Manky Cherries Are A Thing

Wine gets better with age - right? Right? Anyone? Taste is such a personal thing and aged wine sometimes bring characters to them that don't always ring bells for me. The key to the recipe is tannins. Tannins those elusive compounds that apparently make wine the bees knees.

Spanish Tinto

These large complex compounds that are drawn from the wine skins as well as the barrels during maturation are anti-oxidant in nature. You know? the healthy antioxidant.

During the maturation process the tannin compounds will slowly chew up the interesting characters that make a young wine, a young wine. The purple colours and fresh fruit characters.

With their antioxidant effect, the tannins will oxidise these delicate flavours and colours, giving way to the underlying red colour and savoury flavours.

And that is an aged wine. 

Now the Spanish Tinto I tried recently received the following review;

         Well that was a challenging wine.

         Manky cherries, sock-it-to-ya oak 

         spewing out the anise and a slippery 

      acidity to clean it up. One for the wine fans

 #notthattheresanythingwrongwiththat

So if we get serious for one moment, let's translate my dodgy words into a serious tasting note describing this 9 year old wine. And below is a tasting note from the Importer Echelon Wines as a young wine.

Tasting Note:

With a slightly smelly nose that disappears with decanting, the wine is dominated by a slightly over ripe cherry character, followed by a star anise, licorice strongly reflecting new oak that once blended in with the delicate fresh fruit characters. The savoury finish and fine delicate tannins, that sneaks in the end is balanced off with a fresh bright acidity that makes this still a great food wine.

Echelon Wines - 2011
Deep red in colour with purple hues, the VT displays a nose of blackberry, lively spicy fruits, currants, and freshly sawn wood notes. The upfront lifted red fruit palate presents exciting and fun licorice flavors with elegant tannins and a well balanced acid structure.

Is it better? For me no. But for many it is; but the key most importantly is that it is different and that is the joy of wine. Diversity in style, the variation and the unpredictability.  Enjoy.

A New Year Resolution

Of course a New Year's resolution is meant to be broken; after all what would the human frailty be without failure.

The origin of a New Year's resolution is murky at best, but my suspicions are that it was born of some futile Victorian Era piety. Those guys were party poopers if ever there was a generation to dampen things.

None the less, my endeavour is the write some more. I enjoy the research aspect of writing. Pulling together ideas that may produce a coherent and engaging narrative. A narrative that people will freely invest their time in. 

Ideas don't come easily nor freely and most certainly not chronologically. They take time to ferment and stew and are utterly obvious to deadlines; implied or imposed. But with some inspiration from the Spanish lateral thinker, Picasso I push on to hone this craft. For those looking for similar inspiration you can find some of his insights at Brain Pickings here. 

And my final thoughts on the subject come from this simple saying I discovered recently. I actually had it said to me firmly this year. It is necessary occasionally, but I do wish for enough energy for it to come from within, rather than have it pointed out. Be careful what you wish for? 

So... proceed 2015.

Underrated Get A Leg Up

Most wine buffs have a region that they adore; but feel the wine styles or region itself don't receive the recognition it deserves. For me...? Queensland's Granite Belt.

A district that has been producing wine for over 40 years and yet often suffers from old growing pains undeservedly. In my opinion, more a reflection of the state of public perception rather than reality.

This week, James Halliday's 'The Wine Companion', features the Granite Belt. Check out the article here. 

I hope you find a producer that will be your new favourite.

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Many people are coming to the realisation that we live in an era of convenience and getting away from our roots of food production. For me, this issue set in when I left the food production industry in 1997 for. My concern was that too many people were leaving regional areas and we were seeing rationalization of industries like dairy production. This led to factories around the country being shut down and effectively closing down small towns as a consequence.

Newcastle City Farmers Markets

By the early 2000's there seemed to be an early movement in the "Tree Change" concept with communities rediscovering the love of their region and investing in ventures like wineries and cheese factories, farmers markets and boutique ventures that brought people to visit. It was the birth of food tourism. 

