Wine Cellar
Aged Pinot Noir – does this work?
Am vergangenen Sonntag habe ich in dem Tiefen meines Weinkellers zwei Kisten Wignalls Pinot Noir 2005 entdeckt. Ein wenig erschrocken ob dieses Fundes, habe ich mich sofort gefragt: Pinot Noir, der ein paar Jahre gelagert wurde, ja geht denn das überhaupt?
2005 Wignalls Pinot Noir 
Da half es also alles nichts: wir mussten umgehend ein paar Flaschen öffnen. Meine erste Sorge des ‘Korkens’ war schnell aus dem Weg geräumt: Wignalls nutzt wie fast alle fortschrittlichen Wineries in Australien den Schraubverschluss, ohne Korken keinen verkorkten Wein. Too easy!
Wignalls ist ein kleiner familiengeführter Betrieb in der Albany Region, also an der Südküste von Western Australia gelegen. Das dortige Klima ist recht einzigartig, denn die dortigen Tage sind für WA recht kühl und die Nächte maritim warm. Und als Pionier der Pinot Noirs in WA gab es schon Anfang der 90er Jahre Pinots von Wignalls.
Mein 2005er hat die letzten Jahre gut überstanden, seine Nase verspricht dunkle Waldfrüchte, sein weicher und voller Abgang ist geradezu typisch für die Pinot Noirs aus WA, schliesslich gibt es dort nicht gar so viele Winzer, die diese Rebsorte anbauen.
‘Kurzfristiges Kellern wird den geneigten Investor sehr zufriedenstellen’ steht auf dem Label, dem ist nichts mehr hinzuzufügen.
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I bought two cases of Wignalls Pinot Noir a few years ago and kind of forgot about them in my wine cellar. When I discovered them last Sunday, an instant question popped up in my head: aged Pinot Noir – does this work?
It certainly does, the 2005 Wignalls Pinot Noir is still a standout of this variety coming from WA. The unique micro climate of the vineyard, the 2005 year being outstanding and the fermentation techniques of this winemaker, who is the pioneer for Pinot Noirs in Western Australia – it all adds up and makes this wine a great sample.
Michael Brecht
Trade tour – tell us the secrets of the vineyard
Sommeliers, Köche und Restaurantbesitzer sind glückliche Menschen in Australien. Sie erhalten zunehmend Einladungen zu sog. trade-show events, das ist nichts anderes als die Möglichkeit, im Weinberg vom Winzer und seiner Mannschaft mehr über die Weine zu erlernen.
Trade tour in the vineyard
Paul Quirico von Tertini Wines führte uns durch die malerisch gelegenen Weinberge am Rande der Joadja Road in den Southern Highlands. Während die beiden Kelpies die in den Netzen eingeschlossenen Papageien jagden, erfuhren wir einige der Geheimnisse von Paul, grösster Erfolg der Tertini’s ist der Anbau der Arneis Traube, eine cool climate Variante aus Italien, die nur von einer Handvoll Wineries in Australien angebaut wird.
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Paul and the Arneis grape
I recently joined an invitation to a trade-show event happening right in the vineyard in the Southern Highlands.
It turned out to be a rather fascinating day out with the winemaker. Paul Quirico from Tertini Wines helped us understand the complexities of growing cool climate grapes on 700m altitude. His most successful ‘product’: the Arneis variety – cultivated only by a handful of wineries Down Under.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Orange Wine Week – you’re only in it when you are based on 600m plus altitude
From the 16th to 25th of October 2009 Orange wine enthusiasts celebrate their wine week consisting of 10 days with close to 100 events showcasing the district. Whether wine, food, music, sport or arts, there is a lot to do in this time.
Wine week in Orange
Orange winemakers claim to make wine that people like to drink, this is at least the comment I get most when travelling through the region and visiting its many cellar doors.
Orange is considered cool climate with an altitude from 600m to about 1,000 metres and the night temperatures dropping to quite pleasant levels even in the sometimes extremely warm summer months.
Don’t even try to call your wines from ‘Orange’ if your grapes grow under 600m altitude. The ‘climbing’ and ‘rolling hills’ story of Cumulus wines confirms this story nicely, we’ll report on this in a separate post.
