Coming back bigger and better is a term usually reserved for rubbish sequels of big blockbuster films, and a bit of a cliché these days, but this is fact, not fiction, and Rootstock 2014 was bigger, and we were all excited to see just how much better it was going to be. Expanded over two … Continue reading The Rise of the Counter Culture – Rootstock 2014
– GO TO ROOTSTOCK! – Just about every Australian and New Zealand winegrower I’ve written about, here on The Wine Idealist, will be at this weekends festival. Taste their natural, organic and biodynamic wines and meet them all in person, along with an entire two days jam packed with international winegrowers, artisan food, beer and … Continue reading Go! to Rootstock, Sydney – 2014
An infinite streak of bright blue stretches out over bush green hills, valleys, gullies and pockets of red terracotta earth. Contrasting against the enormous sky, equally impressive white, grey, and black sentinels hang silent in the air, providing this familiar scene with a sense of awe, calm, and a hint of warning. They drift over … Continue reading Obscured By Clouds – Part 1 – FBW/R – V.14 – H.V.
Standing on the front porch of his home, the Settler gazed out in to the dark, breathing in the evening’s cool air. Sipping on his hot tea, he listens to cicadas as they cut through the night time silence in broad stereo sweeps. A soft breeze moves through the trees, lifting momentarily, stirring the cicadas … Continue reading Interrupted By A Thousand Candles – Yarra Valley, Victoria
4am – The alarm finally goes off. I wake up instantly because I’ve not really been sleeping. I’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness with faint coloured images of red, white, and green shuffling through my mind for the last five hours, because it doesn’t truly trust my alarm to sound at the correct hour … Continue reading Early Start Early Finish / Vintage 2014 – Hunter Valley
Bloody good, if you ask me. In 2013 I had the distinct privilege of speaking to so many passionate winegrowers and makers throughout Australia (and New Zealand) all because I wanted to find out if more bottles like Castagna’s Genesis Syrah existed across this wide brown land. What I found was not only are there … Continue reading Happy 2014! – How Good is the Aussie Wine Scene?
“Mum used to say ‘quality, not quantity’”, says Vanya Cullen, managing director, and chief winegrower at Cullen Wines, in the Margaret River sub-region of Wilyabrup, Western Australia. Promised to pioneers as the land of milk and honey, Margaret River was anything but that in the early years right after the Second World War, as ancient, … Continue reading ‘Quality Not Quantity’ – Cullen Wines, Margaret River, WA
Three scientists walk into a bar. A neuroscientist, a biochemist, and a cardiovascular physician. They order a bottle of red Burgundy, and after a few hours “spent solving the worlds problems”, and being enamored with the red juice inside, they decide to plant a vineyard, run it biodynamically, and make wine from it… haha! Having … Continue reading The Science of Winemaking – Lethbridge Wines, Geelong.
What’s wrong with being a wine geek? Not much if you ask fine wine importer and distributor Andrew Guard, who, at the end of 2012 was named 66th in the the Top 100 of The Sydney Morning Herald’s (SMH) most influential people in Sydney. Graham Jahn, City planner, came in at 68, and Australian test … Continue reading It All Comes Down To Taste… Andrew Guard Wine Imports.
“Our universities teach us to make sound wine, rather than great wine,” says Julian Castagna, owner and winegrower at Castagna wines in Beechworth Victoria. “They (the universities) don’t want us to make mistakes,” he continues, “but the reality is, you have to make mistakes. You have to push the envelope to make anything that’s great…” … Continue reading This Is Australia… Castagna – Beechworth
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