The Auswine Forum

Sorry...

Any update on this?

Cheers,

Monghead.

Ahem....

OK, here goes,
and sorry for the brief delay. I is busy !

Present at our first meeting were Cuttlefish, GRB, Alex F, and BabyShiraz.

The plan is to have one tasting per month on a regular day, like the third Thursday of each month, or something like that. We know we're not going to be able to suit everyone by doing this, but that is the way it's going to have to be. Our first preference is for the third THURSDAY of every month. Our second preference is for the third WEDNESDAY. That decision is going to depend entirely on how many prefer one or the other, so start putting your votes in. With that in mind, once votes have been counted, it'll be on either September 16th or 17th at my place in Mosman.

We were not keen on using a restaurant each month. Too expensive. We may have separate dinners organised by people off their own bat.

We discussed the idea of having a kitty, and have decided to run without one at first then maybe introduce one down the track if agreed upon, to allow us to source icon wines from time to time, and to cover cheese and bikkies at tastings.

For venues, Cuttlefish (Mosman), GRB (Elanora Heights), and Alex F (Sydney Uni) have offered suitable venues, but any other members of this tasting group who are able to are urged to offer a venue (ie. their home, or somewhere suitable) for tastings from time to time.

Everyone must bring their own glasses to every tasting. You probably need about 5 or 6 glasses. Usually three or four for wines in a bracket, one for water, and a spare.

I am open to having people stay for a BBQ afterwards, but thinking about it, and tasting we run on a weeknight would mean we wouldn't be lighting the BBQ until about 10pm, which is silly really, isn't it, so might be better to feed ourselves beforehand. Saturday tasings would be an entirely different proposition as the tasting can be done during the afternoon/evening, and then the BBQ lit at a decent hour.

Anyhow, I digress....

The tasting themes that those present at the first meeting decided upon are as follows:

September 2009:
CHARDONNAY - WESTERN AUSTRALIA VS VICTORIA

October 2009:
HUNTER SEMILLON AND SHIRAZ ANY VINTAGE

November 2009:
CHAMPAGNE

December 2009:
NO TASTING

This years tastings are LOCKED IN - NO CHANGES.

Next years tasting are open to discussion, but will be LOCKED IN before the end of the year:

January 2010:
RIESLING (OLD WORLD VS NEW WORLD - ANY VINTAGE)

February 2010:
CLASSIC AUSTRALIAN LABELS (ICON MAKERS - WHITE OR RED ANY VINTAGE)

March 2010:
A COUNTRIES VARIETALS (ITALIAN, SPANISH, FRENCH, ETC - WHITE OR RED ANY VINTAGE) - COUNTRY TO BE DECIDED

April 2010:
PINOT NOIR - NZ VS WORLD

May 2010:
SHIRAZ CURRENT RELEASE FROM ANYWHERE

June 2010:
FORTIFIEDS (OPEN)

July 2010:
CABERNET SAUVIGNON CURRENT RELEASE FROM ANYWHERE

August 2010:
THE TEN YEAR TEST - 10 YEAR OLD WINES FROM ANYWHERE, WHITE OR RED

September 2010:
ALTERNATIVE VARIETALS ANY COUNTRY ANY VINTAGE

October 2010:


November 2010:
CHAMPAGNE

Looking good Cf, great themes, my wife and I would love to participate. Wednesday is great for us, Thursday is out however for us as we usually need to work Thurs nights.

Any option of public transport around your Mosman place (ferry etc), or maybe taxi from St Leonards an option for we upper north shore dwellers?

What are you thinking in terms of manageable possible numbers? And are you thinking one bottle per person attending? Happy to bring a contribution to snacks of course as well, we love our cheese/antipasti etc. Happy to offer our place as an option, but a bit too far for many no doubt. Might suit others though so an option for the future.

Would it be better if we PM'ed an email address?

Cheers in anticipation
TiggerK (Tim)

I am wondering the same thing about public transport to/from Mosman, although, if everything goes ahead I suppose that there will be some people heading over from south of the bridge so maybe there is the possibility of travelling together?

I had a look at Elanora Heights on googlemaps... it seems a bit far away for me at this stage...

I am wondering whether we want to organise this information somewhere else, maybe a wiki (like wikipedia) where everyone can edit it and post their ideas, or googlepages (kinda like a wiki, ads less intrusive...). It would not be very hard for me to set up a googlepage thing...

