A defining moment...
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 11:52 am
Hello there,
Initially I was going to write this in the bio section but thought it’d be better suited here for ensuing discussion.
Just a warning that it’s a long one!
Firstly, I am new to the forum and relatively new to the love of wine. My name is Chi and I have been in the hospitality experience ever since I was of legal age. Now, at the age of 24 I feel I am just beginning my love affair with wine.
I suppose my first experiences of wine hold me in relatively better stead then many of my mates at the same age sculling grape juice from bright silver bags…although I am guilty of partaking in such activities at some stages of my teens.
My father was an ‘under the bed’ cellar kind of man. His lack of proper storage space didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for wine collecting and at its height boasted around 1000 bottles crammed under a double sealy posturepedic. He had grown studying in the UK and as such initiated me into the realms of inebriation by letting me drink the head off his Guinness in the bath tub at the age where you still took baths with your parents. Needless to say as the years passed I watched him open bottles and bottles, his face abeam with pleasure at a single sip. As a surly short tempered teenager I never really took notice when he would extol the virtues of his latest cellar drop at the dinner table, all I knew was he was obviously enjoying it!
At the age of 18 I began working in my local pub. I started by gathering mounds of used schooner glasses and cleaning the toilets until a little later down the track I found myself behind the bar. Working behind the bar started my first 2 love affairs with beer and spirits. With the years progressing, so did the level of bars I worked in and I became an avid enthusiast of the cocktail and fine spirits. To this day I am a single malt kinda guy on a usual night out with the boys (their tipple is the bundy and coke) and my liquor cabinet boasts the plunderings of duty free shops around the world…my choices being Martell Cordon Bleu, Hennesy XO, Highland Park, Suntory Yamazaki and Appleton Estate. I know what you’re thinking (jesus this kid has expensive taste) but I guess many years of a life around alcohol (both in work and social circles) means I had a burning passion for the elegance and beauty of it.
Back to wine!
Having firmly resolved that hospitality was something I wanted to do for a living, I undertook studies in it. Having now completed a B. Bus mgt in hospitality I can warmly reflect on some of my ‘better’ subjects. In first year I had the pleasure of gaining credit points for a subject known as ‘food and beverage’. In it we explored the subtleties of beer, wine and spirits production and the product itself. The knowledge fed the inner fire within me and I hungrily devoured any book on the subject. The final part of the subject culminated in a wine course run under the tutelage of Mr. Ian Bailey. I still recall my first class with him, a basics on wine etiquette. He told us all to raise our empty glass. As we all simultaneously lifted our tasting glasses, fingers firmly around the bowl he bellowed ‘I WILL NOT HAVE CRETINS IN MY CLASS, HOLD IT PROPERLY!!!’
My wine knowledge grew then, culminating in a test of our wine matching skills (given the point was to teach us how to run a hospitality business). We were to supply a wine to a given course which would be tasted by 3 of our tutors. My course was to be an entrée of smoked salmon gravlax. Hmmmm…as with any good student my first question fell on the ear of a bemused BWS employee who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders. Ok then I thought…trust your own instincts, you can do this. Nominally, we had a prohibitive budget of up to $30 (Didn’t want any kids bringing daddy’s Grange) and this was coming from my own pocket. I had a think about the flavours…salty,sweet, rich, fatty fleshed fish…
Before I divulge my choice (keep in mind I was 20 at the time!), I know there were probably a million better choices I could have made!
Anyway, back to it, my eyes settled on a sectioned marked ‘chablis’. Hmmmm…my brain went back to the knowledge I had gained…chardonnay grapes, minerally, oyster shell like flavour, nice acidity…sh.t yeah it’ll do. I reached for the cheapest of it, a 2004 William Fevre Petit Chablis. Nice label I thought to myself, very classy.
As the test came around I took my seat at the tasting table and I presented my wine. We poured a small portion and I began my own assessment of the wine. At 20 I still have my scribbled tasting notes;
‘Doesn’t taste like Australian Chardonnay, where’s the oak? Very nice minerally flavour, grassy, apple notes with a sappy, citrusy smell.’
One of my tutors was a Frenchman and with a laconic smile he started proceedings with ‘Zis wine iz too cold’ which made my other two tutors frown. Needless to say the smiles on my tutors faces and the smile on mine left me with a warm fuzzy feeling on the inside (Or was that the alcohol after 2 glasses of wine at 11am at uni?). Regardless to say when my markings came around I was so very pleased with a big fat ‘HD’ written across ‘Food and Beverage’.
