well. The meal was international with the recipes representing Europe and the Americas. What I really enjoyed though was how approachable the food and wine were. Neither required any thinking – they were just enjoyed. As my wife, DAZ in the Kitchen says, “you know it is good food and wine when it goes down before you even think about it.” And that was the case this evening.

Rodney Scales, like a few other chefs I greatly admire, is passionate about his food, his service and his experience. He started cooking early in life and worked his way up through a variety of different experiences gaining expertise and knowledge. Some of his opportunities required that he drive or train two hours each way, just for the pleasure of cooking for us! But for the last decade, he has been at Paymasters Cafe, having built a great reputation. Next time we are in Newcastle, we will be eating at Paymasters Cafe again, enjoying the great food and learning more from Rodney. If you get Newcastle way, you need to try this place and make it a regular experience. We certainly plan on it!

Great Chefs of the Hunter Valley and Surrounds

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Steve Shipley

When I was on Food in Focus several weeks ago, we were discussing how difficult it is to make a restaurant commercially successful, especially in the prolonged economic environment we currently face. Natascha Moy, our radio host, mentioned with sadness the closing of one of her favorite Sydney restaurants. We talked about how important it is for a chef to be the face of the restaurant and truly hands-on to infuse his or her passion and quality to give the restaurant every chance of success. This made me think about how those of us in the Hunter Valley are fortunate to be able to have some access to some great restaurants and superb meals by some of the finest chefs Australia has on offer.

My wife and I took two weeks vacation in early July. It was great to get away. For the most part, we took the time to cook every meal at home, had some people over for a nice meal, and really spent the time writing, learning new technology and blogging. However, we did have four meals out, all which were exceptionally good. We have a few restaurants in the Hunter Valley we frequent regularly, but none with more enthusiasm than Bistro Molines, up Mount View Road and next to Tallavera Grove winery. It has beautiful views, but most importantly is one of the few hatted restaurants in rural NSW and under the ownership of Robert and Sally Molines who are Hunter Valley icons. If we want a good meal or a special celebration, this is where we go about 80% of the time.

However, we were anxious to try a few new wineries and restaurants this trip and were able to combine both by attending two great meals hosted by McLeish Wines. We really fell in love with their 2012 Rose, 2007 Reserve Semillon (numerously awarded internationally), and the 2009 Reserve Chardonnay. Jessica McLeish, proprietress of McLeish Wines, also has a fine taste for good food and introduced us to two excellent restaurants, Two Naughty Chooks in Singleton and Paymaster’s Cafe in Newcastle. Both were outstanding restaurants with great chefs that we are certain to go back to. The meals were on back-to-back nights and were two of the best meals we ever had.

The next week, we visited Restaurant 221 in Cessnock for another outstanding meal, even though, I must admit that I had a bit of a ‘concept conflict’ with such fine dining in a pub environment. And the following day we ate lunch at the restaurant at Margan Wines in Broke.

Four new restaurants with four great head chefs (actually five as Two Naughty Chooks is a husband / wife team) which we are certain to visit again. Each restaurant and their great head chefs deserves their own write-up, so I will be writing a post on each of them over the next month or so. You may feel this has more to do with food than wine, but food and wine go together so well and each of these restaurants has a great wine list and close relationships with wineries in the region. They all have some ‘special’ wines for consumption and make every effort to provide the best food and wine dining experience available. That is why I want to introduce you to them as you deserve to know about such outstanding places to eat and they deserve your support.

I wrote a review of the great meal we had at Two Naughty Chooks already. So I will be reviewing Paymasters Cafe next and their outstanding long-term chef, Rodney Scales. We did my first ever Australian Christmas in July meal there and it was magnificent. Rodney is passionate about cooking and serving and is also well versed in social media, so feel free to connect with him and follow what he has going on in terms of upcoming events and new menu items.

A perfect food and wine match

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Steve Shipley

My wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, is making a magnificent slow cooked beef with mushrooms and barley for this evening! I have been smelling it cook for the last two hours and getting ravenous! We will have a serve of Quinoa and a light salad as sides. With such a combinations of flavors going on, we thought a nice Bordeaux style blend would go really well with this meal. I have had one bottle left of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus which I have been saving to enjoy with some friends, but we just have not been able to arrange a meal together (well, we did, but had a bottle of the 2001 Henscke Hill of Grace with that meal). Fortunately for them, we still have two bottles of the 1992 Lindeman’s Limestone Ridge which I am sure we will drink together.

The ’92 Pyrus is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. I love this blend as each flavor comes through. I have written about this wine previously, when I pulled a bottle out and we had it with soup! You can refer to that post to get a review of the wine. As with that bottle, the cork was perfect on and the sample of wine I had while decanting indicates that this is a slightly fresher and fruitier bottle than the last one we tried. It should be a perfect match for the dinner. We once again will be serving this wine in the Riedel Vimun XL Grand Cru Bordeaux glass to get maximum enjoyment from the wine. The only thing that beats a perfect food and wine match is the same thing, but serving the wine in a Riedel glass! I discuss the benefits of using proper glassware and taste in my upcoming wine book at some length. For a synopsis on why proper glassware is important, review my previous post on Riedel glassware.