Rain closing in
But the local winemakers also claim that the soil plays a major role too: there is the volcanic basalt of the old volcano on Canobolas (the views frrom there are the more impressive when rain is in sight) or the red-brown clay in some other parts, the Orange region provides very rich and fertile grounds for the vines to thrive on.
Winemakers such as Philip Shaw with his Koomooloo Vineyard, the famous Printhie Wines with winemaker Drew Tuckwell or Stephen and Rhonda Doyle as two of the pioneers of the Orange wine region: they all came to produce outstanding wines and their highlights so far have been their whites: Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. The latter is claimed in Orange’s prospectus for the wine week as ‘the hero variety with international recognition’.
I will check out on this in the coming days, as our spring family holiday leads us to this wine region – so far pretty undiscovered by myself. I am also told to watch out for the cool climate stars Pinot Noir and Shiraz – well it will be a pleasure to start the discovery.
The time is ripe, as James Halliday’s guide descibes the 2009 vintage from Orange as ‘a memorable vintage for some, especially reds: whites good with volumes down 10%’. Let’s see what the next days bring.
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Ich befinde mich in Orange – einer Region im westlichen NSW – keine 5 Stunden von Sydney entfernt. Hier haben sich grosse Namen wie Philip Shaw, Drew Tuckwell oder das Doyle Ehepaar angesiedelt, um hier ihre Weine anzubauen. Sie werden ergaenzt um eine ganze Serie an kleineren Wineries, die zwischen 1,000 und 5,000 Dutzend im Jahr abfuellen und meist komplett vermarkten.
Ich freue mich auf diesen Besuch, denn die hiesigen cool climate Weissen und inzwischen auch Pinot Noirs und Shiraz gelten als Geheimtips Australiens in diesem Jahr. Begleiten Sie mich auf dieser Reise durch eine der jungen Weingegenden Australiens.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Why not take a Chilean wine instead – soll’s nicht besser ein Chilene sein?
In den vergangenen Wochen habe ich auf meiner Reise durch Deutschland viele Weinhändler besucht, ich habe die grossen Supermarktketten frequentiert und diverse Weinkataloge studiert.
Australische Weine im Regal
Das Ergebnis meiner Recherche ist die überzeugung, dass Deutschland von ganz wenigen australischen Lieferanten bedient wird und dass das Gros der Weine in deutschen Regalen mit der Weinsituation Down Under nicht viel gemein hat.
Ich habe ja bereits mehrere Artikel zu der Situation in deutschen Supermaerkten geschrieben, die Reaktionen auf posts wie ‘Low Cost – low profile‘ waren teils recht heftig. Mehrere Konsumenten verurteilten meine Sicht auf die australischen ‘Chateau Migraines’ in den Regalen der Supermaerkte als snobistisch – es muss doch auch für wenige Euro gute Weine geben, war deren Kritik.
Dieser Aussage stehe ich keineswegs negativ gegenüber – auch ich habe bei Aldi schon gute Weine erworben, allerdings nicht aus Australien.
Die australischen Weine, die wir Konsumenten im deutschen Einzelhandel präsentiert bekommen, haben leider sehr sehr wenig nur mit dem Angebot zu tun, welches wir in Australien selbst vorfinden. Die Präsentation eines armseligen Chardonnays von Penfolds im Kaufhof als einzigem australischen Weisswein ist ein unrühmliches Beispiel für diesen Mangel an Vielfalt.
Weinhaendler in Koeln Marienburg
Der auf die gehobenere Kundschaft zielende deutsche Einzelhandel ist auch nicht viel besser: Jacques Weindepot in der feinen Kölner Marienburg beispielsweise führt zwei (2!!!) australische Weissweine im Programm, ein Billigprodukt von Penfolds und einen Hardy’s Weissen fuer unter 10 Euro.
Nein meine Aussage ist: so lange wir in den Regalen der Kaufhofs und Jacques Weindepots keine grössere Vielfalt bekommen, so lange dürfen wir uns nicht wundern, dass Weine aus Chile, Argentinien oder Kalifornien einen hoeheren Stellenwert im Geschmacksmuster deutscher Weintrinker bekommen. Schade eigentlich.
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Australian wine in Germany’s retail is hard to find, under represented and losing market share as its image is eroding fast. One Australian white wine in Kaufhof’s department store, two of them in a higher-end retailer Jacques Weindepot don’t represent the breadth of Australian white wine culture, even the consumer wanting to buy Australian wine has trouble doing so. Australian wine in Germany’s retail – this isn’t a success story.