Over the last 2 years my love affair with wine has had me yearning to know more and to taste more. My personal tutelage began with the book ‘A good nose and great legs’ by Robert Geddes. I enjoyed his outlook that wine is dictated by the 3 legs of a steady stool; place (the terroir), person (the winemaker) and the variety itself with the drinker perched on top. To this day I favour this holistic approach and like to look at wine not so much as an investment or way to get pissed but a story of where it comes from and what people put into it. I also own the obligatory Halliday and Jeremy Oliver wine annuals but find I use them more to increase my breadth of knowledge of vineyard names, locations and famous labels. I think that in the real world, wine is too subjective to be given a 100pt score and really, if you enjoy the wine then it’s good!!! I realise the may be a slightly naïve view but one that I am happy with at my age where wine for me is the perfect medium for a happy time, great discussions and a way to connect with people (other wine enthusiasts at my age tend me be far and few between).
To that end my own personal cellar is a meager 24 or so bottles, limited namely by my typical lack of funds from a graduate living out of home. Despite that I have collected what I consider to be a few gems and each one opened has been a memorable occasion. My collection namely stems from my dad who I recall distinctly smiling when he asked me what I would like for my 22nd birthday. I replied ‘no dad, not the requisite money for groceries, But…dad, I would like a case of nice wine’. His beaming face was seen 2 weeks later, shoving a case into my hands. He told me, drink some now, drink some later, but just enjoy them.
Amongst my current collection are a single: 99 Wendouree Shiraz Malbec, 04 Craggy Range Sophia, 00 Pyrus, 99 407, 00 Kalimna Bin 28, 2 X 04 Wynn’s black label, a few 00 Leconfield Cab Sauvs and a 04 Cullen Merlot . Sure, not much to boast about but I guess we all start somewhere! I’m rubbish with knowing vintages (which was a good year, one with potential etc) and would love to know a peaky kind of time to open some of these (or drink immediately).
My own additions to the cellar have been the odd cheapy or wine that I loved and thought had some great potential…that being a half dozen or so Tahbilk Marsannes and a few Elizabeth’s. I just have to stop myself drinking them all the time!
My last 6 years or so of drinking wine have given me the privilege of tasting some perception altering and mind blowing (in my opinion) wines. I am lucky enough to have a family that also loves wine and has never hesitated in letting me pour myself an extra glass of ‘the good stuff’ at a dinner out. Wines I distinctly remember as having forever changed my beliefs about wine were drinking a Wynn’s Black Lable 87 magnum at my dad’s 54th, drinking a 99 Mount Mary Pinot Noir at a birthday, cracking an 87 Taltarni Cab Sauv with my mates, a Cullen Diana Madeleine brought by a friend and last night when my dad cracked a 99 Moss Wood Cab Sauv at our local Italian. I know each of these might not be the best vintages or times to open but all I know that each sip was delicious, complex, totally heavenly and something I will never forget. Each wine signifies a happy memory for me.
At 24 I feel that my palate is pretty hopeless. I struggle to pick flavours and particular notes but I do feel I can confidently name a given variety and country it was made in (haha!). I think at 24, naming a variety off the nose is pretty good going! I spent last weekend in the Hunter and had a great time chatting to a guy (name escapes me) who was talking me through the nuances of a 98 Vat 8 he was pouring me. He unashamedly called me out in front of my friends as the only serious wine drinker (holding my glass by the stem) and asked me what I smelled on the nose. I stuttered, stammered and faltered before he said take a deeeeep sniff. Can you smell licorice? By jove, I could. I smiled and he did too, telling me ‘don’t be too fussed if you can’t pick out each smell…be happy if someone tells you it’s there and you can smell it too’.
Another similarly great experience was at Sydney’s Ultimo Wine Centre…I took a good 2-3 hours there just pouring over labels and salivating at the thought of them. It culminated in a tasting at which I did a double take when a label on the tasting wine read ‘$255’. It was a 97 cotes du rhone of which name escapes me but I remember taking a sip and being absolutely blown away by the elegance and refinement of the wine. A tiny sip had my mouth swimming with flavours with a firm tannin undertone and an incredible finish that had my mouth echoing for 60 seconds or more. That single sip was an experience in itself! Another beautiful and very different wine I enjoyed at a later date was a Josmeyer Gerwurztraminer…so different to anything I’d had before. It was wonderfully cloying and full of roses and violets. Very enjoyable stuff!
