The Auswine Forum

Usual call for any lurkers out there.

The Melbourne group will be getting together next Sat at Tandoori Den, Camberwell. No lunch this time, but a dinner starting at 5:15. Table is ours for the night

No theme, just bring something that might match the food. Already heard there is an Amphora Retsina on the cards and some other oddities.

Send a mag (ok, a msg then) if you want to join.

Looks neat I’ll be at footy so probably wouldn’t work.

Jamie,

Wine Surely beats a bunch of men kicking a ball, although Italian reds ( other than maybe a chilled Lambrusco) might struggle with the food. I am going to try an old Vernachia with the curry - Vin Jaune is very similar and gets those lovely curry notes, so maybe this will work.

I've certainly enjoyed a Lambrusco in an Indian restaurant in Ferrara, though I amusingly had to find the bottle for the staff in their shelving, as they couldn't locate it.

I think the footy may trump Lambrusco this time.

I’m at a wedding this weekend - one day will make it work!

Cheers Ed

Hopefully referring to the offline and not the wedding

The Greek Sparkler was light in style and a mix of red and white native grapes. More Cava than Champange, this was a refreshing high quality starter.

Wine of the day was the ‘12 Petite Arvine. Swiss wine is hard to find in Europe as the Swiss drink most of it themselves and you can see why. This was like a mix between a mature Riesling Kabinett and a high quality Condrieu. Complex, drinkable and in a great spot.

The Timorrosso was nearly as good. It’s a great grape, offering a lovely mix of acids and herby creamy fruit. Comes in a screw cap as well.

The Retsina was very good. Only 5% Sap in the wine and it added a hint of complexity. Good food wine.

The Xynisteri was fully mature. Nutty, with yellow fruit it had a lot of depth and power. Great to try a Greek white with this amount of aging.

My sort of flight. 3 great wines made in an oxidative style.

The Vernaccia was from 64 and was opened on Thursday. This is one of a handful of old Vernaccia’s I have tried and they are in that wierd space occupied by Sherry, old Liquer Port and Vin Jaune. Incredibly complex.

The 2013 Radikon is made from Tokaji and again has bags of complexity, along with silky texture and red fruit.

The Spanish was a baby and like a baby brother version of the Radikon.

We drank these with a course of Chicken, Fish and Lamb Tikka and it was a great combination. Yum.

I think these 2 were next. Quite a contrast.

I drank a lot of Dingac and Postup in the mid 90’s and have good memories of them. Great to see it here, but it’s not quite at the level as some of the other wines. Needs a Croatian BBQ to bring out its best.

The Italian was gorgeous. Almost Rose in colour, it was light, fruity and incredibly drinkable. Might put on weight in the medium term, but why wait ? No harsh tannins and went well with the curry main courses.

It was not intended as a Greek tasting, but they do seem very well suited to the food.

The Alpha Estate was served blind and I thought it was from the South of France. Lovely wine that we seemed to have caught at its peak.

The Nemea had lovely sweet fruit from memory and was a good foil for the Dingac

I brought the Hortus along as a back up. Did we need it ? No, but it was another very good wine and a contender for Red of the day.

We finished with a 97 Tokaij.

Great day - much more enjoyable for me than the previous Shiraz tasting.

Vennue was good and we ended up Paying $100 a head for 5 courses and corkage, which was fair.

Tom will be organising the next tasting, but we have made a mental group note to have a fully blown Greek tasting at some point in the future

Looks like a fair bit of Greek to me

mychurch wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 11:55 pm
Wine of the day was the ‘12 Petite Arvine.

Thanks for flagging this mychurch, on the strength of your note I picked up a bottle of the 2022 and it was really impressive albeit not cheap around £35 over here. Always fun to try something totally new, so cheers for that!