Wine with Meg + Mel
The fun + frank podcast which helps you navigate the world of wine. Hosted by Australia's first female Master of Wine Meg Brodtmann, and self-titled Master of Sabrage Mel Gilcrist.
Wine with Meg + Mel
Australian Icons Part 2
We taste through Australian icons and ask what truly makes a wine “great”: site, story, structure, or time. From Great Western’s mineral Shiraz to Margaret River’s silky Cabernet, Grange’s legend and Noble One’s golden botrytis, we weigh value, ageability and joy.
• Best’s Bin 0 Shiraz 2021 as elegant, dark-fruited Great Western benchmark
• Continental climate, phenolic ripeness and stony granitic tannins
• Thompson Family Shiraz 2020 from 1868 pre-phylloxera vines
• Why cellaring matters and protecting historic vineyards
• Margaret River Cabernet structure versus Yarra Valley tannin
• Barrel selection and blending for balance and perfume
• Penfolds Grange history, pricing, ageing and corking clinics
• Botrytis mechanics behind Noble One and food matches
• Pride in Australian diversity and value at multiple price points
• Aldi picks: Chianti for weeknight food pairing and value
Make sure you come back for that until next time. Enjoy your next glass of wine and drink well
Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel
Hi and welcome to Wine with Meg and Mel. We're here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Meg Gil Christian, my master of Wine, Meg, Rutman and producer Austin. We have to get straight into it because we went way too long last episode. And so now this happens when we haven't seen each other.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you know, and we just I hate to sorry to everyone that we catch up on a podcast. I think people like that. Like we seriously. Oh, but did you know? Oh no. You can see Austin sitting there going, okay, let's just no delete all of that shit and move on. And he's writing down the time frames we're actually talking about line.
SPEAKER_01:I love it when he writes down. You know, we've said something good when he makes a little note, and sometimes he just sits there for age just like, are they gonna talk about wine? Yeah. Hurry up. Now, what is our first wine that we've poured for today?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so we're again on to the Langton's classification or the iconic wines of Australia. And I am so proud as a Victorian that bests of Great Western who have been around since the 1800s, family-owned, daggy region, Great Western. You know, what do we think of Great Western? Do we do we know where Great Western is? It's somewhere north.
SPEAKER_01:Is it near the Grand Penny?
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god. That makes that makes a lot of sense. Clearly Melfowell geography at the school. It is like Ararat, w Ballarat West, heading towards um what's the Horsham? Horscap, is it near Horscarp? Yeah, Hors'cap. That's where it is in my head. Um Great Western is actually a town. Believe it or not. Yeah. And it's where Seppolds of Great Western, one of the greatest sparkling wine makers of Australia, now part of the Treasury wine group, is located. It is lost. But these guys It's lost. Well, it really is in the middle of nowhere, Great Western. I remember going to the pub once and we were we'd ordered a coffee and the woman comes up and goes, Do you want some moo juice? What's and we were like, What?
SPEAKER_01:Like milk? I am never calling it milk again in my life. Moo juice. That's fantastic. And this is I'm gonna teach my childhood that that's what it's called.
SPEAKER_03:Probably the 80s, because a friend of mine had a very large property in Ararat, and we used to go and stay there and buy all these great Great Western wines. Anyway, I digress. I'm just really proud as a Victorian that we have two iconic Victorian Sherazzes from Great Western. So the first one that we're trying is what year is it?
SPEAKER_01:You've got it there. 2021. Which one is it? It is the bin number zero.
SPEAKER_03:Bin number zero. Bin zero Shiraz 2021 from Best Great Western. Now, from this area, I expect a darker fruit profile. There's some plumminess, some not brambly fruit, but sort of dark plum, but not pruny. It's not on the dried fruit spectrum. It's deeper, darker fruit, but definitely fresh fruit spectrum. Okay, so I also expect some black pepper and licorice from around here.
SPEAKER_01:I expected my head to be blown off with tannin, and that did not happen, not even a little bit.
