Greater brains than mine have been scratched to come up with a reason why Riesling is so hard to sell to people.  There’s no question in my mind that Riesling makes Australia’s best wines, year in and year out. The quality of so many wines in the $15 to $20 range is breathtaking, and the Aussie style of Riesling we’ve evolved is distinctive from Tassie to the Great Southern.

Why am I beating this drum again?

Because I went to the Riesling tasting put on by GTW (Gourmet Traveller Wine) at Mojo in Waterloo last night, and there was hardly anybody there. 20 people tops, when these events hosted by Peter Bourne – fourth from the right – usually attract 100.

This was a more instructive tasting than usual because the wines were presented in pairs, one bottle of the current release and a second of an older vintage – between 5 and 15 years of age. It was fascinating to compare the two and see how they had matured. The wines from Tassie impressed me with their richness, and those from the Great Southern in Western Australia surprised me with their staying power.

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The West Australian says: ‘After a week of boasting about their cooking abilities, My Kitchen Rules “villains” Gianni Romano and Zana Pali proved they could put their money where their mouths were.’ We’re talking about big mouths, especially Zana’s, and black eye lashes the size of the trigger hairs on a Venus Fly Trap.

Apparently the sharp newlywed lawyers from Melbourne have been saying harsh things about their competitors, and everyone wanted them to fail when their turn came. They failed alright but not in the kitchen. We’ve seen black wine glasses before, but this time even the water glasses were black.

How come people who cook fancy meals with great skill don’t know the most basic things about wine? That you serve wine in a clear glass, for example? Do they not drink wine with the fancy meals they work so hard to prepare?

Don’t wine lovers care about the food they eat? Do they drink Krug champagne with a Domino’s Pizza? Do they serve Fish and Chips with a bottle of Grange?

As the next picture shows, Manu and Pete are dumbfounded – they can’t believe they’re expected to drink out of black glasses again.

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In the UK, new guidelines being proposed recommend reducing your consumption to 14 units a week. A single bottle of wine at 13.5% equates to 10.125 units of alcohol,’ Andrew Jefford at Decanter magazine tells us. He calls some of the advice of Britain’s Chief Medical officer toxic, and reminds us that she has written off the cardio-protective properties of red wine as ‘old wives’ tales’.

Many countries have published what their medical authorities consider safe drink limits:

Why the Research is Rubbish

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‘Winemaking isn’t a matter of life or death – it’s much more important than that!’ Leo Buring

Leo Buring was a trained oenologist, a winemaker and viticulturist, wine judge, wine educator, local government councillor, businessman and promoter, yet far more people know the wine by his name than the remarkable man behind the label. Leo Buring was a visionary of enormous energy, as we shall see.

PHOTO CREDIT: MAX DUPAIN

From the turn of the century through to the sixties, Australia was a cultural wasteland. Few Australians enjoyed good food and wine in those decades unless they travelled overseas. Medical doctors, lawyers and graziers did, and they were about the only ones drinking fine wine back home, supplied by a few merchants in the know.

Most Australians went home to a dinner of meat and three veg, and a bottle of Resch’s Dinner Ale. Unsung Heroes – Wine Men who changed the Way we Live is the story of the wine merchants who introduced us to table wine wine and more interesting food in the late fifties. Leo Buring’s life came to an end just as the new era began: 1961. He was 85.

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Global Warming

‘In the Italian Alps, ski stations have had to resort to artificial snow,’ reports phys.org, ‘ cherry blossoms have been spotted in Dresden in Germany, and daffodils are flowering in England.’ Last week, the Royal Dornoch golf range in Scotland reported that the mowers were back out to cut greens in mid December. It was a mild Christmas from Helsinki to Moscow.

London, Christmas 2015

The 2015 harvest in Rioja was one of the hottest ever, reports Huon Hooke.  Excess heat produced wines high in alcohol and low in acidity with high pHs. Some wineries will not produce a 2015 Reserva as a result.

Down Under, the Australian Grape and Wine Authority (AGWA) is contemplating making it legal to us the ‘black snake’ (the water hose) more liberally to keep alcohol levels on the right side of sanity. Philip White writes that the pre-Christmas heatwave in South Australia saw some wineries start the 2016 harvest before the end of 2015. As I write this, the Hunter Valley has been hit with flooding rain for days. Who’d want to own a winery down under?

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The retail scene is distorted by Woolworths and Coles controlling three quarters of it, and the wine review scene is just as unbalanced. I was surprised when veteran wine writers Huon Hooke and Bob Campbell came out a few weeks ago with their #RealReviews Alliance, in protest of inflated scores from reviewers, kickbacks and Cash for Comment in the wine review business.

By comparison, there isn’t a lot we can criticize Woolworths for. Its Dan Murphy operation is well-run, despite the steady drain of staff who know about their wines. Woolworths knows its customers, I suspect, and most of them just want to buy cheap grog. I mean cheap, and they know what they like as well: $7 bottles of Kiwi savvy and $6 bottles of McGuigan Black Label Merlot.

Why we support the independents

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Inflated Scores, Kickbacks and Cash for Comment are Rife in the Wine industry

‘We have formed an alliance to promote and differentiate our approach to wine reviews,’ the two well-known wine reviewers & judges say. ‘We are making a stand for even-handed, transparent, ethical and independent reviewing.’ More Here: #realreviews initiative

They say: ‘Independent opinion in wine has come under pressure from several fronts:

• Excessively high scores by some critics, which undermine the credibility of wine ratings for the consumer
• Wine writers being paid directly by retailers, or entering into revenue share arrangements, for reviewing wines
• Advertorials masquerading as independent opinion
• ‘Cash for comment’, i.e. wineries being asked to pay to get featured.

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Global Warming doesn’t make Fine Wine

My favourite wine is Australian Riesling, from the Clare and Eden Valleys. Half my cellar is full of them, going back many years.

I’ve said before that I found the 2014s almost universally short on the finish, and the 2015s rich, ripe, round and forward reflecting the hot year. Classic Rieslings from these two areas have long lines of fine acid that keeps the intense, ripe limes in check and ensure a long, clean, dry finish. This backbone also ensures a long life, as green-tinged, zippy, vibrant youth mellows into a more golden tune that rewards you with notes of honey and buttered toast.

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Woolworths, Coles and the Fake Wine Label game

Wines of Western Australia chief executive Larry Jorgensen has accused the big supermarket chains of distorting the market, Julie-Anne Sprague writes in The Financial Review. ‘The distortion is that an entire industry is decimated,’ says Jorgensen. ‘Many small businesses are precluded from a reasonable opportunity to trade, the public are [sic] misled as to the true source and nature of the products offered and legitimate traditional businesses and skills are lost.’

Cow Bombie is a famous surfing break near Gracetown in WA’s South West. Picture: Jamie Scott

In another article – Woolworths, Coles private label plonk angers wine industry – Sprague draws a picture of ‘a team of market researchers and brand developers designing dozens of bottles of wine.’ It’s not just designer labels they come up with – for wines called Cow Bombie or Bailey & Baily or Two Churches – they also use sales data from their many stores work out which wine styles are the most popular with punters, and lay down the specs for their suppliers.

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