The Auswine Forum

Wait til you try the 08 Virgilius-definitely the best Virgilius, and probably one of the all time best in the country..The 07 and 08 seemed to have a quantum change in style. Gone are the old style, fat and oily Viogniers, and the 07/08's are just so refined yet powerful. None of the 'apricots on st...

I thought I'd get way with relaxing in shorts and t-shirt on my Xmas/New Year trip....

Some excellent advice there-I may have to extend the trip!!

Thanks all for your input, will get onto working out a plan of attack....

Cheers,

Tim

Just booked flights/car for the Xmas break this year. Get down to MR on the 27th December, leave 1st January 010 (presumably hungover...) What are the 'must see' places in Margaret River between Xmas and New Year? I have car, so getting out of the usual tourist destination is no problem... I'd like ...

553, based on my scientific average of the first ten guesses, rounded down.....

I had the pleasure of tasting it-thought it was a cracking good wine, but I guess it's the 50 million dollar question 'is it the best white wine is show'.Well, I guess it doesnt matter what me or anybody else thinks, the judging panel 'came to the consensus;' that it was/is and that is the way it is...

Not far from home.. 2008 Yalumba Virgilius Viognier; Probably the best Virgilius yet (show success notwithstanding). Great lifted nose of ginger, dusty oak,white peach and funky yeast. Palate is rich and weighty without being flabby. No real acid 'cut' to the palate but in balance all the same. As w...

The Rhone; one from the North, and one from the South... 2005 D. Courbis 'Champelrose' Cornas. Tried this a month or so ago at Rockpool in Sydney-so bought more based on the strength of enjoying it then and consumed one last week over 2 nights. Great lifted nose of ripe spicy plums and forest floor ...

Havent had a Condrieu from this guy for a while, but really impressed with this vintage. Nice lifted aromas of peach fruit, just getting into the apricot spectrum (alarm bells ringing, I hate over the top apricot in Viognier but no cause for panic here) amd a little ginger.. Some faint hints of MLF....

Charles Melton, Yalumba, Henschke, Peter Lehmann-all are 'must do's' in terms of CD's open to the general public..Chateau Tanunda has the Barossa Small Winemakers Centre, you can see 25 in one stop!!

Just working through my first bottle out of my case purchase. First impression is that the wine looks so young and fresh for a 98. The spirit looks a little 'tailsy' (i.e in laymans terms this is lesser quality spirit )on the nose and the palate is probably on the sweeter side of what I would consid...

Is very good.....

Paul: Lawley Farm, Krondorf Road. Adjacent to Rockford and Charles Melton, not sure of $$ but if it's next to these guys then worth every cent!!;) Just 5 minutes out of Tanunda, but need to consider the drinking/driving thing. Taxis are available, but the service is appalling. Dinner: Appellation. w...

Wow, what a shock to see the old page go!! Congrats on the move Gavin,

Cheers,

Tim

From a lesser vintage, this wine was quite a surprise. Colour still holding some brick red hues, and no obvious browning, which seems to be a character from most SA regions from 1997. The nose has the classic regional Shiraz lifted mint/eucalypt, with background dusty/cedar oak. The palate had great...

Thats a great point re soil compaction and vine damage Michael, I completely overlooked that one!! I was braced to have to use as a reply things along the line of 'I like mechanical harvesting during the day because the fruit comes in warmer and colour extraction is greater with less maceration' to ...

Hi All, Firstly, I'll show my hand and admit I havent read the AJ article but... Grab a glass, this may take some time.... Whereas I've never been involved in a rigorous comparison looking at 2 wines from the one vineyard hand picked vs machine, I have seen quite a few spectacular wines made from ma...

Late 70's/early 80's Pewsey Vale Riesling. No idea what they were thinking....

Corked wines under screwcap, but the good bottles were great!!

n.b fwiw: any wine bottled under cork at 20 degrees C should have a fill height being 12 mm below the bottom of the cork (fairly wide spread industry standard)-so work backwards from there taking into consideration the vintage of the wine. Also, as long as the wine is reasonably filled into the neck...

Great idea. Surely we've all got a little 'gem' we can sacrifice and hopefully make a difference to somebody's life.

Open to suggestions how it happens, but I'm looking into the cellar right now!!!

Yep, a can of worms this could turn into! And I havent even started on: The fact that vine orientation (North/South vs East West) has an influence as well. BTW, it is North/South orientated vines that seem hardest hit: the prevailing Westerly breeze in the Barossa 'rolls' the canopy over, exposing i...

Hi Carl, Well, modern viticulture in 50 words or less.....it may seem odd that a winemaker may (possibly) be implying that higher crop/thicker canopy may lead to better fruit quality. Certainly, in a situation like we are experiencing, it seems logical to me that loss of moisture would be less damag...

Nothing like a little bit of media propaganda, now that Barack Obama is 'so 5 minutes ago'.. As one who has spent the last month traipsing up and down vineyard rows anxiously, the reality in my belief in this region is this: there are some vineyards that are probably as bad as anything I have seen i...

2006 First Drop 'Minchia' Montepulciano form the Adelaide Hills is one of the few 'new wave' Aus-Italians that I've been impressed by, if you like the ripe, modern style with a savoury edge.

Hmm, tough one to call, getting the bottle back to the producer..Getting the wine back for the winemaker to 'assess' it's corkiness or not, is usually a waste of time. The wine would have been opened, then God knows how far it then travels in all sorts of temperature extremes on ullage, gets shaken ...

Hi Bob, Going through Purbricks would be your best option-it's really hard to send cases and 'samples' of wine over since 9/11 as the American autorities think it could be a terrorist threat. I cant even get 2 x 750 ml bottles to get reviewed unless I go through a licensed importer. The red tape is ...

Got a little carried away with hitting the send button....

Great lifted punchy varietal aromas, heading into the tropical spectrum of peach and mango, with some yeasty esters as well. Just a hint of free SO2, but to be expected in a young wine like this.Lovely ripe and dense palate, with nice pulpy fruit extract. Not obviously tricked up with any freshening...

When some wine scribe writes the book 'The Australian Wine Industry's Greatest Fads', Shiraz Viognier will be the first chapter...Dont get me started... Having said that, Spinifex EV Shiraz Viognier is one cracking good wine, in my top 10 for the year at least....And the Hand Picked Yalumba is not f...

2004 Orlando Steingarten Riesling: Amazing colour-, still in the 'pale straw' stage with the slightest of green tinges still hanging on. Obviously well handled juice fining here. Great lifted nose-all the classic Rizza aromas of Bickfords lime juice cordial and lemon pith. The palate is slatey and f...