SPEAKER_03:It's a continental climate, so what happens is the Shiraz has this long hang time. When you get tannin, often, A, it's in the winemaking. Yeah. But often what happens is that the you get alcohol and sugar ripeness, but the tannins aren't quite ripe. They haven't had enough time to mature on the vine. So when we we talk about physiological and phenological ripeness, and phenological ripeness is the ripeness of the tannin and the colour, and we don't want just alcohol and fruit, we want to allow the tannins enough time to ripen on the vine as well. Whoa! The beauty about this region is they do have these long dry autumns, and I think it's also a great region for Riesling. Um, but we don't see a lot of Riesling out of there. But this wine is just a perfect example of that character. Yeah, I'm figuring the alcohol's quite high because I can feel it.
SPEAKER_01:I've got it here. It is a thing. It's eight tender drinks, but it's not around.
SPEAKER_03:Eight standard drinks is about. Just under 14. 13 and a half?
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, 13 and a half. There you go, bang. Um wow, I did not expect it to have that elegant, especially on the nose. It's quite dark and brooding. And then on the palate, it delivers with the flavour, but it doesn't blow your head off. There is this allocating.
SPEAKER_03:Is there those stony tannins, like that granite-like tannin, like licking a stone that you get from the clonicula that we had last week? This is what these continental climates for me do, and this is where for the roan, I get that as well. And you get this um definite perfume, this that licorice in there, a little bit of green peppercorn, which is probably I'm assuming your black pepper. There is just something bloody delicious about it.
SPEAKER_01:You know what? If you're a like a Pinot person and your friend is like a um Barossa Shiraz person, you will both enjoy that wine. And there are not many wines in the world that you can say that for. And geographically, it's kind of halfway between the Yara and Barossa.
SPEAKER_03:Oh cute. That's nice. Yeah.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um also, this comes in a little bit um not um because not cheap, but it's more around that kind of$80 to$90 range rather than over$100, which is the I think this is the first one we've had that's under$100.
SPEAKER_03:One that I would recommend you buy young and just hide it away. Um because this is a 2021, so it's got four years. It's a complete puppy. Like there's no age character at all on that wine, and I think it needs a little bit more time so that we get some of that tertiary with the big one. Yeah, I agree. That would be really nice.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome.$85, you can buy it on their website. That is a phenomenal start to this episode.
SPEAKER_03:So now we're jumping up to 2020, which is the Thompson Family Shiraz. So 2020 cooler year than 2021. Both still cool La Niña years. Um, so I'm kind of expecting a little bit more black pepper in this, possibly lighter in colour. Yeah, it is a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Um Paul Austin still only has a sparkling glass. He's pouring himself this. Well, that's his fault.
SPEAKER_03:Shiraz wines. We are very DIY still, and we have got.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like this hurts your soul watching.
SPEAKER_01:It does. I need I'm trying, I'm trying not to watch.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, sorry. We were doing some wine wanker campaigns when you were away. Am I a wine wanker? And Mel K the answer came out yes every single time. So yeah, don't worry about it, Austin.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, this one is much more rich. Yeah, this is just denser. It is dense. That is, it's produced from only 15 rows of 1868.
SPEAKER_03:This is the thing, and this is probably this would be pre-phloxera. It has to be 1868. This would be this would be the original vines from France grown on their own roots, which even the French don't know. So this would be the most pure expression of Syrah slash Shiraz.
SPEAKER_01:Historically, these are it was once referred to as Hermitage, so the old bottles would be labelled Hermitage.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because that's where it was from. But it's not Hermitage, it's great Western Shiraz on own rooted pre-phyloxera finds. How exciting. You were drinking history in a glass here.
SPEAKER_01:And they can't make it every year. In the last 30 years, they've only made 18 vintages worth. Oh my god, I can't believe they sent us a bottle. That is history. It's okay. Before we get to uh how much is it? Yeah, it's 250 before people get to it's so much, but oh my god. Like it's you're right, it's a piece of history.
SPEAKER_00:No, I wish I put it in the right glass.
SPEAKER_03:If you didn't hear that, Austin's a bit devastated. Well, just quick pop out and get another glass. Um that was really good comedian timing, Austin. Yeah, this is that's an extraordinary wine. I hate to say it though, we are drinking it too young. The thing is with these wines is because you are spending 250 bucks, you want to know what they're like. So take it from us, spend the 250 bucks, but don't drink it. Lay it down.
SPEAKER_01:The finish is everything on that wine. Like there are some wines, it's almost like the finish is more than the palette in this amazing way. You swallow it, and then the show begins, and you just sit there and take it back and take it in. Like, that is so, so special.
