Archive for May, 2009
Shake it baby – shake it!
Is it a marketing gimmick or real added value to the wine?
I came across a new technique to be applied before drinking wine from McLaren Vale’s Mollydooker Wines. Mollydooker is actually an Australian term for left-hander and the winery has enjoyed tremendous success in the US with high alcoholic wines.
The latest recommendation to their clients is to shake their high alcoholic wines before drinking. They even make it a marketing thing out of it by having a link on their website to do the shake properly.
Here they explain that they are in fact placing “a little extra inert nitrogen gas as a natural preservative to protect the wine from oxidation”, by doing the shake you release the nitrogen gas to get the full flavour again. I guess we have to try it out to understand whether it works.
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Eine neue Technik nach dem Oeffnen ihrer Weine empfiehlt Mollydooker Wines aus McLaren Vale. Mit Hilfe des richtigen Schuettelns werden Gase frei gesetzt und der richtige Geschmack kann sich bestens entfalten. Ich habe es noch nicht probiert, aber die sehr alkoholreichen Weine sind derzeit ein grosser Erfolg in den USA.
Australia’s young wine regions in the news: New England in NSW
A few years ago it was decided that it was fundamental to the organisation and development of the Australian wine industry to create wine zones, wine regions and sub-regions throughout the country. Following the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, Australia has its vineyards spread throughout a total of 62 designated wine regions totaling 170,000 hectares.
Cool climate vineyard
Internationally known are the classic wine regions such as the Barossa and Yarra Valley or McLaren Vale. Our aim here at downunderwines is to introduce to you a number of smaller and mostly newer regions over the coming months. Let us start with a region that was officially established on 23 January 2008 – the New England Wine Region.
This region is an inland district in northern New South Wales, situated at the top of the Great Dividing Range. It has a mild alpine climate and four distinct seasons. The winemakers are still trying to find out, which varieties will be most successful, however, the typical cool climate varieties seem to be doing well, such as Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Noir as well as Riesling.
Although officially only a bit more than a year old, the area is in fact a re-emerging wine region as early settlers planted their own wine already in the 1850s. Between 1870 and 1920 wines from New England won quite a few awards at wine shows in Sydney, London, the US and France.
What is fascinating is the climate of this large region, obviously strongly influenced by its elevation. It ranges from 404m in and around Tamworth to the New England Plateau where vineyards grow at 900m around Glenn Innes in the Great Dividing Range. High altitude, cooler nights, snow in winter and still only two hours inland from the sub-tropical north coast of NSW.
It will be interesting to see, how winemakers in these new areas will try to distinguish themselves from the bigger and better known regions. One of the suggested differentiators will be the use of new, almost unique varieties such as Arneis, Gewurztraminer or Tempranillo.
This week we have tried a wine from Topper’s Mountain Wines – a winery with first plantings from 2000 and 2002. They are trying out quite a few new varieties and we opted for the 2005 topper’s Mountain Traminer – a Gewurztraminer following a truly traditional German style. Typical for this style is the toastal floral aroma of Jasmine. The scent of Turkish Delight makes Michael think of his home country Germany, the wine itself lacks a bit in length which shows that this is a wine that will need a few more years of work.
Gewurztraminer is a difficult variety but has the potential to be outstanding in a few years time and therefore become a good differentiation for Topper Mountain Wines. And this is what wine from Australia is also about: having a go at new varieties in new regions.
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Downunderwines bringt ihnen in den kommenden Monaten Berichte zu den weniger bekannten Weinregionen Australiens. Wir beginnen mit der Region New England, die erst seit Januar 2008 eine der 62 offiziell anerkannten Weinregionen hier Down Under ist. Wichtiges Differenzierungskriterium fuer die neuen Weingegenden ist die Verwendung unbekannterer Weinreben, wir haben in dieser Woche einen Gewurztraminer aus dem Jahr 2005 getestet.