Michael Brecht
Rockpool’s Bar and Grill wine list on top with 3,500 different wines in the cellar
Rockpool wins best wine list 2010
Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine has named the top honours for restaurants and bars at the 2010 Restaurant Awards here Down Under this week. Sydney’s Rockpool Bar and Grill has the top winelist in the country, a great and well deserved result.
Australia’s Star Chef Neil Perry and his business partners, Trish Richards and David Doyle were thrilled with these awards and commended the restaurant’s dedicated wine team, consisting of Nicole Reimers (Wine List Consultant) and Sophie Otton (Head Sommelier) who, with Doyle, were responsible for creating the list that features over 3,500 different wines.
Representing an investment of $9 million, Doyle has spent over 20 years amassing the core of the restaurant’s extraordinary wine list.“We believe that enjoyment of wine is a key aspect of the Rockpool Bar & Grill experience and in order to provide our diners with enough choice among the world’s best wines, we have assembled what they believe to be one of the best wine lists in the world,” says Doyle.
Let us reflect on these numbers: it would take me almost 10 years, if I would frequent Rockpool Bar and Grill daily and chose a different bottle of wine each time! My bank manager would most likely stop me doing that after the first couple of weeks, so there is a limited risk for me to drink this much in the years to come.
The oldest bottle stems from 1795 with 32 selections of Penfolds Grange as the major highlight of fine Australian wines. For those who can afford to dine out in Rockpool’s art deco skyscraper we can confirm: the list includes expensive rare and fine wines as well as less expensive and still drinkable reds and whites. Apparently about 10% of the wine on the list cost less than $100 – to be honest, we haven’t counted them (yet).
Congratulations to the Rockpool team for taking the prize this year, their first since opening in early 2009.
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Sydney’s hippest Restaurant in diesen Tagen ist das Rockpool Bar & Grill, seine Weinkarte erhielt dieser Tage die Auszeichnung: Best Australian Wine List. 3.500 Weine aus allen Teilen dieser Welt wurden von Star-Chef Neil Perry und seinen Geschaeftspartnern gesammelt und hier gelagert, ein Investment von ca. $9 Millionen.
Wir gratulieren dem Rockpool Bar & Grill und empfehlen Ihnen den Blick auf Weinkarte bei Ihrem naechsten Besuch in der pulsierenden Metropole Down Under. Sydney hat mit dieser Weinkarte einen klaren kulinarischen Vorteil im Staedteduell mit Melbourne – fuer dieses Jahr zumindest.
A new sparkling Chardonnay from DogRidge – we love that pup
Before leaving to Germany for our summer holidays we were able to try a new sparkling coming out of McLaren Vale. Introduced as ‘The Pup’, one of the first bottles out of DogRidge’s cellar arrived on our doorstep and we couldn’t resist opening it on the night. It was also the birthday of our dog, so we thought that the occasion was appropriate.
Sparkling Chardonnay from DogRidge
Wine maker Fred Howard this time delivers a sparkling Chardonnay with the best match of variety, vineyard and terroir.
The resealable top allows you to save a sip for later, if you really have to: Peel – Lift – Reseal – the three magic words for this excellent closure of your bottle. It is the first time I have used this seal, it was as easy as with the only open question for us remaining, whether the seal really works. Why: we simply drank the sparkling on the night and therefore didn’t have any leftovers to be sealed for the night.
The official release date of this sparkling is the 1st of August – so you have to be a bit patient before trying it out yourselves.
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The Pup – oder ein neuer Welpe kommt aus dem Hause DogRidge aus McLaren Vale. Wir hatten das Vergnuegen eine der ersten Flaschen zu testen, weit vor dem offiziellen Startdatum, dem 1. August. Ein herrlich frischer Australian Sparkling, frisch, fruchtig und ideal fuer den schoenen Sommerabend mit ein paar Freunden auf der Terasse. ‘Der Pup’ kommt in einer Flasche mit neuem wiederverschliessbaren Verschluss, ‘Peal – Lift – Reseal’ sind die magischen Worte – letztlich benoetigten wir diesen Komfort nicht, denn wir tranken die Flasche an jenem Abend komplett aus.