SPEAKER_03:It's got some of that baked earth character that I like, but not in a dried out kind of way. There's a lot going on there, there's a lot of violets, there's that again that granitic stony cut type of tannin, plum-fruited, but there is this baked earth character that I just yeah, that is I'm kind of a bit lost for words for that one. It's and it's Victorian. I feel really this is why people do not go into vineyards in the Yarrow Valley and then go walking around Western Victoria. If you fuck over these vines, we lose our history. Same with the Barossa. Philoxra is real. Keep it away from these beautiful vines.
SPEAKER_01:I can't believe it still exists. Yeah, protect this vineyard at all costs.
SPEAKER_03:These guys, this would all be dry grown, I imagine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because yeah, I'm pretty sure it says it's dry grown. A lot of water. I'm funny, and how'd you move on? I'm like really um absorbed in this wine. I feel like it's something really special to be drinking right now.
SPEAKER_03:This is a wine that you could you've probably seen, best of great western in the um, you know, in your retailers. Even their entry-level wines are amazing, good good value. Like you can buy their sort of entry-level wines for about 30 bucks, and they are such great wines to lay down. Um, the label's been the same forever and ever and ever. Poor Mel's just tipped it out.
SPEAKER_01:It broke my heart tipping it out. I just know how much wine we're drinking today.
SPEAKER_03:True.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, okay, that one's hard to move on from, but we we got to. And this is the thing that's the most amazing.
SPEAKER_03:Like we were in Port Ferry over the uh anyway, cup weekend. And they've got a vineyard the vineyard down at Drumborg, which is the most southernly lattice chute in Victoria, and they go Pinot and Riesling down there, and we drove past it because I said, People, you've got to go and see this vineyard. And he was like, Why would I go and have a look at a vineyard? I said, Well, it's seriously just a vineyard in the middle of nowhere. These guys have planted there. Why? The only thing I can think of is they must have had a holiday house around there because it's seriously lost. Um sort seek out their their wines from Drumborg as well. They and I think they are on the Langtons classification as well.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, yeah, awesome. Okay, do we are going? Is this our first Margaret River? It is. Yeah. So we're moving west. We've been all over Australia in New York. We've had Tassie West. We've had Yerra, we've had Canberra New South Wales. We're gonna finish on South Australia. We've had is Queensland. Lift you going, Queensland. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Um Xanadu. So this is the 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon. Um, as you know, on the Langton's classification, there's a few um Chardonnay, so Lewin is on there. Um Xanadu is probably best known, I think, for their red wines and their Cabernets. It's a blend of Cabernet, and there's a little bit of Malbec and Petit Verdeau, do we say? Um I mean, what can you say about Margaret River Cabernet that hasn't already been said a thousand times? It is just so beautiful, and it's come out of nowhere. Yeah. I mean, Margaret River, I always thought were great wines. Yeah. It's like they've never they've never increased in quality, they've always just produced good wines. And this is what I find the tannin structure on Margaret River Cabernet for me is just the closest thing that you're gonna get to Bordeaux. So have a look at it today. So when you're looking at your shadow might go today.
SPEAKER_01:Um I just for me, the the philosophy is the reserve range continues to be the best of what we are able to produce in a given vintage, single vineyard or otherwise. And I really like that because a lot of um wineries for their top wine, they will hang their hat on like one vineyard and be like, this is the best vineyard. And I really love that they're like, not this is because often best vineyard, it's a little bit marketing-y because it it's a hook, it's something to hang your hat on. I really love that they're like not it's it often might be a single vineyard, but it it might not be. It's this is just the best we can do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, what they they would do is they would pick each block of wine from each vineyard, and then they would do a barrel selection of what stands out of the best, and only produce well, pick out the barrels that they think make the best blend. And as they say, somewhere it's the sum of the parts rather than the individual components. Um, and that's where that blending and that sort of old school mentality is really important. You don't have to make your single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Adding a little bit of Malbec Petit Verde for that perfume adds to the wine, even though you probably can't identify it. Because Cabernet does tend to have that doughnut, although Margaret River less so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But it it needs some mates to fill it out. I'm gonna say something that's gonna upset you a lot. I like um Margaret River Cabernet the best in Australia. Like I like it better than Yarrow, I'm sorry. Oh my god. Are you gonna talk to me again?