I find my personal tastes have also changed tremendously over the last half decade or so. My favourite varieties in order are Cab Sauv, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Chardonnay then Riesling. The only variety I tend to say I don’t particularly enjoy is Semillon, which I find has a watery kind of nature to it. At 24 I find myself favouring the bigger, bolder and punchier flavours, although I did thoroughly enjoy a taste of 98 Vat 1 at Tyrell’s (once again changing my perceptions about a certain variety).
After a short year or so intensely and notably trying to increase my wine knowledge I think I had the greatest epiphany and wine-life changing experience over the weekend past. It is what kind of inspired me to write this piece (I have only been reading this forum for 3 or so weeks).
The weekend was at the Hunter. It was myself and 2 other mates of mine who are equally lovers of wine. We are all at the same age and they turn to me for technical questions (which doesn’t really say much) and I in turn bounce my tasting notes off them. We had outlined a brief tour of the Hunter and I had turned to this forums search function for guidance of a few vineyards ‘off the beaten track’. Consequently I found one or two references to one named ‘Chateau Francois’. My friend has a hilarious theory that any cellar that you had to access by dirt road was superior to those with nice paved driveways as they obviously didn’t want to give out as much wine.
As we rolled up to the entry of Chateau Francois my friend was delighted to find a good 300m or so of gravelly dirt road. ‘This is going to be a good one’ he exclaimed gleefully and we were in high hopes.
As we drove closer to the cellar door we turned past a homely looking large cottage requisite with brown spotted dog. The dog bound happily up to the car and gave us a welcome (big tongue hanging out) as good as I have seen at any cellar door. We trudged crunchily through the gravel path up to a big warehouse with tools of the trade strewn here and there, big pictures of brown trout on the wall and bottles lined up dating back to when my father was a teenager himself. A man shuffled out of the cottage and walked behind a small wooden counter, with a beaming smile that instantly made us feel at ease. The man was Don Francois, proprietor and winemaker of the vineyard. He beckoned to us to read a little snippet of paper which saddeningly referred to his stroke some years ago. My heart went out to him in sadness but was lifted by a man who is so friendly and warm I couldn’t help but feel better. As we turned from the paper he could read the sense of unease on our young faces and simply proclaimed ‘It’s ok…SMILE!!!’ which made us all chuckle. He reverently lined up glasses for us and gave us our first drop of 01 Semillon, taken from an ancient and amazingly still working fridge. I took a deep smell of the wine and couldn’t pick up anything particularly forthcoming on the nose but when I took a sip that all changed. I had a beautiful citrusy thrust on the palate and a nice toasty nuttiness that had me asking for more. The second was a sparkling red…Pinot if I recall. I am normally not a fan of the style but could appreciate the tannic nuances in the wine and see how it could be a refreshing change at a summer’s BBQ. The final wine was a 2000 Shiraz. As he poured our glasses a steady stream of sediment and bits fell into our glass. This did not deter us at all, and I think added to the charm of the wine and we happily took our first few sips. As the wine hit my lips I got a beautiful earthy spicy flavour with a nice finish, not being too tannic and just a nice lasting bit of length. I loved this wine, it was so different to any other Shiraz I’d been exposed to. As we dropped our glasses from our mouths the smiles said it all and Don Francois chuckled along with us. What proceeded was a great 2 hour long conversation with a man who had done more in his life then 2 people put together! He took us inside his cottage and showed us pictures of him wrestling in America in his youth, big beautiful trout he had caught and snippets of paper on his kids who had gone on to do great things. We laughed and talked and laughed some more at his great humour particularly in pointing out an old bottle of Australian sparkling named ‘Sweet sparkling sherry’. It was a great time and through it I realised here was a wine maker who lives for what he produces. Someone who puts his all into the wine, letting it show the earth it was grown in and the grape it was made with. A man who single handedly runs a little cellar door for those lucky enough to visit and hold genteel conversations. I was very sad to leave but happy to take home a dozen or so of his wines at a price that resembled theft. To me, a person like this tells so much about the beauty of wine and the joys of partaking in it.
Wine for me will forever be a love affair marking special occasions in my life and special memories. I still want to learn more, want to taste more and hope one day I can take a job somewhere in an industry related to it. It is such a beautiful thing and I am glad to have built an appreciation at my age.
So I guess comes the final part of my very long winded post…
Look back into your past…what was a key defining moment for you that really defined what wine is all about?
I hope you have enjoyed reading my post and laughed along with some memories you might have had growing up in the world of wine. Please do share!