Alex

cuttlefish wrote:For venues, Cuttlefish (Mosman), GRB (Elanora Heights), and Alex F (Sydney Uni) have offered suitable venues, but any other members of this tasting group who are able to are urged to offer a venue (ie. their home, or somewhere suitable) for tastings from time to time.

Softie offered his house in Redfern. Very good location from my perspective

Alex F wrote:

cuttlefish wrote:For venues, Cuttlefish (Mosman), GRB (Elanora Heights), and Alex F (Sydney Uni) have offered suitable venues, but any other members of this tasting group who are able to are urged to offer a venue (ie. their home, or somewhere suitable) for tastings from time to time.

Softie offered his house in Redfern. Very good location from my perspective

Agreed, same from my perspective; I'd go for Sydney Uni, Redfern over Mosman and Elanora Heights, as both are easy by public transport (actually , I could walk).

Maybe, as per the orignal suggestion, we need to split this into a lower nth shore (or ever just the whole of the dark side) and an inner west group. Mosman and Elanora heights are both out for me.

Redfern, Glebe, Sydney Uni and Newtown are all coolio. And I'm happy to offer my house in Newtown on occasion which is close to three train stations and numerous buses.

Can't speak for others in the North but I'm just as happy to go to Redfern or Newtown, probably more convenient actually. Pretty much a short bus ride and a single train journey to get there.

bacchaebabe wrote:Maybe, as per the orignal suggestion, we need to split this into a lower nth shore (or ever just the whole of the dark side) and an inner west group. Mosman and Elanora heights are both out for me.

Redfern, Glebe, Sydney Uni and Newtown are all coolio.

Totally agree with Bacchaebabe.

Firstly thank you to those who have offered their houses for regular tastings. At present i am unable to offer my place as a venue but that soon should change.

Elanora Heights and Mosman are both out for me as well at present.

I have gone through and sorted out who wants inner west and who wants NS.

Looks like there are 12 definite starters for IW, and 6 maybes. For NS we have 9 definites, 4 maybes. Some of the people have doubled up on both lists.

------
I would suggest the following options are available to us:

1) IW and NS take turns to hold monthly tastings.

2) IW holds a monthly tasting group which will include NS people, NS holds a tasting every 2 months. Then people happy to travel to the NS can pick whether they wish to go to the NS tasting or the IW one (or maybe even both!) in the month they are both on.

3) IW and NS split, hold independent monthly tastings.

4) IW holds all the tastings.
------

With option 1) I think we will be able to get enough people to the NS tasting. option 2) gives people who can't/won't travel to the NS a chance at a tasting every month, but this may draw people away from the NS tasting.

With option 4) I think this would be a strain on venues and organisation, due to the large number of people interested.

I am happy to coordinate the IW aspect of things...


List to follow: (? means people who have not indicated a preference for that location)

Inner West:
christo
bacchaebabe
loztralia
pc79
Alex F
Odyssey
RedVelvet
orpheus
monghead
Eurocentric
Softie
Brucer
Cuttlefish (+1?)
TiggerK?
dave vino?
DJ?
ACG?
BabyShiraz?



NS:
Odyssey
Cuttlefish (+1?)
GRB
monghead
DJ
WW Country Boy
BabyShiraz
TiggerK + 1
Alex F?
ACG?
dave vino?

OK for either side of the bridge, but would certainly prefer close to train/ferry.

I'm a TiggerK (+1), can't do Thursday or Friday, but other days OK. Definite starter +1, prefer NS, but will attend IW.

All options will depend on how many can actually make it each month. If 20 say they're keen, but only 8 actually finally confirm and attend, that may change things.... But if 20 are definite, that may be too many, and a NS IW split may be good. Not going to get much of a taste of a single bottle if 20 turn up! My magnum collection is not much!

Cheers
TiggerK

Well... if 20 turn up I would imagine you would do 2x of 10 bottles...

I think more of a problem is how would you accommodate 20 people in a venue... I doubt anyone has seating for 20...

We may have to split into two groups of 10 in that case...

But yes... as you say it really depends who locks into the tasting...

p/s i've updated your preferences into the list... now NS has 9 people starting...

Yes, 2 x 10 bottles, but then of course single attenders would have to confer with each other to make sure matched pairs were taken.

20 would certainly be a bit unmangeable, 8-12 a nice number I'd say, depending on the space available.

