All About Wine And Its Goodness!

Spring is finally here and what better way to celebrate than with a glass of chilled Rosé from your wine library. For the last decade good Rosé has been in the wilderness. It has been missing in action, so to speak. There were actually very few Rosé wines to choose from and most were too sweet to be taken seriously. After all, most of us don’t want our wine to taste as sweet as a slice of chocolate cake.

That has all changed now. Wine fashion is taking a long trip back to the seventies and our wine producers are finally starting to make drinkable and enjoyable Rosé. Respectful Rosés are popping up from all over Australia and now is the best time to open a bottle and enjoy a glass.

Interestingly, Rosé is made using red grapes.  The wine gets its fantastic light red or pinkish colour from spending a short amount of time soaking with the red grape skins. It can be made using any grape variety, although most in Australia come from Grenache, Shiraz or Pinot Noir. Rosé comes in a dry or sweet varieties.The majority of modern Rosé wines are on the drier side. This lovely dryness makes Rose perfect for spring time dining and entertaining. The fun colour of Rose also adds to the novelty of drinking it. Something about the colour invites festive thoughts take over.

Rosé is perfect for outdoor dining or an afternoon drink in the sun. It is cool and light enough to enjoy with a simple summer salad but also has the stuffing to stand up to a piece of fresh fish or juicy steak straight off the barbeque.

When buying Rosé always go for the last vintage from your wine library. Rosés are made to be drunk young and most don’t age particularly well. Enjoy them now.

Consider buying your next bottle or case of Rosé from Crackawine.com.au. They will give you $25 spending money towards your first purchase.

Check out any wine shops and there is a fair chance you’ll notice that things have changed a bit on the wine menu over the last five years. Firstly there’s much growth in the Australian wine industry with new wineries and emerging grape varieties coming out across the country, giving consumers a larger range of wines to select from.

The second is that alongside these new local wines is an expanding range of imports from countries such as New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain. This trend began when the first lip-smackingly good Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand hit our shores 20 years ago and has been growing ever since. With more Australians willing to explore new wine from overseas, wine imports have essentially doubled since last year.

Chief among the nations now sending wines to our shores is the great wine making country of France.The French continue to make some of the greatest wines today, much like they have since Roman times.

While in the past there have certainly been problems at the lower end of the scale, with many French wines overpriced and inferior to a glass of decent Aussie Shiraz, the last 10 years has seen a great leap forward with quality at all levels higher than it has ever been before.

So if you want to take a dive into the world of French wine, here are a few tips. French wines names normally come from the region where they are produced as opposed to their grape variety, but don’t be hindered by this as French local laws determine which grapes are used in which wine types. Eg Red Bordeaux can be produced with a mix of Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and or Petit Verdot.

Generally, French wine has quite a different style to Australian wines, often with a drier quality with less overwhelming flavour, made to be consumed and matched to food, containing less alcohol and often have a oaky taste.

Below is a starting point for exploring some good French wine which are easily found at your local independent bottle shop or larger stores such as Dan Murphy’s and Vintage Cellars.
•    Côtes du Rhone (Grenache-based red wine)
•    Alsatian Riesling
•    Sancerre (Sauvignon Blanc) of Chablis (Chardonnay).

Woodend and Kyneton, which are located an hour North-West of Melbourne, have a Northern European feel. Perhaps it is the crisp bite of a cool Spring day, the historical streetscapes or even the patches of greenery from recent Winter rains but this is a very unique and beautiful landscape; not just in geography but also the climate that envelops it.

Unsurprisingly within this cool environment, which encompasses a multitude of hills and valleys, are pockets of vineyards that are creating exquisite, modern styles of Australian wine. Despite the potential and some brilliant wines the Macedon remains surprisingly unknown to many.

There is a lack of any one strong brand driving the region’s fortunes. No big company would even consider large-scale plantings here – the challenges are just too large and the yields too low. But for those vignerons that identify the right site and then put their heart and soul into grafting a quality product, there are tremendous rewards. To date, the best known wines of the Macedon have been the local pinot noirs and chardonnays from the likes of Curly Flat and Bindi, with others such as Lanes End and Paramoor also showing promise. And there is still an Aladdin’s cave of potential sites yet to be explored; it seems more than likely that the quality of product in the Macedon is destined to go from strength to strength over the next decade or two.

Recently at the Macedon Show I was again reminded that, while pinot noir and chardonnay have driven the region’s fortunes to date, the region also has a knack of consistently turning out some of Australia’s greatest Sparkling wines. In the old days that may not have meant so much but from cool mainland regions, today lead by the Macedon, as well as Tasmania, more and more locally produced wines are really challenging the quality of fine French Champagne. The Macedon instils in its best wines a delicacy and purity of acidity that is remarkably reminiscent of fine French bubbly. It’s no surprise in that vineyards in both the Macedon and Champagne are some of the coolest. The resulting wines their much-praised elegance while keeping intact a rigid core of acidity.

At the 2009 Macedon show, two sparkling wines, stood out, and both from the same producer. The first was the Mount William Blanc de Blanc from 2001, a sparkling chardonnay that is still remarkably fresh and alive. And the second is the Mount William ‘Jorja Alexis’ Pinot Noir Rosé from 2003, a very pretty and subtle wine with multiple layers of red berry fruit with subtle earthy nuances in a supremely balanced and silky package.