Initially I was going to write this in the bio section but thought it’d be better suited here for ensuing discussion.
Just a warning that it’s a long one!
Firstly, I am new to the forum and relatively new to the love of wine. My name is Chi and I have been in the hospitality experience ever since I was of legal age. Now, at the age of 24 I feel I am just beginning my love affair with wine.
I suppose my first experiences of wine hold me in relatively better stead then many of my mates at the same age sculling grape juice from bright silver bags…although I am guilty of partaking in such activities at some stages of my teens.
My father was an ‘under the bed’ cellar kind of man. His lack of proper storage space didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for wine collecting and at its height boasted around 1000 bottles crammed under a double sealy posturepedic. He had grown studying in the UK and as such initiated me into the realms of inebriation by letting me drink the head off his Guinness in the bath tub at the age where you still took baths with your parents. Needless to say as the years passed I watched him open bottles and bottles, his face abeam with pleasure at a single sip. As a surly short tempered teenager I never really took notice when he would extol the virtues of his latest cellar drop at the dinner table, all I knew was he was obviously enjoying it!
At the age of 18 I began working in my local pub. I started by gathering mounds of used schooner glasses and cleaning the toilets until a little later down the track I found myself behind the bar. Working behind the bar started my first 2 love affairs with beer and spirits. With the years progressing, so did the level of bars I worked in and I became an avid enthusiast of the cocktail and fine spirits. To this day I am a single malt kinda guy on a usual night out with the boys (their tipple is the bundy and coke) and my liquor cabinet boasts the plunderings of duty free shops around the world…my choices being Martell Cordon Bleu, Hennesy XO, Highland Park, Suntory Yamazaki and Appleton Estate. I know what you’re thinking (jesus this kid has expensive taste) but I guess many years of a life around alcohol (both in work and social circles) means I had a burning passion for the elegance and beauty of it.
Back to wine!
Having firmly resolved that hospitality was something I wanted to do for a living, I undertook studies in it. Having now completed a B. Bus mgt in hospitality I can warmly reflect on some of my ‘better’ subjects. In first year I had the pleasure of gaining credit points for a subject known as ‘food and beverage’. In it we explored the subtleties of beer, wine and spirits production and the product itself. The knowledge fed the inner fire within me and I hungrily devoured any book on the subject. The final part of the subject culminated in a wine course run under the tutelage of Mr. Ian Bailey. I still recall my first class with him, a basics on wine etiquette. He told us all to raise our empty glass. As we all simultaneously lifted our tasting glasses, fingers firmly around the bowl he bellowed ‘I WILL NOT HAVE CRETINS IN MY CLASS, HOLD IT PROPERLY!!!’
My wine knowledge grew then, culminating in a test of our wine matching skills (given the point was to teach us how to run a hospitality business). We were to supply a wine to a given course which would be tasted by 3 of our tutors. My course was to be an entrée of smoked salmon gravlax. Hmmmm…as with any good student my first question fell on the ear of a bemused BWS employee who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders. Ok then I thought…trust your own instincts, you can do this. Nominally, we had a prohibitive budget of up to $30 (Didn’t want any kids bringing daddy’s Grange) and this was coming from my own pocket. I had a think about the flavours…salty,sweet, rich, fatty fleshed fish…
Before I divulge my choice (keep in mind I was 20 at the time!), I know there were probably a million better choices I could have made!
Anyway, back to it, my eyes settled on a sectioned marked ‘chablis’. Hmmmm…my brain went back to the knowledge I had gained…chardonnay grapes, minerally, oyster shell like flavour, nice acidity…sh.t yeah it’ll do. I reached for the cheapest of it, a 2004 William Fevre Petit Chablis. Nice label I thought to myself, very classy.
As the test came around I took my seat at the tasting table and I presented my wine. We poured a small portion and I began my own assessment of the wine. At 20 I still have my scribbled tasting notes;
‘Doesn’t taste like Australian Chardonnay, where’s the oak? Very nice minerally flavour, grassy, apple notes with a sappy, citrusy smell.’
One of my tutors was a Frenchman and with a laconic smile he started proceedings with ‘Zis wine iz too cold’ which made my other two tutors frown. Needless to say the smiles on my tutors faces and the smile on mine left me with a warm fuzzy feeling on the inside (Or was that the alcohol after 2 glasses of wine at 11am at uni?). Regardless to say when my markings came around I was so very pleased with a big fat ‘HD’ written across ‘Food and Beverage’.
