Hello, Wine Idealists! This week’s /NEW/ Edition of The Wine Idealist will also be the /FINAL/ edition for 2015… I have taken a bit of a different tact with this final post than in year’s past. I’ve written a small poem for you all. I hope you enjoy reading it… – – – Natural Wine Rules – … Continue reading Natural Wine Rules – Cheers! 2015 –
They say, ‘good things come in threes…’ Back to the Future, definitely. Godfather Trilogy, absolutely. The first and second Chicago Bulls three-peat (’91-’92-’93, then ’96-’97-’98), big time… So, what about Rootstock Sydney, 2015? “The collaborative spirit from food and wine people… was palpable.” A lot has changed since 2013, when Rootstock Sydney humbly tumbled out … Continue reading ‘Good Things Come In Threes’ – Rootstock Sydney 2015
“Who wants some of this?!” yells a guy wearing blue denim jeans and a ripped, red flannelette. He passes a long, skinny bottle of white wine with a strange looking label over a seething mass of party people’s heads. A hand reaches up from the mob, five fingers grasping desperately for the bottle. It eventually, … Continue reading “Hey Man!” – Rootstock Sydney 2015
– – “It is what it is,” says Daniel Graham. Daniel is a Barossa Valley winemaker who used to make wine for Jacobs Creek. He grew up in Griffith, NSW, where his father is a winemaker. He studied viticulture and winemaking at Charles Sturt University, in Wagga Wagga. After graduating, Daniel moved to Canada, before doing vintages … Continue reading ‘It Is What It Is’ – Sigurd Wines, South Australia
Alex Craighead is an Australian born New Zealander who trained as a chef, before moving to Western Australia for the warm weather, and to study accounting. “I moved to WA because I was so sick of the cold in Wellington,” says Alex. “I didn’t have very much money and the only place we could go … Continue reading IS DON IS GOOD – DON Wines, Martinborough, NZ
“Everything we do is really to look after a very singular and unique piece of land,” says Nick Mills, from Rippon. Rippon is the name of (probably) the most beautiful piece of land in the world that grows wine. It’s located “on a bit of dead end road,” on the outskirts of the resort town … Continue reading ‘Articulating Place’ – Rippon, Wanaka, New Zealand
“Wine has this magical capacity to become a kind of liquid geography that can show the little nuances of a particular time and place, and I feel like it’s a moral failure not to aim for that,” says Mike Weersing, of Pyramid Valley in New Zealand. “You might not get there every time, but you must do … Continue reading ‘Transcendence’ – Pyramid Valley, Waikari, New Zealand (Part Two)
“I wanted to find a place where the voice was so loud that you couldn’t hear the grape,” says Mike Weersing, winegrower at Pyramid Valley, in New Zealand. After 15 years of searching, Mike and his wife Claudia, who were originally from the US, finally settled on an old sheep farm in Wairkari, North Canterbury. They … Continue reading ‘The Empyrean’ – Pyramid Valley, North Canterbury, New Zealand (Part One)
“I have a few colleagues who are very particular about the way they think wine should be made… When we released our first wine, in 2012, we had no idea what we were going to call it, and someone at work said to me, ‘the way you make wine is the wrong way’, and I said, … Continue reading ‘Learn The Rules’ – The Other Right, South Australia
“I think sometimes, as winemakers, we’re aware of certain wines that grip you and others that don’t, and sometimes you get to a point where you’re just absolutely bored, and you want to try and achieve something more…” Andrew Greenhough is a man with a Masters in Art History, who gave up his ambitions of … Continue reading ‘The Art of Wine’ – Greenhough, Waimea Plains, Nelson, N.Z.
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