Everything Is Go Astro Bunny

Everything is Go Astro Bunny

The last story in the series on wine labels; we look at a light-hearted but serious project by British Master of Wine Tim Wildmann. 


Project:  Fly to Australia, make a wine on a budget, with a deadline, get on a plane back to England - GO!


Astro Bunny is a project to produce as Tim puts it;
" A wine that has had its primary fermentation interrupted by bottling thereby rendering it naturally (naturel) sparking (pétillant) in the bottle".
Definition: Pétillant Naturel. (origin Fr.) abbrv. pet nat.





So have fun and dissect this 4 part story of wine made naturel:


Harvest Time in Australia

http://pet-nat.com/astrobunny/picking-it-2/

The easy step? - Winemaking

http://pet-nat.com/astrobunny/making-it/

What's In A Name

http://pet-nat.com/astrobunny/testing-it/

Sell, Sell Sell!

http://pet-nat.com/astrobunny/the-story-of-astro-bunny-2014/

Tim Wildman's Bio from webpage:

Tim Wildman is a British born MW who runs his own portfolio wine business involving travel, education and film.Tim became a Master of Wine in 2008 with a Dissertation on Australian wine, which is his professional speciality. You can read Tim’s Dissertation here 

He was awarded the Robert Mondavi Memorial prize for the highest score in Theory and his Dissertation achieved the highest pass mark in his year.With a background in teaching as well as wine Tim has helped dozens of MW students over the years to achieve their goals through his private tuition classes.

Tim has two travel companies specialising in wine tourism. James Busby Travel is a B2B company that takes wine trade professionals from around the world on educational tours to Australia.

Vineyard Safaris offers premium one day wine tours for private individuals and small groups in Australia

Tim is one half of film company Green-Shoot that provides wineries and wine companies with video content and integrated digital media solutions

He writes a monthly column for Australia’s Wine Business Magazine and prefers analogue to digital, in both music and wine. He divides his time between Europe and Australia

State Of Origin - NSW Wine Vintage

With vintage well and truly done, it is time for a bit of review from Andrew Thomas at Thomas Wines via Gourmet Traveler Wine.

For the full article check it out here.

Mike Bennie takes us on a tour of NSW’s wine regions, talking to winemakers about the 2013 red vintage. 

Andrew Thomas, Winemaker, Thomas Wines, Hunter Valley
"Well, despite some challenging conditions with all that nasty weather up north, we've actually come through relatively unscathed," says the affable Andrew Thomas of Thomas Wines. "It seems much of New South Wales didn't get smashed by rain and talking to winemakers around the area, everyone is extremely happy with the quality of the reds this year," he qualifies. This comes off the back of the red wine disaster in the Hunter Valley in 2012, where summer seemed to pass unnoticed, quashed by incessant rain.

Thomas, affectionately known as Thommo by most in the wine community, says that red wines from 2013 offer respite. "This year it's so good to have high quality reds in the house - I am pretty impressed. I talked to people in the supermarket or pub, winemakers like Jim Chatto, Mike De Iuliis and PJ Charteris, and everyone is punching the air and saying it's all looking great."

So why the turn around in 2013 for red wines of New South Wales? "Well, a lot of it comes down to vineyard management, pedigree of vineyard, vineyards we hear about that might have that something special to get them over the line," explains Thomas. "It also comes down to crop levels, anything that was too big a crop struggled to get ripe. We go through and thin down anything that looks on the higher side."...

The Hunter, of course, still holds Thomas' biggest interest for red wines. "The contemporary style of Hunter Valley shiraz is more fruit driven with aromatic vibrancy and it's elegant, medium bodied and savoury," he says. "Across a lot of New South Wales we've seen producers following this lead with unforced wines which are ticking the authentic-to-region box, which is something often overlooked." Thomas cites Clonakilla, particularly Tim Kirk's work with shiraz, as iconic wine of New South Wales. He also elevates Canberra District producers Ravensworth, Nick O'Leary and Alex McKay as "doing great stuff with red grapes". He earmarks Winburndale, Chalkers Crossing, and Lowe from Mudgee as heirs apparent.