This meal and wine will be special. I am sorry we could no longer save our last bottle for dear friends, but we have more than enough ‘last’ bottles to share with them – more than we can find time to drink them all. So it was with some regret, but more excitement that we opened our last bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to match our wonderful beef dinner this evening.

Now that Daz in the Kitchen has rebuilt her computer and is catching up from helping me with a number of technical and publishing issues, she should be able to get a post with the recipe out soon. In fact, she just wrote the post with the recipe, and I am sharing with you here.

While you are unlikely to find a bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to go with this meal, any good Bordeaux blend or a blend such as the Rosemount Traditional should work just fine. Just make sure it is a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend and optionally either Malbec or Cabernet Franc. A Shiraz blend or a GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mouvedre) is likely to be too heavy.

SAZ in the Cellar speaking on Food in Focus tomorrow

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I will be speaking again about wine on Food in Focus, the great radio talk show about food and wine, hosted by Natascha Moy. Tomorrow, we will be discussing chocolate and spices and the wines that match well with them. As always, it should be a great show.

The show starts at 4 pm Sydney, Australia time. To find out how to listen via the air waves or over the Internet, just check out Food in Focus! I love doing this show – it is always fun and educational. Reviews of some of the previous shows I have been on earlier can be found on my old blog site for the show of 18 May, 2013, 19 January, 2013, and 10 November, 2012. Join us if you can, and if not, read about it here next week!

Magnificent Meal with McLeish Estate Wines

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Steve Shipley

We are spending two weeks in the Hunter Valley and really enjoying it. We have taken the opportunity to cook every meal so far and have plans to cook most of our meals while here. However, we are excited to participate in two McLeish Estate wine tastings. The first one was this evening at Two Naughty Chooks Restaurant and Wine Bar at 130 John Street, Singleton, NSW and the other will be tomorrow evening at Paymasters Cafe in Newcastle. Both are hosted by McLeish Estate wines.

Brook and Wayne Dermody are the husband and wife team and co-chefs at Two Naughty Chooks Restaurant and Wine Bar. The food truly caught us by surprise – it was magnificent! And working together with Jessica McLeish of McLeish Wines, we had a perfect pairing of food and wine. We also bought some real truffles and other truffle-related products. (Tomorrow morning for breakfast we will be having scrambled eggs with truffles – yum!)

Bob and Maryanne McLeish have been working the vineyard since 1985, and all grapes are sourced from their own vineyards. They have a premium parcel of land between Broke Road and De Beyers Road and the quality of their grapes shows in the quality of their wines. Their daughter, Jessica, is part of the wine making team along with Andrew Thomas, one of Australia’s best known winemakers. The McLeish family and Andrew Thomas make a formidable team and I am certainly interested in trying more of their wines year-in and year-out.

We started the evening drinking a Sparkling Chardonnay and a Sparkling Shiraz with an assortment of great canapes. Then we sat down for a four-course degustation with perfectly matching wines. The first course was a Jerusalem artichoke soup with scallop, bacon, Hazelnuts and crispy artichoke. We drank a 2013 McLeish Estate Semillon (bottled only four weeks prior) and the 2009 McLeish Estate Semillon. Both wines went extremely well with the soup. The 2013 Semillon was fresh and very alive on the palate, with citrus and pineapple flavors, while the 2009 Semillon possessed a smoother mouth feel and was more integrated and balanced due to its maturity.

Jessica describing the Semillons

We then had the Confit chicken with mushroom and truffle. Among so many other great foods during the evening, it is impossible to pick out a standout dish, but if one had to chose, this would be it. And the matching wine was the 2009 McLeish Estate Reserve Chardonnay. This was also the stand-out wine of the evening and we are swinging by McLeish Estate in the next several days to get a dozen or so bottles. The 2009 McLeish Estate Reserve Chardonnay drank like a Montrachet. It had a mineral, wet stone taste representative of Chassagne Montrachet and lemon flavors. It also still had a good amount of acid and should cellar and improve with age over the next decade or so.

The main course was beef cheeks with celeriac, broad beans, pickled cabbage and Enoki mushrooms with a matching 2010 McLeish Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. The bouquet was amazing. This wine was drinkable now, with big fruity, jammy flavors, tasting of blackberries. It was alive on the palate. This drink was surprisingly good for a Hunter Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

We also had the 2010 McLeish Estate Shiraz and the 2009 McLeish Estate Jessica Botytis Semillon with an assortment of desserts. The Shiraz was big and both fruity and spicy, typical of a Hunter Valley Shiraz. It possessed boysenberry and plum flavors.

While both red wines were very drinkable today, the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Shiraz had decent tannins and I am certain each wine will improve significantly over time. You should buy some now to sit down in the cellar for a few years! And the 2009 Jessica was luscious, with a creamy, yet refined mouth feel. It had both melon and honey flavors and was a bit sweet, but not too sweet.

