– 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.
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?
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.
Despite it’s inclination towards natural and rural connotations, wine can sometimes be, very much, an industriously conceived product. Not to say that wine is made to a recipe, much the same as Coke or a McDonald’s cheeseburger (although some certainly are), but when you consider the amount of allowable additives that a winemaker can legally utilise to … Continue reading To Be Or Not To Be – Is Ingredient Labelling Necessary for Wine?
This week, I made my way out via the Lovedale road to Hunter Valley Wine Country – the oldest wine region in Australia, and the most recognisable Australian wine region in the world. Yep, even more so than the Barossa – in fact, it even boasts some of the world’s oldest vines. I was heading … Continue reading A Visit To Macquariedale: Part One
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