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?
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.
May, 2012. Having quit my job at the BBC, and swapping it for a full time gig in a wine bar just down the road, I was asked by, my boss, to attend the first ever Real Wine Fair, in London. I was to attend, as a representative of the west London bar, Albertine, and report back, … Continue reading An Origin Story… Genesis – The Wine Idealist Is One Year Old
7 days to go, and it’s looking pretty bleak. The response has been less than impressive in the opening few weeks of ticket sales, but people keep telling me – “don’t worry, it’s Newcastle, the Hunter Valley, and they always buy at the last minute”. My partner in all of this, Patrick Haddock – aka, … Continue reading What Went On at What’s In Your Glass? – Newcastle’s ‘real’ Wine Fair!
The idea was simple. An informal degustation dinner to recognise four organic wineries in the Hunter Valley, and showcase their wines alongside a simple fair of food and good company. I wanted to promote the idea of wine idealism – wines that recognise their sense of time and place (terroir) in an authentic and honest … Continue reading What’s In Your Glass? – Newcastle’s First ‘Real Wine’ Event.
The moon had reached the descending phase of it’s orbit around the earth and at Krinklwood biodynamic vineyard out at Broke, in the Hunter Valley, a diverse group of people began to arrive as the first rays of the new morning’s light pierced up and over the Brokenback range and scattered onto the earth below. … Continue reading New Ways of Thinking – Krinklewood Biodynamic Workshop
“I’m too much of a scientist to get my head around biodynamics”, says Mike De Iuliis (De-u-lee-iss) when I interview him at his cellar door on Broke Rd, Poklobin, in the Hunter Valley. The fruit for much of De Iuliis wines come from 70 acres of conventionally managed vineyard sites, including one of the Hunter’s most famous sites … Continue reading BD is BS but the Soil is Still the Soul – Mike De Iuliis
There are four organic/biodynamic wine producers in the Hunter Valley – Tamburlaine, Macquariedale, Krinklewood, and Harkham – and each have just had two of their bottles of wine sunk down to the bottom of the Hunter River. Owned and operated by Mark Davidson, Tamburlaine has two vineyard sites – 30 ha in the Hunter Valley, … Continue reading Hunter Valley Pioneers Sinking to New Depths
Natural wines are, apparently, the most divisive topic in the wine world right now. Well, if that is the case, then someone forgot to tell that to the fifteen or so curious people that showed up to Real Food, in Newtown, on Tuesday night. Co-conspirators Mike Bennie (wine writer, terroirist, and dab hand at organising artisan … Continue reading Licking Molten Lava with Mike Bennie
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