Hunter Valley Semillon Tasting

Chateau Elan

Only a two hour drive from Sydney, our accommodation was the luxurious Chateau Elan which is a golf and day spa resort which is home to numerous Kangaroos and wildlife. Hunter Valley is quite a successful area due partly to this proximity to Sydney and it now boasts 2.8 million visitors to the wine region per annum spending over A$560m. To cater for all of these thirsty tourists there are now 75 cellar door outlets.

Australian Alternatives- Sydney

We met up with Julia Angrove (Wine Australia) and Rob Hirst and walked a short distance to Wine Odyssey, The Rocks about 300m from where the first vines were grown in Australia.

Wine Odessey is a wine bar and wine school where we met Rob Geddes MW. Rob was the third MW from Australia (they now have about 17) and Rob was our host for what was deemed an Australian "Alternative, Emerging and Rediscovered" tasting.

Old Vine Tasting -Langmeil Barossa

Paul Lindner winemaker Langmeil Barossa

What a really cool tasting, outdoors at the Langmeil winery in Barossa, tasting wine made from old vines, and afterwards we had a really great barbque, (very Australian).

Shiraz- Yalumba - Barossa

The Shiraz Master class was hosted by Yalumba's chief winemaker Louisa Rose and we were joined for a short time by Stephen Henschke.

Louisa Rose

The tasting was held in theYalumba's refurbished cement vat's "Tank 12" that were used for many years as Yalumba's fermentation vat's which gave an interesting added dimension to the tasting. The tasting room is adjacent to Yalumba's well known wine "museum" which houses many valuable old vintages of wines from all over the world as well as extremly rare Yalumba vintages. Louisa innocently let us loose in here for about 10 minutes and then had to drag us away!

Riesling Tasting - Taylors Clare Valley

Fermentation Tanks at Taylor's Wines

The Riesling tasting was held in one of the "homes" of Australian Riesling, Clare Valley (the other being Eden Valley). More specifically it was held at Taylors Wines whose wines are known in Europe as Wakefield Wines (to avoid confusion with Taylors of Oporto). Taylor'sproduce approximately 580,000 cases per annum,of many varieties and many styles and they export worldwide.

Grenache - McLaren Vale

For the Grenache tasting we met up with Sharon Wood fromWine Australia and Sharon brought us to meet with Bryn Richards, (Chapel Hill winemaker) and his "mate from down the road" Justin McNamee (Samuel's Gorge winemaker). Apparently they worked together at another winery about 15 years ago so know each other well.

Sauvignon Blanc Master Class- Adelaide Hills

Geoff Weaver was our host at the picturesque Longview winery in Adelaide Hills,

View from the terrace at Longview

Geoff Weaver is a winemaker with the pedigree of having been Hardy's chief winemaker before branching out on his own in Lenswood as Geoff Weaver wines specialising in Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay gaining four red stars from James Halliday in 2011.

Coonawarra- Cabernet Master Class

Aftera short flight from Melbourne we arrived at Mount Gambier regional airport and transfered by coach to our accomodation "MUST @ Coonawarra". We then made our way to the local restaurant "Pipers" in Penola and met with the wine makers from Bowen Estates, Balnaves, Majella, Rymill, Zema Estates, and Raidis Estate where we had a really great night even though many of these guys were really tired as it was right in the middle of their harvest.

Fortified Tasting- Chris Pfeiffer

Chris Pfeiffer came down to Domaine Chandon from Rutherglen to host our Fortified Master Class. Chris operates his own winery, Pfeiffer Wines, which specialises in fortifieds.

Domaine Chandon- Yarra



Domaine Chandon in the Yarra Valley was the setting for the Sparkling wine tasting:

Our hosts here were three prestigeous Sparkling winemakers:
Ed Carr, House of Arras (Tasmania)
Glen Thompson, Domaine Chandon, and
Mark O'Callaghan, Yarra Burn, (Yarra Valley)

Pinot Noir - Yarra Tasting

After lunch at Yering Staion we took a short coach trip with our friendly bus driver in theYarra, Brian, to de Bortoli wines where we met with Steve Webber of de Bortoli Wines-Yarra Valley and Timo Mayer of Timo Mayer wines Yarra Valley. These two are old mates and as we discussed the idiosyncracies of growing the Pinot Noir grape and the special treatment of it the winery it was easly to see that these two guys really loved their work, in fact,their enthuasiasm for viticulture and winemaking was infectious and it appeared to that they were really doing what they really wanted to do in life.They were fantastic and we had a fantastic discussion regarding Pinot Noir from Australia's cool climate regions like Yarra, Mornington and Tasmania.The point of most interest to me is that they were very happy to point out that they thought that they had made mistakes with their winemaking in the past (for example over extraction, over oaking etc) but they are happy to admit that as they have a great "thirst" for perfection and excellence.

Chardonnay Tasting - Yarra Valley

Our first "proper" Australian tasting, was Chardonnay and it took place at the fabulous Yering Station in the Yarra Valley. Yering Station was originally planted in 1838 and was Victoria's first vineyard. Willy Lunn (Chief Winemaker) and Brendan Hawker (Winemaker) for Yering Station and Yarrabank (JV between Yering Station and Champage house Devaux) were our hosts. Willy and Brendan have great experience, Willy have worked at Petaluma and Shaw & Smith in the Adelaide Hills and also at Argyle in Oregon and Brendan has worked at Wither Hills (Marlborough) ad a smal winery in Napa.

Prince Wine & Spirits, St Kilda

This was our very first get together, we met with Annabel Mugford of Wine Australia and headed to the well known "bottle shop" Prince Wine & Spirits where our host Roscoe Halligan was waiting to do a Victorian tasting with us regional (by the way it was Victorian becuase of the region not because they were old wines!) The tasting covered, Mornington peninsula, Geelong Heathcote and Tasmania (not really Vic but close).

Australia Visit

Just arrived in Melbourne (10/04/2011) courtesy of our good friends at Wine Australia who have organised what seems to be an absolutely fantastic trip.  Six of us lucky people are on this visit, yours truly representing Ireland, Thomas Curtuis (Germany), Plamen (Pako) Velikov (Canada), Virginia Cole (USA), Pui-Hong Chung, (Hong Kong) and last but not least Aki Shidaka (Japan).