In this, my last post on the regional tasting of Mudgee, I want to concentrate on the wines that stood out and showed glimpses of great potential as well as a couple of surprise wines. On the afternoon of the first day we headed to the barrel room at Lowe Wines where we were exposed [...]

How often do you get stuck for the right words? Or feel the dread of of having to write another tasting note. Wouldn’t it be easier to delegate it to someone who enjoys writing and does it for a career? What, you mean pay a professional? Well yes, I do. Someone who places words in [...]

You remember those wines you bought for your children, did you really buy them for your kids? Come on let’s be honest, full disclosure time.

Much as I’d like to admit that the wines purchased in a birth year are for my little loved ones, there is a part of me that knows that really all [...]

The Yalumba Museum Tasting is a well-executed formula for this old family wine business to show off their wares. The Yalumba roadshow has toured the country in the last fortnight with about the same excitement for viono-philes as if they were attending a One Direction gig. The show came to a close last night as [...]

Mudgee’s other secret weapon: Shiraz
Apart from hanging their heads on Chardonnay as a stalwart grape of the region the producers of Mudgee are keen to push and extoll the virtues of Shiraz. I can certainly see their point. Mudgee mud as these wine used to be known have grown up. What became clear from the [...]

A couple of weeks back I enjoyed lunch at Sydney’s new culinary hotspot, the Chiswick with Leanne De Bortoli as she helped launch the latest range of Windy Peak Wines. Leanne was keen to point out that these are wines that are easy drinking and glugable and she’s spot on. All retail at under $15 [...]

Last week the A+  cavalcade rolled into town with a chutzpah not seen in Australian wine for a number of years. Wine Australia, (the government run body), has realised that Australian wine needs a little help domestically if they are to lure the next generation of wine drinkers to drink Australian wine. Less jingoistic, more [...]

The Great white hope:
One of the most interesting sessions in a recent trip to Mudgee was a Chardonnay tasting held at the picturesque Logan Wines. Peter Logan (pictured above) gave us some interesting background to the variety in the region and prompted some illuminating dialogue as to what they should be doing with Chardonnay,it was [...]

I wrote an article about the state of Mudgee late last year but I want to expand on some of this thinking as I’ve just returned from a two day immersion study of the region that was organised by four key wineries: Lowe Wines, Logan Wines, Di Luso and Robert Oatley wines.
The idea was to [...]

To innovate. What does it mean? well it’s about producing something that’s better than before. It’s about pushing boundaries and presenting alternatives to the norm. In the case of the wine I’ve chosen it’s a bit more general. In this spitbucket I’m not looking at the most cutting edge wine producers, but I am looking [...]

Last friday I got the opportunity to try some special wines courtesy of Bollinger including the rare and rarely opened VVF Blanc de Noirs. Guy de Rivoire from Bollinger was there to give some background about the wine and seemed quite excited to be opening the VVF as it was not a wine from the [...]

Happy St. Patricks day. Not just my own patron saint but a good tie in from Brown Brothers to release their eighth vintage of the premium Patricia range. I was lucky enough to be invited to Sydney recently to meet with Ross and Catherine Brown and winemaker Wendy Cameron to see a few of the [...]

There’s really not much I can say in terms of introductions. McWilliam’s continues to be one of the most prolific family owned wineries in Australia celebrating a history of 135 years winemaking in 2012. Most of the famous table wines are made at Mount Pleasant in the Hunter and thanks to the legendary Maurice O’Shea, [...]

Yes. It’s spelt wrong. An artist uses a palette but this is a deliberate play on words. Taylor’s wines have always been keen patrons on the arts and so it was a pleasure to join them earlier this week at the NSW art gallery to wander through the Picasso exhibition with the ex-curator Terence Maloon. [...]

Imagine if we just had milk. By that I mean to celebrate with. It would be a tragic state of affairs. The notion of milk may be connected to terroir in just the same way but it can’t really dazzle with a variety of permutations that grapes can. It’s too milky and samey to have [...]

I’ve known Karl Stockhausen for a number of years, I used to sit on tasting panels with him at Wine Selectors, he has a great palate, a fun personality and is full of humilty.
I have been lucky in the past to have tried his wines, in particular the 1983 Lindemans Bin 6600 that illustrated the [...]