The evening overall was magical with a great crowd, great chefs, food and service and of course, great wines. Jessica McLeish is typical of someone in the Australian wine industry in that she is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about her wine, yet is one of the friendliest people around and willing to share her knowledge with anyone else who is interested (like me!).

And to think we get to repeat the experience (with a different line-up of McLeish Estate wines) tomorrow again at Paymasters Cafe. Looking forward to it! Then back to cooking on our own!

The jury is in on Shiraz with pork!

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Many of you are aware of my recent experiment of having an elegant Shiraz with a pork fillet, mash, gravy and vegetables the other evening. The meal on its own was magnificent and so was the wine. The combination of the two together was adequate, but not perfect. The 15-year-old Shiraz was made in a less heavy style than many other Shiraz’ and had soften quite a bit with time. Yet, it was still too powerful and overwhelming for the pork. I love to co-mingle perfectly matched food and wine, but the Shiraz over-powered the food in this case. I needed to take several minutes of palate resting between bites of food and sips of wine to really enjoy both on their own.

So in the case of a good pork fillet in the future, it will be back to Pinot Noir for the most part. However, I was reminded by RAP (a blog viewer and commenter), that another beautifully styled wine to match up with pork is a GSM blend. GSM is common wine terminology for Grenache, Shiraz, and Mouvredre (often called Mataro also). This blend works beautifully with pork, and I have even written about this as a possibility previously. This was a superb suggestion RAP! The GSM blend is softer and more of an old world style that works well with a pork fillet. There is a lot going on in this blend and it is quite complex in terms of the primary and secondary flavors coming through. Yet, it does not overpower pork.

Another mate suggested that if a meal does not match well with the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz, well then just throw out the meal! This may be a bit extreme, but he does have something in the Vat 9 being a meal on its own!

After the meal, I did indulge in a couple of pieces of Lindt Chili Chocolate which does match perfectly with Shiraz. The chili infusion in the chocolate provides some power to match the power of a good Shiraz. So it was a very good evening of food eating and wine drinking, but in the future, it will be even better by drinking a Pinot Noir or GSM when serving pork.

1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz – will it work with pork?!

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I am experimenting this evening by opening a Shiraz to go with pork fillet, mash, vegetables and gravy. Usually I would play it safe and go with a good Pinot Noir for this meal. It is difficult to find a much better food / wine matching combination than a Pinot Noir with pork!

But I really wanted to try another bottle of the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 as it is a superb wine and at 15 years of age, I needed to check it out to make sure (that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it!) it will cellar for a while yet as I have about a ten bottles left. I don’t want to wait too long, but I do want to pace drinking this wine over the next several years or longer if I can. I would hate to wait too long and have it go off, as it is drinking very well now, but I am hoping to make it last as long as I can.

I have a great deal of respect for James Halliday and subscribe to his wine service. But he missed the mark when evaluating this wine as he gave it an 86/100 and said to drink it by 2008. This wine is still very big, yet elegant, with lively fruit, tasting of blackberry with light overtones of spice and leather. It is well integrated, and nicely balanced with strong tannins. The finish is moderate to long, and you can feel the accumulated tannins on the inside of your cheeks for a long time. This is an excellent wine, regardless of how Halliday and others scored it.

I had this wine as one of my three red wines at my 58th birthday party over two years ago. This was the first red, followed by the 2001 Yalumba Octavius Shiraz and the 1981 Penfolds Grange. All three red wines were spectacular, but the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 got the consensus vote for the best red wine of the evening. It could be that it was the sequencing and by the time we drank the 1981 Penfolds Grange, we were over-satiated. Or it could be that the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 is just that good!

So why is having a Shiraz a risk with pork? It is because a Hunter Valley (and many other) Shiraz’ are heavier and spicier than most Pinot Noirs and could overwhelm the pork and side dishes. But the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 is an elegant, more refined Shiraz than many others. I know it will be fine with the pork dinner and wanted to see if it works to provide some variety from always using a Pinot Noir with pork. If not, I will go back to Pinot Noir! But if you don’t try, you will never know!

I have also had this wine with spaghetti and it worked very well. My wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, makes a very fine and spicy spaghetti and the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 matched up extremely well with it. This is a versatile Shiraz! Andrew Thomas made this wine while still at Tyrrell’s and I remember talking to Andrew about it several years ago and the fond memories he had for this particular vintage.

On its own, this is a great wine (I know as I am on my second glass while writing this) and it should be fine with the meal. I will let you know in a follow-up blog post how it works with the pork. And once I finish off the last of my 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9, I will move onto the 2007 Tyrrells’ Vat 9. In fact, I will probably try my first bottle this weekend or next to see how it goes. Halliday rated the 2007 Vat 9 at 95/100 and drinkable until 2025. Campbell Mattinson rated it 96/100 and as one of the best reds released in 2010/11. This must be an amazing wine! But for now, I am drinking the 1998 and greatly enjoying it.

SAZ in the Cellar

Wine appreciation and enjoyment

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