The 2010 Red
Wine Weekend that was .....
Aaaahhhh!
Finally the red wine weekend has found it's home. Sometimes
you know when things belong together. Eggs and bacon, chocolate and
anything, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard (er ... didn't they just break
up? - Ed).
It is amazing what a difference location can make. Hadleys
Hotel, the site of the 08 event, had a cozy fire lit charm
but turned into a claustrophobic sauna as the crowd arrived.
The following year saw the event at the Henry Jones Hotel conference room.
Again a lack of room coupled with air conditioning problems took the
edge off an otherwise impressive weekend.
Happily none of these problems surfaced at this year's Red
Wine Weekend which was held at the Long Gallery in Salamanca Place.
What's more the very popular Salamanca Market provided a steady stream
of happy punters who wandered in to top off their shopping
with a spot of red wine.
Neatly summing up the punter response to this event was this
extremely well written email sent by Punter Ricky ....
"The Red Wine
Weekend - well the Saturday part of it at least - was great.
What was I
expecting? Well, being a red wine virgin, and to my everlasting shame,
I had what I now know is the old fashioned stereotypical idea that it
would be full of red wine buffs talking high fullutin' red wine
bollocks, (she's
an Essex girl folks, but you probably guessed that already - Ed)
of which I would be
able to understand nuthin'. I am very pleased to say that this was not
the case.
The location - aka the
Long Gallery - was like being in a deep long cool wine cellar, but the
windows facing on high looking across Salamanca Place gave it the feel
of a Paris-chic cafe, with winter sunshine streaming through the French
doors. A fantastic blend of atmospheres. The guys showcasing their
wines were as warm and as mellow as their produce, and chatted at a
charming conversational level. Those enjoying the sampling included a
multitude of ages, with laughter and red wine bonhomie flowing nicely -
conversation and interaction streaming gently across the wooden floors
together with the soft beams of winter sunshine.
Would we attend again?
Yes, I think we would with a couple of provisos. The Bruny Island
cheeses were great, but the experience would have been even more
spectacular if delicacies of roast beef and wild mushrooms had been
served to compliment the wines we were tasting. The food would have
been a conversation starter for those novices amongst us who did not
really know which wines to ask for. And with some 70 odd wines to
choose from we needed more information to make our choices. Other than
that we can only conclude that this was a brilliant experience for
virgins, novices, and experts, and all those in between.
Oh, one more
thing - given that I drank more than I spat, a coffee/hot chocolate
stand would really have completed the experience. A brilliant Saturday
afternoon - thank you so much :)".
Ricky's email highlighted the only improvements we could see
for this premier event. Since the Red Wine Weekend is about and for
punters it needs to address the fact that punters want some education
with their excellent red wine.
A lot of punters simply don't know how to tell a good wine
from a bad one and are eager to understand what wine to have with what
food. Last year the Red Wine Weekend had some wine 'master classes' and
perhaps in future we might see some 'appreciation' classes.
The Wines
Having mentioned excellent wine, with 70 wines available for
tasting we had to focus our efforts and this time it was on the latest
release pinots. We liked all of them but if we were to
generalise
we would say that pinots from the larger producers seem to be more
'ready to drink now' but the best candidates for cellaring come from
the smaller producers.
In such an impressive line up it's unfair to single out
particular wines but a couple did catch our eye: ...
09 Chromy
'Pepik' pinot because of the fact that it is a
complete wine now and will probably sell by the bucket load;
09 Moorilla
'Praxis' pinot because it was the one mentioned
by punters most often. We kept on hearing about the 'soup label' wine
and finally understood why. Looks like a happy coupling of a quality
product with some smart marketing;
09 Goaty Hill
pinot because of its intensity, slight acid
bite and long finish. Goaty Hill have demonstrated yet again that they
are a consistently good producer;
08 Drew pinot because
of it's great balance. As they say in
footy it is an 'absolute unit';
08 Riversdale
Centaurus Reserve Pinot because the name
sounds like it comes from Dr Who and the wine is a big dark smooth
burst of savoury cherry;
08 Sinapius
pinot because we tried it while it was still in
barrel and it was pleasing to see how well it has progressed since then;
And finally the
08 Oyster Cove Kilbowie
pinot because it is the first of the Kilbowie
made reds to be (coarse) filtered. This wine doesn't have the intense
back end of previous vintages but will probably appeal to a lot of
people. We expect sales to be brisk.
Our Highlights
Meeting quite a lot of punters who didn't know that they
liked red wine until they came to the event and in particular three
young punters of the female persuasion who didn't realise they liked
merlot "but will probably drink a lot of it from now on". This just
confirms that wine tasting helps make
punters better people and the world a better place (can I get an amen brothers and
sisters!? - Ed).
Our Lowlight
The otherwise extremely entertaining and friendly punter
Owen from Victoria who complained that there was too much wine on
offer. We won't say some people are never happy but we will say this is
taking the old saying 'too much of a good thing' too
far.
He also maintained that there was a 'poofteen' of grassy
flavour in the 08 Waterton Hall Shiraz and 05 Elmslie Three Mountain
View Cabernet. We don't know what a 'poofteen' is but clearly Owen
needs to be sedated and sent somewhere where he can get the
professional care he so obviously needs (now that deserves an amen! - Ed).
There are more pictures in the Gallery.
What do you think? Send us a comment