Over the last 2 years my love affair with wine has had me yearning to know more and to taste more. My personal tutelage began with the book ‘A good nose and great legs’ by Robert Geddes. I enjoyed his outlook that wine is dictated by the 3 legs of a steady stool; place (the terroir), person (the winemaker) and the variety itself with the drinker perched on top. To this day I favour this holistic approach and like to look at wine not so much as an investment or way to get pissed but a story of where it comes from and what people put into it. I also own the obligatory Halliday and Jeremy Oliver wine annuals but find I use them more to increase my breadth of knowledge of vineyard names, locations and famous labels. I think that in the real world, wine is too subjective to be given a 100pt score and really, if you enjoy the wine then it’s good!!! I realise the may be a slightly naïve view but one that I am happy with at my age where wine for me is the perfect medium for a happy time, great discussions and a way to connect with people (other wine enthusiasts at my age tend me be far and few between).
To that end my own personal cellar is a meager 24 or so bottles, limited namely by my typical lack of funds from a graduate living out of home. Despite that I have collected what I consider to be a few gems and each one opened has been a memorable occasion. My collection namely stems from my dad who I recall distinctly smiling when he asked me what I would like for my 22nd birthday. I replied ‘no dad, not the requisite money for groceries, But…dad, I would like a case of nice wine’. His beaming face was seen 2 weeks later, shoving a case into my hands. He told me, drink some now, drink some later, but just enjoy them.
Amongst my current collection are a single: 99 Wendouree Shiraz Malbec, 04 Craggy Range Sophia, 00 Pyrus, 99 407, 00 Kalimna Bin 28, 2 X 04 Wynn’s black label, a few 00 Leconfield Cab Sauvs and a 04 Cullen Merlot . Sure, not much to boast about but I guess we all start somewhere! I’m rubbish with knowing vintages (which was a good year, one with potential etc) and would love to know a peaky kind of time to open some of these (or drink immediately).
My own additions to the cellar have been the odd cheapy or wine that I loved and thought had some great potential…that being a half dozen or so Tahbilk Marsannes and a few Elizabeth’s. I just have to stop myself drinking them all the time!
My last 6 years or so of drinking wine have given me the privilege of tasting some perception altering and mind blowing (in my opinion) wines. I am lucky enough to have a family that also loves wine and has never hesitated in letting me pour myself an extra glass of ‘the good stuff’ at a dinner out. Wines I distinctly remember as having forever changed my beliefs about wine were drinking a Wynn’s Black Lable 87 magnum at my dad’s 54th, drinking a 99 Mount Mary Pinot Noir at a birthday, cracking an 87 Taltarni Cab Sauv with my mates, a Cullen Diana Madeleine brought by a friend and last night when my dad cracked a 99 Moss Wood Cab Sauv at our local Italian. I know each of these might not be the best vintages or times to open but all I know that each sip was delicious, complex, totally heavenly and something I will never forget. Each wine signifies a happy memory for me.
At 24 I feel that my palate is pretty hopeless. I struggle to pick flavours and particular notes but I do feel I can confidently name a given variety and country it was made in (haha!). I think at 24, naming a variety off the nose is pretty good going! I spent last weekend in the Hunter and had a great time chatting to a guy (name escapes me) who was talking me through the nuances of a 98 Vat 8 he was pouring me. He unashamedly called me out in front of my friends as the only serious wine drinker (holding my glass by the stem) and asked me what I smelled on the nose. I stuttered, stammered and faltered before he said take a deeeeep sniff. Can you smell licorice? By jove, I could. I smiled and he did too, telling me ‘don’t be too fussed if you can’t pick out each smell…be happy if someone tells you it’s there and you can smell it too’.
Another similarly great experience was at Sydney’s Ultimo Wine Centre…I took a good 2-3 hours there just pouring over labels and salivating at the thought of them. It culminated in a tasting at which I did a double take when a label on the tasting wine read ‘$255’. It was a 97 cotes du rhone of which name escapes me but I remember taking a sip and being absolutely blown away by the elegance and refinement of the wine. A tiny sip had my mouth swimming with flavours with a firm tannin undertone and an incredible finish that had my mouth echoing for 60 seconds or more. That single sip was an experience in itself! Another beautiful and very different wine I enjoyed at a later date was a Josmeyer Gerwurztraminer…so different to anything I’d had before. It was wonderfully cloying and full of roses and violets. Very enjoyable stuff!