Along with this development of regional food, we also saw to rise of the Television celebrity chef and the continued promotional of regional food.  With this process now coming into the mainstream with shows like "Masterchef", "My Kitchen Rules" and even the personal favourite, The Great Australian Bake Off, the joy of home cooking has meant a proliferation of small produce markets and importantly a diversification of farming revenue streams. My local is the Newcastle City Farmers Markets which are held each Sunday at the Newcastle Show Grounds. The diversity of regional produce is outstanding. 

On the home garden angle, this historically been left to pensioners with time on their hands and to the conspiracy theorists believing there is an end of the world not far around the corner. Around  1999 with all of the guf about Y2K computer issues, the stocking up of cans in the pantry didn't seem unreasonable.

Bees doing their thing on the citrus blossom

Forums like Instagram and Twitter are wonderful environments to share the love of growing food. While it may seem fashionable it doesn't take away from the self satisfaction of producing your own goods that you have made with your own labour and just a drop of sweat. 

Eating produce in season is the result of this process and it certainly forces you to change your approach to cooking. The need to stay with a given product for a month or even two, but cook with variety, is a challenge that brings diversity to the cooking repertoire. 

This past month has seen a concerted effort to use all of my lemons in a vast array without putting thins in jars. Verdict? Enjoyed the strawberries, lemon mouse in puff pastry, topped with roasted almonds.

Lost For Words

Calliope was the most important of the nine Greek Muses of mythology.

The Muse of great epics.

That is all.

Heritage Lost

A cellar door environment is such an amazing place to meet a diversity of people. In a place like the Hunter Valley you are  always likely to meet people who work in the mining industry and those that you meet a most likely to be at a relatively high level in the organisation.

Discussion almost always politely leads towards the balance of mining and agriculture. Sometimes I am cheeky enough to discuss environmental rehabilitation programs; always a favourite, because of course as soon as you discuss water table protection and soil profile you get a change of subject - heritage lost.

The Hunter Valley is a place of heritage lost from many different perspectives as I am certain many of the Dairy Industry could tell you. From a miners perspective, there is much money being spent to demonstrate that co-habitation with agriculture is viable long term; go to the NSW Miners Page for more information.

The corporate raiders who make decisions on our lifestyle come from many different fronts and many different eras. For a look at wine rationalization during the 20th century one only needs to look at the treatment of the Lindemans name by companies like the cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, followed by corparate winemakers, Southcorp.

This story is best articulated by the "Best Wine Under $20" webpage; the article is titled "Death by a Thousand Cuts".

And to finish on a positive note, heritage is never lost when passionate families get behind their own region and invest for the long term. There is a no better example of this than the Tyrrell family, headed by Bruce Tyrrell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz_084MGzPM.

Alternate Grape Varieties

                       

Of all the subjects on wine that I have researched over the years, this paraphrased article from the 1st Century AD historian Pliny The Elder proves one thing. As humans, we remember little and we learn from nothing. Harsh, but please humour my little academic exercise in what are alternative wine varieties.

                        I cannot sufficiently express my astonishment, that some  

                        grape varieties and even their names have become totally 

                        extinct, and lost to history; while some varieties written 

                        about by various authors, have wholly disappeared from

                        modern production.

                       Despite the loss of these ancient varieties, who does not 

                       readily admit that with modern communication methods 

                       we have made a rapid progress in access to an incredible 

                       array of new alternative wine styles and varieties to enjoy? 

                       Pliny The Elder - Natural History Encyclopedia (79 AD)

                     

CHAP. 1 —THE NATURE OF THE VINE. ITS MODE OF FRUCTIFICATION.

Pliny The Elder - Wikipedia

One of the most well known wine quotes of Pliny is the phrase "In Vino Veritas" which is often translated to "in wine there is truth". Another translation which is perhaps more accurate and perhaps intended is, "Drinking wine leads to the truth".