I appreciate numbers are already becoming an issue, so I hope it's not too late to be part of the Inner West tasting group. I PM'ed cuttlefish to express my interest earlier, but the Inner West group seems to have become a separate entity now.

I suspect you will find that whatever the pool of people, there will be a small sub-group of consistent attendees, a group of reasonably regular attendees, and once in a blue mooners.

Thus I doubt it will be a problem.

Whoever thought life could be so complicated

Davo wrote:Whoever thought life could be so complicated

Sydney life Davo. I often forgot the KISS approach. Learning better in Perth

cheers

Carl

As those in the East have been totally ignored, I have decided to set up my own tasting group of 1. Our first tasting in September will be a vertical tasting of Latour including the legendary 45. Coming October, we will do a comparative tasting of the 96 vintage of DRC. November is still open to debate but general consensus is that we should focus on LEAS versus the rest. December is of course bubbles month but with the focus on vintage rose. As we are 1, no further discussion about dates will be entered into. Sadly membership of our group is now closed thou we do have a waiting list.

rooman wrote:As those in the East have been totally ignored, I have decided to set up my own tasting group of 1. Our first tasting in September will be a vertical tasting of Latour including the legendary 45. Coming October, we will do a comparative tasting of the 96 vintage of DRC. November is still open to debate but general consensus is that we should focus on LEAS versus the rest. December is of course bubbles month but with the focus on vintage rose. As we are 1, no further discussion about dates will be entered into. Sadly membership of our group is now closed thou we do have a waiting list.

Look forward to the notes

cheers

Carl

This is tres complicated even for a sydney-sider...

griff wrote:

rooman wrote:As those in the East have been totally ignored, I have decided to set up my own tasting group of 1. Our first tasting in September will be a vertical tasting of Latour including the legendary 45. Coming October, we will do a comparative tasting of the 96 vintage of DRC. November is still open to debate but general consensus is that we should focus on LEAS versus the rest. December is of course bubbles month but with the focus on vintage rose. As we are 1, no further discussion about dates will be entered into. Sadly membership of our group is now closed thou we do have a waiting list.

Look forward to the notes

cheers

Carl

We will of course share our observations though naturally the notes will be in French, the language of wine.

Mark

[/quote]

We will of course share our observations though naturally the notes will be in French, the language of wine.

Mark[/quote]

French is the language not only of wine, but of love and culture.

(Which is why as a teenager I use to get pissed on cheap Moselle, and shag to the cultured lyrics of ACDC.) Tres good.

cuttlefish wrote:September 2009:
CHARDONNAY - WESTERN AUSTRALIA VS VICTORIA

I know you said this is set in stone but wouldn't we be better off with something redder until the summer months set in properly. I thought we settled on the themes but not the order the other night anyway.

I should be OK for either night. Probably +1 as well.

Glen

I picked Chardonnay because it's a weighty white wine. Also, whilst not the height of summer, it hasn't exactly been wintery in Sydney.

Softie wrote:
(Which is why as a teenager I use to shag to the cultured lyrics of ACDC.) Tres good.

So I take it there was a time when you didn't live up to your name

With numbers like these why don’t we aim for two groups, the competition may well be good.

I’m super keen and can do either Wed or Thurs. My place is no good for groups but i've done a tasting in Centennial park that was a hoot…..

Taste-etts,

Our place at Redfern is still on offer. I will check any (few) Sept dates that are out for us and advise.

John

cuttlefish wrote:
The tasting themes that those present at the first meeting decided upon are as follows:

September 2009:
CHARDONNAY - WESTERN AUSTRALIA VS VICTORIA

October 2009:
HUNTER SEMILLON AND SHIRAZ ANY VINTAGE

November 2009:
CHAMPAGNE

December 2009:
NO TASTING

This years tastings are LOCKED IN - NO CHANGES.

I'm not a chardy drinker but after consultation my wife and I are in like Flynn for the Hunter session. If anyone's keeping tabs on attendees feel free to take note!

I'm in for October and happy to organise the inner west "sub chapter" if we have enough or too many people.

Is it just me being impatient, or are some of the original instigators of this LNS concept being notably absent from subsequent discussions?? I'm not ultra keen on regularly attending the distance to inner west personally, and assuming I'm not alone, perhaps you guys/gals might look at a new thread for your particular area, and we'll see how many North Shore'ers feel like continuing the concept forward.

I got quite excited by the idea, but postings seemed to dry up rapidly. I didn't think it was that hard to sort out...

Cheers