I find my personal tastes have also changed tremendously over the last half decade or so. My favourite varieties in order are Cab Sauv, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Chardonnay then Riesling. The only variety I tend to say I don’t particularly enjoy is Semillon, which I find has a watery kind of nature to it. At 24 I find myself favouring the bigger, bolder and punchier flavours, although I did thoroughly enjoy a taste of 98 Vat 1 at Tyrell’s (once again changing my perceptions about a certain variety).
After a short year or so intensely and notably trying to increase my wine knowledge I think I had the greatest epiphany and wine-life changing experience over the weekend past. It is what kind of inspired me to write this piece (I have only been reading this forum for 3 or so weeks).
The weekend was at the Hunter. It was myself and 2 other mates of mine who are equally lovers of wine. We are all at the same age and they turn to me for technical questions (which doesn’t really say much) and I in turn bounce my tasting notes off them. We had outlined a brief tour of the Hunter and I had turned to this forums search function for guidance of a few vineyards ‘off the beaten track’. Consequently I found one or two references to one named ‘Chateau Francois’. My friend has a hilarious theory that any cellar that you had to access by dirt road was superior to those with nice paved driveways as they obviously didn’t want to give out as much wine.
As we rolled up to the entry of Chateau Francois my friend was delighted to find a good 300m or so of gravelly dirt road. ‘This is going to be a good one’ he exclaimed gleefully and we were in high hopes.
As we drove closer to the cellar door we turned past a homely looking large cottage requisite with brown spotted dog. The dog bound happily up to the car and gave us a welcome (big tongue hanging out) as good as I have seen at any cellar door. We trudged crunchily through the gravel path up to a big warehouse with tools of the trade strewn here and there, big pictures of brown trout on the wall and bottles lined up dating back to when my father was a teenager himself. A man shuffled out of the cottage and walked behind a small wooden counter, with a beaming smile that instantly made us feel at ease. The man was Don Francois, proprietor and winemaker of the vineyard. He beckoned to us to read a little snippet of paper which saddeningly referred to his stroke some years ago. My heart went out to him in sadness but was lifted by a man who is so friendly and warm I couldn’t help but feel better. As we turned from the paper he could read the sense of unease on our young faces and simply proclaimed ‘It’s ok…SMILE!!!’ which made us all chuckle. He reverently lined up glasses for us and gave us our first drop of 01 Semillon, taken from an ancient and amazingly still working fridge. I took a deep smell of the wine and couldn’t pick up anything particularly forthcoming on the nose but when I took a sip that all changed. I had a beautiful citrusy thrust on the palate and a nice toasty nuttiness that had me asking for more. The second was a sparkling red…Pinot if I recall. I am normally not a fan of the style but could appreciate the tannic nuances in the wine and see how it could be a refreshing change at a summer’s BBQ. The final wine was a 2000 Shiraz. As he poured our glasses a steady stream of sediment and bits fell into our glass. This did not deter us at all, and I think added to the charm of the wine and we happily took our first few sips. As the wine hit my lips I got a beautiful earthy spicy flavour with a nice finish, not being too tannic and just a nice lasting bit of length. I loved this wine, it was so different to any other Shiraz I’d been exposed to. As we dropped our glasses from our mouths the smiles said it all and Don Francois chuckled along with us. What proceeded was a great 2 hour long conversation with a man who had done more in his life then 2 people put together! He took us inside his cottage and showed us pictures of him wrestling in America in his youth, big beautiful trout he had caught and snippets of paper on his kids who had gone on to do great things. We laughed and talked and laughed some more at his great humour particularly in pointing out an old bottle of Australian sparkling named ‘Sweet sparkling sherry’. It was a great time and through it I realised here was a wine maker who lives for what he produces. Someone who puts his all into the wine, letting it show the earth it was grown in and the grape it was made with. A man who single handedly runs a little cellar door for those lucky enough to visit and hold genteel conversations. I was very sad to leave but happy to take home a dozen or so of his wines at a price that resembled theft. To me, a person like this tells so much about the beauty of wine and the joys of partaking in it.
Wine for me will forever be a love affair marking special occasions in my life and special memories. I still want to learn more, want to taste more and hope one day I can take a job somewhere in an industry related to it. It is such a beautiful thing and I am glad to have built an appreciation at my age.
So I guess comes the final part of my very long winded post…
Look back into your past…what was a key defining moment for you that really defined what wine is all about?
I hope you have enjoyed reading my post and laughed along with some memories you might have had growing up in the world of wine. Please do share!