I know it’s vintage time. Which means you don’t have much to spare. But bear with me a minute. It’s not going to take long.
If you are underwhelmed by the prospect of handling your communications but want to be overwhelmed by interest in your brand, you could save yourself some stress and get a born communicator [...]

Wine was never really prevalent when I was growing up. My first memory of wine was my half-brothers 21st. To celebrate the event my Dad had bought one of those home brewing kits. Looking back on it now it seems ludicrous. He made both a white and a red. It was my job to take [...]

The long lunch is a tradition that in some quarters is dying. For some it was the only existence, especially in the 80s when expense accounts were de rigueur and more deals were done at the dinner table than in the office.
It’s not hard to understand why either. There’s the conviviality of mixing business [...]

Breast milk is rarely mentioned on wine blogs.There’s undoubtedly a reason for that. Before you assume this will be accompanied by some kind of sick tasting note, let me assure you there is back-story to this lactic tale.
For anyone that’s lived with a first child who breast feeds, you will quickly find that the production [...]

My father had left the room. It was time to pay our respects to our mother. Weirdly it was the first time I’d seen a cadaver and it seemed surreal that only a few weeks earlier we had been chatting. I cooked a roast duck. She had not had an appetite for days but she [...]

I’ve said it a few times this year but as a commentator and more importantly as a drinker Australian wine has never been more groundbreaking, innovative and exciting. I’ve been exposed to regions and styles that have left me giddy at the experimentation and the pursuit of something much more admirable than just technically well [...]

I recently wrote an article on the Len Evans Tutorial for Breathe Magazine, you can read the story by clicking on the link and turning to page 22 Between Evans and Hell

The photo says it all. A winery that calls itself Mongrel based in Mudgee, NSW. It’s a fitting analogy for a region that has struggled with what it does best when it comes to wine. You ask people what is varieties Mudgee specialises in and you will get several different answers. Most people still think [...]

You have to admire the eccentric nature of winemaker David ‘Lowie’ Lowe. Who else would bother putting on a wine dinner in Mudgee that mixes up Sake, Japanese food and the best of Lowe Wines?
The inspiration for such folly came from Tokyo where the Gonpachi restaurant, that was featured in the movie called ‘Kill Bill’, [...]

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to be invited to a verticle tasting of a decade’s worth of Petaluma’s esteemed Hanlin Hill Riesling and Coonawarra Cabernet. In this post I want to look exclusively at the Riesling. It proved an eye-opening experience being able to compare the wines and to chart their development [...]

On my late Mother’s 70th birthday I surprised her in two ways. I flew to London from Australia without her knowledge so that I could be there to share her landmark in style. The other thing I did was buy a bottle of Dom Perignon 1990 in duty free.  Nothing surprising about that for [...]

Every year a group of us vacate to Byron Bay for a catch up. Not suprisingly, drink is always a priority for those of us with two or more children. This year I drove, which allowed me to pack a dozen wines in case of emergencies.
Over the course of a weekend we drank some interesting [...]

Last night at the Opera House, the nine trophy winners of the 2011 Citibank NSW Wine Awards were awarded. The winners were chosen from the 40 top wines of NSW, which were judged a few weeks back by 20 wine judges under the chairmanship of Huon Hooke (pictured above).
From over 830 entries, the wines were [...]

“Well, dinner would have been splendid… if the wine had been as cold as the soup, the beef as rare as the service, the brandy as old as the fish, and the maid as willing as the Duchess.” Winston Churchill
I remember vividly in my childhood, my father taking us to see Winston Churchill’s grave. There [...]

As we drove into the Yarra to the backdrop of a stunning sunset, Sommelier of the year Stuart Knox, said : “Have you done this program before? They grill you quite hard and expect you to have an opinion.”
I never thought of myself as having opinions that people wanted to hear. Diplomatically safe, I could [...]

Things are popping up everywhere these days, with or without the aid of viagra. The advent of these impromptu erections means that anyone can get in on the act. Anything from restaurants, to bars, and now tastings.
Wunderchef Thomas Keller from the esteeemed French Laundry and Per Se fame has just proved how valuable the pop [...]

I like being greeted off a plane with a latte and a friand. Makes one feel very important. As I was to soon find out  there’s no-end to the hospitality shown by Wirra Wirra to ensure the celebrations in memory of the late and great Greg Trott went to plan.
Coffee still in hand, a glass [...]