Also: ab dem 1.8. im australischen Einzelhandel, hoffentlich bald auch einmal in Europa.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Part II: how to store my wine at home
Welcome to part II of our series on wine storage, part I explained the general background on where to store the wine. Let us assume that you prefer to store the wines at home, this part is asking how to store the precious bottles the right way.
Private wine storage at home
Despite the fact that wine bottles are sealed tightly, keeping the temperature, humidity level, and amount of light under control is essential. In terms of all three of these conditions, the basement is always a popular choice for wine storage as well as purchasing a decorative, temperature-controlled wine cabinet that can be placed in your dining room.
The big question when it comes to storing the bottles is on how they are sealed. Screwcaps have the advantage of needing less attention than cork sealed bottles as they don’t mind whether the bottle is stored upside down or standing up. You might even leave the screwcap bottles in their original case, standing up, no worries as the screwcap sustains the pressure of more cases placed on top.
With cork sealed bottles you have to be a bit more careful: in order to ensure that the wine corks don’t crack, keep the humidity between 65-75% in the room and place each bottle on its side so that the cork may soak up some of the wine and remain moist.
In addition, the optimal temperature for storage is anything between 12 and 18 degrees Celsius as this will provide a cool atmosphere for your wine to age properly. The main requirement here is that the temperature needs to be consistent, wine doesn’t like the changes in these.
Once you have the proper conditions for your wine, you’ll want to look into a spacious wine rack that will hold a large amount of bottles for your collection. Racks range in a number of different sizes and are capable of holding anywhere from twenty to a few hundred bottles of wine depending on how extensive of a collection you choose to have in stock. Placing more expensive bottles of wine in the back rows is always a great idea in order to help maintain a cool, dark place for the wine to age and will allow your less expensive wines to be accessible to you at a moment’s notice. If you prefer to have your wine storage cabinet conveniently placed in your dining room, there are a number of different styles to choose from that will complement any room design from traditional to modern.
Our next part will explain the advantages of keeping your bottles with a wine storage house.
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Der zweite Teil unserer Serie ueber die optimale Weinlagerung beschaeftigt sich mit der Lagerung zu Hause. Wir geben Tipps zu Lagerung, Temperatur, Luftfeuchtigkeit und mehr. Vorteile bei der Lagerung haben die screwcaps ueber die verkorkten Weine, lesen Sie nach. Viel Spass.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Creating Your Own Wine Cellar – new series on Downunderwines
Whether you’re a wine enthusiast or just enjoy having a few friends over for a little entertainment, creating a wine collection of your own can truly benefit your home for years to come. The best part about having a personal space for wine is that it is convenient for upcoming parties and is very simple to create once you have established the proper storage conditions.
Wineracks to store your wine
Before you know it, you’ll be enjoying delicious bottles of wine from the customised wine racks stored in your basement or decorative cabinet for your next elegant soiree!
In the US, companies such as Justwineracks have a huge selection of cabinets, from the small corner under your kitchen sink to the individually designed wine cellar – these guys fit you out. I hear that they are on their way to expand to Australia and parts of Europe, this might be a good time to think about storing your wine professionally.
Storing wine not only is about keeping a fully stocked collection ready for your friends and family but it also provides a great opportunity for properly ageing fine wines for the special occasions and events that come up in life from time to time. Gone are the days when our grandparents saved a few bottles of red for a rainy day, only to discover decades later that the storage facility under the family bed was not the right place to help their wine age gracefully.
Looking at wine collections in Australia, we stumble across an anomaly: only a very small percentage of Australia houses host a cellar. Very different to the houses in the US or Europe, Australians simply have too much space and therefore no need to build houses above cellars. This is why wine storage here Down Under has generated business opportunities for alternative ways to store: wine fridges and storage facilities in kitchens, pantries are a much liked solution, wine storage centres are very popular in the metropoles here in Australia and most wine clubs help you store your bottles for you.
Our new series will investigate how each of these three ways, cellar, wine fridge or wine storage centre works for you and might be compared in an international context.
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In den seltensten Faellen sind australische Haeuser unterkellert, so dass der klassische Lagerort fuer Weine hier in Australien meist entfaellt. Darum haben sich jedoch in den vergangenen Jahren diverse Geschaeftsmodelle angesiedelt, die die Lagerung der feinen Weine anpreisen. Davon wird diese neue Serie hier auf Downunderwines berichten.
Ihr Michael Brecht
