Six bottles of perfectly good wine have been sitting at the bottom of the ocean at a depth of about 8 metres, in order to find out what happens when you submerge wine under water and age it for three months. Will the increased pressure cause the bottles to explode? If not, will they make it back to shore intact, or will they have leaked all their wine out and traded it for sea water? Maybe some plundering wine-loving fisherman, or diver, has found the wine and taken the treasure home to drink themselves! If the bottles make it back to shore intact and have somehow managed to retain their precious treasure inside, will the wine have changed at all? Will it look, smell or taste any different to those bottles that have been left behind, on land?
Back in July 2014, I managed to convince six intrepid winegrowers from across Australia and New Zealand to give me two bottles of their wine. That is, two bottles of the very same wine that they’ve spent 10 months out of the year farming in their vineyard, encouraging the grapes to grow, then bloom, and then run the gauntlet of Mother Nature’s whims and fancies to get the fruit to harvest, then pick, crush, ferment, press, élevage, bottle and finally, hopefully, sell… or, be given away to sink underwater for three months!
Si Vintners, Bobar, Pyramid Valley, Macquariedale, Krinklewood, and Harkham have all kindly donated two bottles of their wine for an experiment to see, and hopefully taste, the effects that underwater aging has on wine. One each of their bottles has been floating underneath the waves of Newcastle Harbour – the mouth of the Hunter River – for the last three months, while a second bottle of each has been safely tucked away in more standard storage conditions in a bar in Newcastle. On Sunday, the 28th of July, these six bottles of sunken wine will be blind tasted and compared to an equivalent six bottles of land loving wine, by some of their creators, an exclusive group of curious individuals, and the organisers of Newcastle’s one and only real wine event… What’s In Your Glass?
What’s In Your Glass? brings together an eclectic collection of winegrowers from across Australia and New Zealand, who are making wine sustainably – that is, naturally, organically and biodynamically… all the things we love as wine idealists!
Wine lovers from Newcastle and the Hunter Valley will have the chance to taste over 60 wines from some of Australia and New Zealand’s best winegrowers, including Jasper Hill, Cloudburst, Jauma, Cullen and Castagna… (full list below). Many of the growers will be there themselves to pour their own wines and answer any questions you may have, such as: Where does it come from? How is it made? and of course… What’s in it?!
Plus, the organisers have assembled four of Newcastle’s best restaurants to man the pans with a pop-up supper club style menu, including the two-hatted brilliance of SUBO, as well as Reserve Wine Bar, Casa de Loco and Fortunate Son. The food alone is worth the price of admission!
There wil be live jazz and blues filling the air all afternoon long from Garth and The Apprentices, and a real wine bar pouring a unique selection of Aussie and New Zealand, and international natural, organic and biodynamic wines, including a couple of bottles of 2014 Babera Rosato aka #bucketwine from Heathcote!
All in all, it promises to be a fantastic day filled with wine, food and good times! So, if you haven’t already… jump online now, buy a ticket and get yourself to my hometown of Newcastle, right on the door step to the vineyards of the Hunter Valley!
The Winegrowers who’ll be at What’s In Your Glass? 2014
Hunter Valley & NSW:
*Macquariedale l *Krinklewood l *Harkham l A.Retief l Ascella l Rosnay
Victoria:
Avani l Between Five Bells l *Bobar l Thousand Candles l Two Blind Mice l Castagna l Chapter Wine l Jasper Hill l Enigma Variations
South Australia:
Small Fry Wines l Jauma l Gemtree l Battle of Bosworth
Western Australia:
*Si Vintners l Blind Corner l Dormilona l Cullen l Cloudburst l Freehand Wines
New Zealand:
*Pyramid Valley l Te Whare Ra l Seresin l Fromm l Hans Herzog l Clos Henri l Rock Ferry l Rippon
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If you can’t make it on Sunday, you can keep up by following #WIYG on Twitter and Instagram and follow me and WIYG on both of those platforms – @thewineidealist / @WhatsInYourGlas
I’ll be posting photos on Facebook too, so keep an eye out: facebook.com/thewineidealist
Please come and say hello, if you’re coming on Sunday!
D// – The Wine Idealist
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