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Trip to Riverina (Griffith)
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:28 pm
by ufo
Well, nothing much to write about. It is not worth it just as a wine trip from Sydney (600 km) but they had an Easter Festival so it wasn’t too boring. Besides the giants like Mc Williams, De Bortoli there are only hand full of small size wineries and most of the production is pretty much ordinary. I would probably only recommend Westend and Berton out of all. Berton had huge range for a size of a winery they are (5000 cases annually) they get fruit from Victoria and South Australia too besides their own local fruit. Best thing about them is the value for the money. Most of the wines are priced around teens. Really liked their Viognier and it is great value for $ 12 also when you buy a dozen you pay for 10 bottles which is what I did. Honorable mentions from Wetsend are their Duriff and a totally new variety (at least to me, never heard of it) called Saint Macaire. It is French variety, very soft and easy drinking, lots of black fruit (oppss, cliché description), low alcohol (% 13.5, now I know everyone is going to say that is not low but in today’s climate of almost nothing less then % 14.5-15 alcohol red wine fashion it felt low) really enjoyed it. went very well with pizza(Huge Italian influence, at least half of the people are Italians). Surprisingly Casella didn’t have a cellar door so that’s why they are not mentioned, I suppose they are too busy exporting to US so couldn’t taste their very famous Yellow Tail range !?!?!? But the place is gigantic, it looks more like a refinery than a winery. Also had tour of the Mc Williams Winery with the Senior Wine Maker, believe it or not some of their fermentation tanks are 200 ton capacity, no wonder they have so much stuff to sell at $ 6.
Botrytis Semillon is very common and there are very good examples of it, well according to the tourist guide, the Riverina as wine region is known by that anyway
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:39 am
by monghead
Pity you weren't there a couple of months earlier. The "fine diner" in town, Michelins just closed down I think. They had decent food, but comical service...
Cheers,
Monghead.
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:37 am
by ufo
monghead wrote:Pity you weren't there a couple of months earlier. The "fine diner" in town, Michelins just closed down I think. They had decent food, but comical service...
Cheers,
Monghead.
Yeap, they were closed.
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:41 pm
by monghead
ufo,
Did u get to try the rocket and proscuito pizza at "La Scala"?
Not too bad, I must say.
monghead.
Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:34 am
by ufo
monghead wrote:ufo,
Did u get to try the rocket and proscuito pizza at "La Scala"?
Not too bad, I must say.
monghead.
Sure did, it was highly recommended by the locals. It was pretty good indeed.
Re: Trip to Riverina (Griffith)
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:44 am
by Wilma
I know this is a pretty old post, but it caught my attention, because we live in Griffith and we're both in the wine industry. Wineries with their own bottling faccilities are:
Warburn, Beelgara, De Bortoli, Casella and Westend
McWilliams are still considering bringing back their bottling faccility to Griffith.
Berton and Nugan are very well known, with the latter having wineries in New Zealand and South Africa.
The following are lesser well known wineries: Yarran, Zappacosta, Australian Old Vine, Baratto, Melange and Piromint.
http://www.tablesonline.com.au/suburb/N ... rants.html for a list of restaurants, which I can promise are all serving very good food. Service is debatable, but then, I come from a country where tipping is a given, so service increase accordingly.
For a small town...aproximately 22000 people residing, there are heaps of wineries (definately more than a handful) and ample restaurants of very good quality. Not to mention all the action at close-by Leeton.
Yellow Tail is not the only brand which Casella makes, it is only the largest...for that matter, the 35th most well known brand name in the world. Yellow Tail Reserve is pretty good as is the Limited Release. Mallee Point is easy to drink and Yendah is pretty good on the palate. Black Stump, Crate 31 and Lake View are ALDI brands. Another little fact about Casella....it has the fastest wine bottling line (some say world) but we know for a fact in the southern hemisphere.
My preferance for local wine is Beelgara - good red wines.