A bit of Riesling and Shiraz and a campfire sing-a-long

By Steph

Monday 18^th April marked the first “meeting” of the Decanter Banter wine club. The host for the night was John, who kindly put on a mini feast of dips, cheeses and pizza for the six of us – Kelly, Lim, Adam, Wayne, Steph and John. Having pre-chosen the wine theme, we ended up with 3 Rieslings and 3 Shiraz’s to taste in the evening – a lot of wine for 6 people on a Monday night!

(l-r) Lim, Adam, Steph, Kelly

Before cracking open the wines, we discussed how the evening would be run. Thanks to our wine tutor, Leanne Hayward, we had a tasting sheet and wine scoring sheet handy to rate each of the wines. As with a typical wine judge, we would score each wine out of 20 – up to 3 points for the Sight, 7 points for the Smell and 10 points for the Taste.

Riesling varieties

With the official business out of the way, we got stuck in to our first wine – a 2007 Cook’s Lot Riesling from Mudgee. Steph described the wine as a deep yellow to gold colour, while Lim noticed some sweet honey and passionfruit characteristics on the nose along with the citrus, which is a distinguishing feature of a Riesling. We all agreed it was a well-balanced wine, with a touch of acidity and it scored a 13.3333 (based on average score).

We then moved on to the second wine, a 2008 Forest Hill Block 1 Riesling from the Margaret River. Before we had even had the chance to have a good whiff, Adam proclaimed that the wine smelled like corn-relish – something we all initially laughed at, but then agreed on. John added that it had a touch of kerosene notes, which may sound funny, but it is a known fact that Riesling wines tend to acquire a petrol note with age, so a good pick-up by John! Overall we described the wine as having balanced acidity with a lingering minerally finish and scored it an 11.5.

The last Riesling for the night, and the “wine of the evening” was the 2009 Tim Gramp Watervale Riesling, Clare Valley, courtesy of Kelly. We scored this wine a 14.6667 and felt that this was a classic example of a dry, cool climate Riesling. Wayne said he “could smell sponge cake” and on further examination, we all noticed the buttery/lemon notes on the nose. The wine had good length, well-balanced acidity and seductive lime, lemon and floral aromas.

Shiraz varieties

Once we dug into the grub – gourmet pizzas from Marilynas, we moved our focus over to the red wines – and the Shiraz grape variety. Our first Shiraz was a 2008 Port Phillip Estate, Mornington Peninsula. On first smell, we could all pick up some meaty/blood characteristics, with Kelly saying the wine had a “Blood-edge to it” and Adam saying, “It’s Pure Blood, like a drip.” Some would say that after having consumed 3 bottles of wine already, we might be showing signs of inebriation and so our judgement may be a little skewed, but as we let the wine sit for a while, it definitely still showed these meaty/blood characteristics, but also more fruiter notes of blackberry and dark cherries. The wine was not as bold as a Maclaren Vale Shiraz, with mild tannins and we felt it was probably a little too young to drink. Overall we scored it a 10.5.

(l-r) Steph, Kelly

The second Shiraz was a 2009 Wynns Coonawarra Estate, quite the favourite amongst us all. With vibrant red-purple hues and floral notes of crushed raspberries mixed with vanilla and spice aromas, we were all very impressed. On the palate the wine showed gentle tannins, soft acidity and earthy/spicy notes, due to the limestone of the region and we scored the wine a 14.333. For a small second, Steph had a bit of a blonde moment, as she proclaimed that the wine had won the 2012 Gourmet Traveller ‘Winemaker of the Year’ award. Luckily for us, we hadn’t lost a year of our lives, and it was in fact the 2010 winner (phew)!

The last wine for the evening was a blend of Cabernet, Shiraz and Merlot – a 2009 Wynns Coonawarra Estate. Although not a straight Shiraz, we dappled in tasting this wine which Adam thought smelled like Mars Bar. On the palate, it was a good blend of soft fruit plus oak, making it a very balanced and approachable wine. Overall we scored this a 13.6667.

What was left of the evening….

(l-r) Lim, Adam, Wayne

With the wine tasting over, and Lim departing early (well 9:30pm, which really isn’t that early for a Monday night), the rest of us continued drinking what was left of the wines, cracked open a couple more and sang our hearts out to ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel and ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean. Luckily John pointed out that even though the music was blaring, and we were ‘a’ screaming, the walls in his unit were thick enough that not one of the neighbours would hear us. Steph attempted to record the “sing-a-long” much to the boy’s dismay, until realising at the end of the 8 minute marathon American Pie song that she hadn’t actually hit record. Next time perhaps….

(l-r) Steph, Kelly, John

And on that note, I think you’ve probably heard enough. Watch this space for more blogs from the fellow-members of Decanter Banter, and stay tuned for next month’s meeting at Adam’s place – we will be tasting wines from the Margaret River.

The end - and the beginning

By Kelly

After sniffing, swirling and tasting our way through eight weeks of Leanne Hayward's Wine Appreciation course, sadly it has come to an end. But how can we leave it there? Especially with our extensive new vocabulary of smell and taste descriptors.....model airoplane cement indeed!!!

At the end of the course we are left with eight people who share a love of wine (all wine) and are partial to a bit of chow as well. So what was there to do but start a club so that we may extend our eight weeks of wine appreciation indefinitely.

What's in a name
After much discussion, a short list and a vote we have decided to call ourselves Decanter Banter as we think it is unpretentious and a bit fun.

We are going to be meeting monthly to score wines we have chosen based on the host's theme, however in the mean time, various members of the group will hopefully be blogging here about themselves and what they're drinking. Stay tuned!

The graduation dinner

Before we were sent out into the big wide world, Leanne, and those of us that were available on a Tuesday night caught up for a meal at Tran's in Mosman. L-r in the photo are: Kelly, Lim, Leanne, Stephanie and Adam. John is taking the photo.


Absent are: Wayne, Steve and Claudia