SPEAKER_03:No, I I look I love Yarrow River Yarrow, yeah, I love the Yarrow Cabernet, but I get it's not everyone's beast, and they often they're not as friendly. Yes, yeah. At a young age, they don't have the same tannin profile as Margaret River and Margaret River. That's it, that's what it is. Yeah, yeah. No, I completely get it. I I would if I was having my general mates over, Margaret River Cabernet for sure. If I were having my whiny mates over, of course I'm gonna pull out of Yarrow Valley, but it's probably something. It's the tannin.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, it's the tannin. Oh my god, you've nailed it. With Yarrow Valley, you need age to settle down the tannin, and then it's beautiful. With Margaret River, it manages to have like this beautiful, soft, dusty tannin from the get-go. And I think that's why I that would probably be my preferred.
SPEAKER_03:And it's kind of balances that sort of red and black fruit profile. It's got a little bit more Yarrow Valley's very much that bay leaf black and blue fruit. Whereas Margaret River can be for me, this Anadu is a little bit more black fruit and a little bit more brambly than I expect. I'm not sure what 2022 was like as a as a vintage. But there's it's just I can see why this is one of the iconic wines. Yeah, oh yeah. Because it is denser and it needs age. This is not a wine that I would necessarily be drinking. I think we're doing the infanticide to it. Yeah. I like it. I love it, but I I would wait.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, maybe there's a difference between so some wines we taste and we go, it needs age. I don't think this needs age. I think it would benefit from age, but I am in I think it's absolutely amazing right now. Like I would also drink it so happily right now.
SPEAKER_03:There's almost a rose petal character as well. It's bloody delicious. No, it needs a lot of things. They're sustainable wine going Australia certified. Yeah. I would disagree. I think it needs you think?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It needs more time. All right, all right. It is delicious. Either way, it's a great wine. Um, and we completely understand how it landed itself on Langton's. And it's been there for a while, and this is what amazes me.
SPEAKER_03:Margaret Rivers been on the Langton's classification almost since its inception. And Market Rivers, you know, hasn't been around like the Barossa since the 1800s, or the best of Great Western since the 1800s. It's only been around for 30, 40 years. Yeah. So well done.
SPEAKER_01:Oh. It's the big one. Grange. Alright, Grange is open. We have what year is it? Was this your first Grange? Yep.
SPEAKER_03:21.
SPEAKER_01:Really? Yeah, yeah. I've never tasted Grange before. So we started talking to Ruby. Oh my god, I also know he dropped the Grange. We started talking to Peter Gago, who is the winemaker. Oh, God, that's true. In our very first season, four years ago, and we were like, we won't talk to you. It just never happened. He's in South Australia. And then this year I got talking to the Pentfold's team again, and we tried to organise it again, and it didn't happen. I swear to God, next year it's gonna happen. Um, but thank you to the team who still sent us a bottle of Grange so that we could taste it on this episode. Meg, take us through Grange.
SPEAKER_03:So Grange was um invented quietly as an aside by Max Schubert, who was a winemaker with penfolds, as it was at the time. He felt that Australia could make these great iconic first growth wines, I guess equivalent that they were doing in Bordeaux. Rumour has it, and I don't know how true it is, that he was a heavy smoker, and so he wanted a wine with a lot of um tannin and structure and frats to it. I don't know how true it was. It's a good story myths. It's a good story, I don't care if it's true or not.
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna ramble back.
SPEAKER_03:So he did it, I think '57 was his first year, but it was hidden away as a secret. Is that right? It was hidden as a secret. So he hid it away because he didn't think that his bosses would be too impressed, but I think that they released the first. 51. You were so close.
SPEAKER_01:His first experimental vintage was in 51, and your way of thinking.
SPEAKER_03:But uh so what was the first re commercial release? Uh was it 57? Maybe that's what I'm I actually have a whole book on the the Grange. Oh my god, this is amazing. Which I read a few years ago.
SPEAKER_01:He embarked on a secret in Denver in partnership with Jeffrey Penfold Highland. Three hidden Grange vintages were 57, 58, and 59. It wasn't until the 60s that the board recognized the value of the wine and aging.
