Appellation Australia

Wine Australia is this coming weekend in Sydney and with hundreds of exhibitors, even those of us who are going on all four days will probably not get to see all the producers on show.

With that in mind, here are ten producers that caught my eye and that I think are worth taking a look at. Of course there are many more that are very worthy, so please feel free to post any of your own recommendations in the comments.

Bass Phillip Wines (Gippsland, Victoria) - STAND: 560A

Phillip Jones of Bass Phillip is considered by some to be the best, and perhaps the most Burgundy influenced producer of Pinot Noir in Australia.

Castagna (Beechworth, Victoria) - STAND 561A

At the last Wine Australia two years ago, I tried to engage Julian Castagna in conversation without success. Perhaps I just caught him on a bad day, but the quality of the wines speak for themselves.

Charles Melton Wines (Barossa Valley, South Australia) - STAND 472A

Home to one of my favourite Australian Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvedre blends (Nine Popes) and one of my favourite Rose wines (Rose of Virginia) the wines are well worth trying.

Curly Flat Vineyard (Macedon Ranges, Victoria) - STAND 528A

Right among the very top Pinot Noir and Chardonnay producers in Australia recently.

Hoddles Creek Estate (Yarra Valley, Victoria) - STAND 562E

The producers of what have to be some of the best value wines on the market today. Yarra Valley Chardonnay and Pinot with style and interest, both providing change from $20.

Petaluma (Coonawarra, South Australia) - STANDS 414, 431 & 455

It will be interesting to see what happens to Petaluma with the recent departure of Brian Croser, who had been at the helm for 30 years - but the quality across the range at the moment is superb.

Pierro (Pemberton, Western Australia) - STAND: Not Listed

The Chardonnay can be polarising with its monumental stature and the LTC blend is almost the opposite with its delicate structure.

Pirie Tasmania (Tasmania) - STAND 525A

The new venture from Andrew Pirie, who was one of the founders of the Tasmanian wine industry through establishing Pipers Brook in the mid 1970s. I haven’t tried these new wines, but am looking forward to doing so.

Tyrrell’s (Hunter Valley, New South Wales) - STAND 438A

A Hunter Valley institution and home to some of the most underrated wines in Australia. Their Vat 1 Semillon is a national treasure.

Woodlands (Margaret River, Western Australia) - STAND 516

A winery that has a large buzz surrounding it in the past couple of years through some excellent reviews from wine critics and positive feedback from various wine forums. They are sure to be a popular stand based on some exceptional reviews for four of their wines from Jeremy Oliver in the past few weeks.

If you’ve visited the site over the past couple of weeks, you would have noticed that I was trialling limited Google Ads on some pages. There were a number of things that I didn’t really like about the Google ads. Primarily that I had no real control over what companies were promoted via the ads.

Thus, I am pleased to be able to remove the Google Ads and replace them with a business that I am happy to endorse, Wickman’s Fine Wine Auctions.

There are a couple of things about Wickman’s that sets them aside from other wine auction houses in Australia.
* An annual charity auction for the Multiple Sclerosis Australia charity.
* A charity section in each auction with unique donations from various industry sources and no commissions charged on lots.
* A “guaranteed provenance” system where they will take extra steps with certain lots to guarantee that they have been stored properly.
* Low commissions - 5% for the seller and 10% for the buyer.
* Reasonable shipping - it costs less to have a case of wine shipped from Wickman’s in Adelaide to Sydney, than it does to have a case shipped from a leading auction house in Sydney to me!

I’m glad to recommend them and I think it is worth checking them out, and if you are interested, signing up for their newsletter in advance of the next auction that starts in July.

Just a quick note to mention that one of my favourite writers on Australian wine, Campbell Mattinson seems to have started a free blog to go along with his excellent monthly subscription newsletter Winefront Monthly.

You can view the blog here and if you like his writing, I can highly recommend subscribing to the newsletter which is $4 AUD per issue.

Dr Vino’s Wine Blog hosts Wine Blogging Wednesday #18 with a theme that asks us to talk about a wine store that “feels the love”.

For those readers who aren’t familiar with Wine Blogging Wednesday, it is a monthly event started by Lenn from Lenndevours that is hosted by a member of the wine blogging community with a different theme selected by the host each month. I’m set to host WBW #26 in October and I can’t wait.

With an increasing amount of market share being taken by the two major supermarket chains in Australia, it is a good time to support independent bottle shops that provide a level of service and selection of wines that the supermarkets can’t provide.

My favourite wine store is Annandale Cellars - the staff there are knowledgeable, friendly and happy to spend a fair bit of time with me whenever I come into the store just to talk about new releases or wines that we’ve tried recently and liked or not liked. They have a small but handpicked selection of mostly boutique Australian wines and have been happy in the past to try to hunt down specific wines that I have been looking for that they don’t stock. Most importantly I trust the advice I get from the staff in this store, they remember what I’ve mentioned I’ve liked and disliked on past visits and tailor their suggestions for my interests.

So to Chris and the rest of the staff at Annandale Cellars, thanks for the outstanding service and I’m looking forward to visiting your store and trying more wines that you suggest in 2006.

Annandale Cellars
119 Johnston St, Annandale, New South Wales
(02) 9660 1947
sales@annandalecellars.com.au

Just a quick post to plug what I consider to be a fantastic (and free!) service.

Cellartracker is an extensive online cellar management system, with the main differentiator between this and other products being that you share alot of information with other users of the system. So if someone else writes a tasting note on a wine that you own, you are able to see their opinion and rating on your cellar listing.

The list of other features is too long to go into, but it’s well worth a try, considering the site is free for use (but does ask for donations if you find it useful, which is fair enough).

Here is a link to my own very humble cellar listing Cam’s Cellartracker Cellar Listing

If you have a CellarTracker cellar of your own, I’d love for you to post a link so I could have a look.

Yesterday I decided to do a bit of quick informal research into how many screwcap and cork sealed wines are available to consumers. There are figures published for how many Australian wines are sealed under each, but they tend to be skewed since they take into account volume and so wineries producing millions of cases will have a bigger influence in the statistics. I just wanted to find out that for the average consumer who walks into a store, what choices they have.

Read on for the results.

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