The Hunter Valley is not only the oldest winegrowing region in Australia; it’s also one of the hardest places in the world to grow and make wine. When James Busby made the trek up from Sydney back in 1824 and planted the first vines at Kirkton Park, there’s a strong chance he didn’t know much … Continue reading ‘Green Pioneers’ – Organic Winegrowing in the Hunter Valley
The Wine Idealist was started just over two years ago with the aim to learn, explore, narrate and be an advocate for natural, organic and biodynamic wines from Australia and New Zealand… Since November 2012, thewineidealist.com has slowly been changing into more than just a blog. Through interviews with many high profile winegrowers and … Continue reading A BRAND /NEW/ WEBSITE and MORE FROM THE WINE IDEALIST!
I bought a wall planner on Friday the 3rd of January, took it home and laid it out flat, on the living room floor. I started looking at dates over 6 months away which I thought would be suitable to host a wine event, which I’d created and co-organised last year called, “What’s In Your … Continue reading Cheers Newcastle! – What’s In Your Glass? 2014
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 … Continue reading What’s In Your Glass? Salty Wine? – Newcastle, NSW
Placing the word ‘natural’ in front of the word ‘wine’, without any apology, or fear of reprisal, the considered use of quotation marks, or adding the phrase ‘so-called’, in order to soften the divisive blow that strikes upon wine’s face whenever the words natural and wine meet one another, is finally a risk I’m willing to … Continue reading ‘Natural Wine, Defined’ – The Chicken Nugget Argument
The biodynamic agriculture method uses a number of tools to provide sustainable soil fertility and management practice of a particular property – for example, a vineyard – whilst recognising the link between plant growth and the rhythms of the Earth and cosmos above us. Using various natural fertilisers, compost teas and preparations, such as 500, … Continue reading Observe and Report – The Antipodean Biodynamic Calendar
“Just as any fad becomes a fashion, a fashion becomes a trend, a trend becomes a change; so then, when enough changes unite, it becomes a paradigm shift…” The Wine Idealist has taken a small step into the realms of self-publishing by releasing, ‘Wine Idealism’, A Brief Introduction into the Changing State of Australian Wine. A … Continue reading Wine Idealism – The Changing State of Australian Wine
1978, and a young Morgon winemaker named Marcel Lapierre is experimenting in Beaujolais with no-sulphur winemaking, from grapes grown organically. In doing so, Lapierre along with a few local cohorts, had unwittingly caused the modern genesis of vin naturel… or natural wine. Of course this didn’t happen overnight, but soon enough, with the help of some Parisian sommeliers, … Continue reading Avril Lavigne et Le Vin Naturel – Is Natural Wine a Fad?
“Whatever you may feel about the principals and practices of biodynamics, there are good grounds for suggesting that this is one of the most positive developments for fine wine over the past couple of decades.” – Authentic Wine, Jamie Goode, Sam Harrop MW. Preparations 500, and 501 are, no doubt, two of the most important tools … Continue reading Biodynamics 101 – The Other Preparations – 502-508
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
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