SPEAKER_03:And it was so it used to be called Grange Hermitage, obviously up until the 90s. So I kind of grew up knowing it as Grange Hermitage. My dad, smoker, huge fan, and it was about during the 70s,$10 to$15 a bottle. So dad used to buy it. He was in stockbroking, you know, a little bit of it. And then in the 80s it started to grow when Australians were travelling more overseas. Um, they started realizing what we were doing. By the time the nineties hit, it was getting to pretty crazy ass prices, and now it is astronomical. Like it's a thousand dollars a bottle, is that right? On current release? 800?
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. Yeah, it's about 800. What's this? Uh what vintage do we say it was?
SPEAKER_03:21. 21. I'm pretty sure it's 800. So the thing that I love about this is it is a multi regional. It's a thousand dollars exactly. You are drinking it, yeah. So divide by 750, it's you know each mouthful of 750 mils. Yeah, it's like a hundred bucks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um it's Austin's just staring at bewildered at his sparkling wine glass. That happens the property. To me, nothing's worth a thousand dollars in wine.
SPEAKER_03:You know, I am I am so grateful that we are able to taste this wine because it is Australia's iconic wine. Look at the glass, you can't be selling doing it with that glass.
SPEAKER_01:I'm obsessed with Austin sitting in my baby's nursery surrounded by like teddy bears drinking is this your first Grange? Yes. Drinking his first Grange out of a sparkling wine glass. We did not. Austin's been so good to us this year that this is how we treat him. His first grain is not necessarily the right.
SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't want to have my first grain with anybody else.
SPEAKER_03:This is exactly how I imagine the nursery. The thing that's interesting is it's still under cork. And I'm wondering if some is under screw cap and one is some is under cork for the market. Yeah. Um, because they have famously a recorking program. So you can take your wine in and get if there's allage, if it's started to decrease and it's the wine's evaporated onto the shoulders, you can take it in, they'll top it up with the current vintage and recork it for you. Um it's it's something something they've been corking clinics, I think it's called, they've been offering it for years. It is one of Australia's iconic wines.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's the iconic wine, surely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's it, it is absolutely. It's our top top wine. And they tried to do a white wine.
SPEAKER_01:Did they?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, something 1A. Um, but obviously this it sort of really took off. I mean, it was always a top wine in Australia, but it took off um with China, the explosion of China, because a Chinese well, immature markets gravitate towards high-end wines first as they're learning about it, because they feel like they're buying quality and so that they can understand it. If you go to China, a lot of people will come up and show you that they've got their grange, it's always wrapped in cling film. I'm not quite sure what that's all about. It's to stop the label getting damaged, I'm I'm assuming. Okay. Um, so you kind of, yeah, grange, great, but they never open it. I have been very, very lucky that I've drunk Grange quite a lot. Um, my dad was a big collector of Grange, so I had it my 21st of my graduation, and I always knew it was a great wine, but what we're talking it was 70 bucks back then versus a thousand. It wasn't the price to wage difference, wasn't like where it sits now.
SPEAKER_01:Right, the the impact of China was really big on it because it became like associated with gifting. And Tom's uncle um does a lot of work with China, and he said that sometimes on his business trips to China they would get out Grange to impress, but their palates couldn't actually handle like a big powerful wine. They mixed it with Coca-Cola.
SPEAKER_03:I did some work for a client, very wealthy property developer who is involved in wine, and um he said to me, I don't really like Grange. And I said, Oh, okay, why? Well, I don't know. I had a bottle last night at um what's the steak restaurant in Richmond? Oh yeah. Classic steak restaurant. No, no, no, not that cool. Um I had dinner there years ago, Pearl Jam having dinner there. That's sort of the sort of where it lay in the 90s. Okay. Um he had dinner, but he was drinking current vintage. Mmm. And he had three dozen of each vintage, even though he didn't really like it. And so I was doing some work for him, and I said, Well, you know, you need to drink something a little bit older. And he said, Well, you go in there and find me something and we'll open it now. Oh my shut up. Okay. Um, got out a 95. Oh, what? I know, which I'd previously previously tasted in barrel. Showed him and said, Yeah, let's taste this. And he went, Oh, okay. And he said, Oh, you can have a bottle of that to when you go home. And I said, I'm still charging you my consultancy fee. Okay. So I got a 95, which I opened on my 50th birthday.