A few weeks back, several winemakers, commentators, journalists, trade  and I were invited by Australian vintage (and more specifically Neil McGuigan pictured above) to focus on Semillon. I coined it a Citrus focus group, a league of lean, lemon lovers who were assembled to discuss the poor reception Semillon receives in its present incarnation.
When I [...]

Running a marathon takes immense discipline. It’s not just the completion of 42 Kilometres on the day. It’s the preparation, the mental and physical agility. Not to mention the focus, drive and the challenge. To find out Sam Connew is running the New York marathon in just a matter of months is hardly surprising. She’s [...]

It seems like only yesterday we were doing the inaugural Best’s Tweet up. kudos once again to his institution of Oz wine that has embraced technology without it seeming too naff. This year the Best’s tweet up pack comes complete with QR codes, this years bit of techno-innovation. For a winery that celebrates tradition they [...]

On a recent trip to McLaren Vale, one of the highlights was catching up with Justin Lane of Alpha Box and Dice. Justin is an intelligent and loquatious individual on a mission to make wines that intrigue and fascinate. In a world full of monocramatic and homogenous wines, Lane breathes colour and expression into his [...]

Where did that year go? It’s hard to say. It’s been a whirlwind 12 months for my blog and I’m really pleased to have managed to keep it going. When I first started last year, I was in a different job and I’d have to admit boredom was a factor, so this was a welcome [...]

De Bortoli wines have operations in Griffith and the Hunter but it’s in the Yarra that Steve Webber and Sarah Fagan are producing consistently detailed wines across a wide array of price points. Steve was the 2007 Gourmet Traveller Winemaker of the year and it’s been well documented that he aims to make wines that [...]

Ewan Lacey is a UK based wine educator and presenter of channel 4’s the Cookery School. “He is deeply passionate about finding the story behind the wine and explaining this in a way that’s easy to understand. Ewan is driven to make wine accessible to anyone who wants to know about it and believes that, [...]

With over 150 years in wine, Henschke is bigger and stronger than ever, looking towards the next generation of family to steer the winery into new and exciting territories. I caught up with winemaker Stephen to find out what’s new, what’s so important about family and how the future looks for one of Australia’s First [...]

I think everyone is familiar with the Henschke name. Even if you don’t  drink the stuff, you’ve heard the name, or seen the branded bottles that are so recognisable. For me it started in the U.K. when I was working in wine retail on some dodgy off license in South London. A case of 1990 [...]

The Barossa is all about family. As you peel away the layers, a proud heritage is revealed with land ownership privileges akin to Burgundy. Prized vineyards in the region are scarce and tend to stay with in the familial firmament, getting passed on from generation to generation. I guess what surprised me so much about [...]

Driving through the Hills I forgot just what a pretty region it is and how it has transformed itself in the last few years to become a major force in cool climate wines. And it’s not just the usual Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay that are leading the way. This is a region that is [...]

(The crowd at Spitbucket had a great evening drinking Hunter wine)
Join the winingpom this Wednesday, as we ride the saddled horse of Hunter hedonism down the spitbucket highway. I’ve hunted and collected a top notch range of the Hunter’s finest, and look forward to sharing one of Australia’s oldest wine regions with you.
Being an adopted [...]

“Utilising online media is a valuable part of our communications strategy, but it can also be easy to take it a little too seriously. It’s a gift that we now have another way that we can talk to the community. However, in many ways it’s no different to traditional communications. The consumer still holds all [...]

“Still too many vicious wine bloggers out there. Making no money, no reputation, no life, no influence…100% frustrated! “

Pancho Campo MW
Blogging. It’s become like an insult. The very mention of the word blog has a negative connotation. There is a myopic pre-conception that because we “blog” we must in some way be amateur. It [...]

Happy Chardonnay Day. It looks like it’s going to be a big old day in twitterland. #chardonnayday is upon us and even I’m a bit shocked at just how much momentum has been gathered before an event. I don’t have the facts to hand but there have already been millions of impressions registered across twitter [...]

The launch of the St. Hallett Old Block 2008 was a celebration of one of the country’s most prestigious single vineyard Shiraz. However this was a tasting with a difference, before the unveiling of the new vintage wines, the winemakers Stuart Blackwell and Toby Barlow wanted to illustrate what made the terroirs of the Barossa [...]