SPEAKER_01:I tell you what, there is something really special about it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's look, this is too young. It's it's it's when I drank in the 95, it was when was I nine, no, 2016? I was 15. Is that all right? It was it was drinking beautifully. But 95 was middle of drought year, so it was much more um dried fruit character. This has just got a freshness to it. I don't know. I still that cool 21.
SPEAKER_01:I I I I totally understand how the older vintages would transform and be incredible, but in its current state, it's really special. I f I find it really special.
SPEAKER_03:Just wait though.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, we can't track our one bottle.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry, sorry, sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Um, okay. Austin Man of the People. We we do have one more taste, but at this point, what's what are you thinking?
SPEAKER_00:As someone who has really recently started getting into Syrah, and uh Meg and I had an episode where we did talk about Syrah and Shiraz. It's one um one of those wines is my top. I did notice that. Um these feel so iconically Australian Shiraz, like a lot of them running through, at least the um and the Great Western were phenomenal. Yeah. They really stood out. Seeing the price difference really interesting as well, jumping into Grange. Um, you know, I guess you see value in story, which is really great. Um, but these uh Great Western were phenomenal.
SPEAKER_03:And not something that you would normally look at, do you know what I mean? Like you'd kind of oh go Grange and then you but go and have taste these Great Western Victorian wines. I used to work with um a woman who was the viticulturalist in the 90s. She came to France a few times um and she was looking after the grange vineyards, and she said it was such a treat because you never knew each year where the actual best fruit was going to come from. So you had to treat all of these vineyards as if they were gonna be grain.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_03:Which she said was that's a nice little quite stressful because they do we do we crop really low, like two tonnes of the acre, or what do we do? We're not quite sure. So everything was special. Oh okay.
SPEAKER_01:Our last wine. Our last wine is the cheapest wine so far. However, it's a half bottle, so we kind of have to like double the price to give you the idea. Um, so it's 375 mils um at$40 for this vintage. So yeah, you can imagine if it were a full bottle, it would be worth$80. And I don't understand why it doesn't cost more. Yeah, you just said cheap. I I know. I don't, I never knew that Noble One was affordable.
SPEAKER_03:Don't and don't buy a full bottle.
SPEAKER_01:No, you're not going to drink a full bottle for half bottle. That's why they exist in half bottles. I don't know if they even sell them in no bottles.
SPEAKER_03:I do because I have discovered a whole heap that I've bought, and that's why I'm saying don't. Because it comes Christmas every year, and I say to my gorgeous family, let's open a bottle of this, and then oh, we're too full. Now I don't want to open a 2005 Noble One that I've got there at a full bottle just for the three people, and then throw it away three days later. So buy a half bottle if you need to open two. Yeah. You know, for your fans.
SPEAKER_01:That's it. Okay. Um, Noble One, Meg, tell us about this. So semi-on? Yep. Griffith.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. How does Griffith make Noble One wines? Noble one is noble being noble rot. Yep. Botrytis. Um so it's the good botrytis. It needs long, it needs some form of humidity for the fungus to grow. What you've got in um Griffith and surrounding areas is it's called the Murrumbidgee irrigation area, M-I-A, not missing in action. Um and so there's humidity. Okay. So the humidity comes in the cool mornings because it's continental. You've all been to the country in the middle of the country of our country, and it's really cold in the morning, and then it's like 35 degrees at midday. Yes. So what happens is the the cool mornings creates the humidity, the fungus grows, and then you've got these lovely long dry afternoons. So it doesn't become mushy botrytis, it becomes dry patrytis, which gives you that beautiful apricot character. The fungus sends its little filaments, tentacles, into the grape and sucks all the water out, making the grapes shrink, concentrating the sugar and acid, but the fungus itself adds this apricoty character to the wine.
SPEAKER_01:Meg, how come De Borderly specifically, because there's a few of them proud Australia, how come this one is the famous one?
SPEAKER_03:Because they've stuck to it. They haven't said, oh no, it's not trendy. They've had we again like Tyrrell's with Humphrey. They've just said it. This is amazing stuff, yeah. We're gonna keep making it, and slowly but surely people have come on board. It's the same as the Grange. Yeah, yeah. Like when it was first made, everyone was probably going, oh my god, that's just too big, or whatever, that's not a great style of wine. Yeah. Whereas they've just stuck to their guns and made this wine, and it is extraordinary. It's gold in colour. What year is this, Austin? 21. 21. Now, traditionally we have this with sweet things, but I'm just saying to you, it's got extraordinary acid. Do your dribble tests on this one. It's got really high acid, there's a lot of sugar in it. If you can imagine that with a oh, you don't eat foie gois, do you?
SPEAKER_01:Mm-mm.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Do you eat pate?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Oh my god, yeah. Yeah. You would never know that it was acidic if you didn't do the acid test. Right, it's huge. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's I I just love these styles of wine. We have them with plum pudding, but my my husband and I usually open it before the fam get there and have it with something salty.
SPEAKER_01:Even salty. Nice, something salty. Um, I think the I think the the factor that every wine today, but uh really, really, really particularly this one, and I've invited over friends tonight because I'm like, we'll keep aside a bit of each wine and and be able to taste them. We'll be taking some home. Yeah, you're everyone's taking some home, but I thought we'd divide them like a third, a third, a third rather than one bottle each. Eh? Yeah. Anyway, I just know that this will train like people who aren't necessarily wine people, I think this will be like the Tyrrell's. Yeah, Austin, men of the people, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I have never had one of these. I just don't know what I'm drinking. I will be a hundred percent honest. It is sweet and delicious and tastes like Christmas dessert. But I what am I drinking?
SPEAKER_03:It's it's noble one from De Bortely. So it's a semi, isn't it? It's a semillon, it's a dessert wine. It's made in the style of Satoon and Sparsac from France. Um, completely different climates. They they're very much maritime, but at the same thing, they have a cool um fog in the morning, and then it's a long, dry summer. So it was made in that style, but it's a distinctly Australian style. Again, it sits on the world stage as very much an Aussie style. The difference between this and a bar sack or saturn is probably the acidity is a little bit higher over there. And they usually run at about 14%. I don't know what this is.
SPEAKER_00:I can tell you that it's sweet, it makes me happy, and it makes me want to be around my family during Christmas. So oh my god, that's really cute.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, um look, that that brings to a close our icons episodes, and shit, we drank some good wine, didn't we?
SPEAKER_03:I'm just so proud of the country in which I live. You could take any of these wines and put them on the world stage and to be honest, we'd shit all over them. And as as a person who I like, I love European wine. Yeah. Um, and I am guilty of kind of going for the European wine thinking blah blah blah, you know, it's it's gonna be a bit better. I'm the the ones that surprise me most, and I'm probably being a bit parochial, were the the bests, which I haven't had for years. Yes, I was surprised by that too, yeah. And just that arras sparkling from Tassie. I just I mean I I know Zetadu, I know Penfolds, um, but being reminded of bests was just great. I mean, we we make great wine, we make we're so diverse. I know Mel doesn't really like the diversity thing too much. But the coniciller. Everything's oh no, the conicillars.
SPEAKER_01:Cool. Okay, we get we could sit here and name every wine, but we do need to wrap it up. Meg, do you have another Eldie wine that you wanted to mention or should I do one of mine? No, I had um what was it?
SPEAKER_03:No, you have to do yours because I can't remember. Because I talked about the spirits before, didn't I?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you talked about the spirits. Okay, then I will just do a shout-out for the Chianti. Um, I told my sister about the Chianti. So Chianti is um Saint Gervese, um, it's like the the most famous region for Sangiovese in Italy. Um, how that with food, the tannin is how you're going.
SPEAKER_02:It's good.
SPEAKER_01:But if you wanted 12, I think it's$12 or$14 for Keanti, it's gonna be great with food. I have converted my sister, it's like all she drinks now, and she's bougie. So that would be my top healthy peak of the week.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and um Alicia from the Prince Wine Store said that she's gonna have to go to Aldi and get the Melbeck to show the students, show the students what Melbourne is, because Melbourne's like the Malbec that we're showing through the WCT courses.
SPEAKER_01:Well, friends, we have reached our end of the year. We won't be tasting any more wine this year, which means next week we are going to be revealing our top 10 wines of the year. Yay! So five each. Five each. Um, and and yeah, they'll be our top 10 wines of the year. It's gonna be really good. Make sure you come back for that until next time. Enjoy your next glass of wine and drink well.
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