It's the Class That Makes The Difference

So it's been a few months now, and Decanter Banter has had a couple of successful wine club nights! It's great to see that we can share a common interest whilst enjoying ourselves and making new friends at the same time.

(l-r) Lim, Kelly

(l-r) Steph, John

All of this wouldn't be possible without our wonderful wine tutor, Leanne Hayward who taught us all we know about wine - how to taste it, sniff it and swirl it! We even feature on her Testimonials page - "The Class that Makes the Difference"

I'd encourage anyone who lives on the North Shore to try one of Leanne's classes - they are available through the Mosman Community College.

Bringing the Margaret River to Lane Cove

By Steph

(l-r) Steph, John, Kirsty, Wayne, Kelly

Our second Decanter Banter meeting was hosted by Adam and his wife Kirsty in their Lane Cove apartment. After being given the grand tour of the place (and can I tell you they have a nice place!), we sat down to a selection of dips and cheeses while we waited for everyone to arrive. In attendance was Kelly, John, Wayne, Adam, Kirsty and Steph. But there was one person missing – Lim! When we phoned her to ask her if she was lost, we were surprised to hear that she thought it was on the following Tuesday night – luckily this confusion was avoided otherwise Adam and Kirsty may have been re-hosting again next week!

The theme for the night was Margaret River wines, and we had a selection of 3 whites and 2 reds.

White Varieties
We decided to start the whites over nibbles, and cracked open the first wine, a 2009 Swings & Roundabouts Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend. The wine had a very pale, clear colour, representing its younger age, with Adam suggesting it looked like apple juice. The wine had typical Sauv Blanc characteristics of grass and weeds along with Semillon characteristics of apple. All in all it had a good length with well balanced acidity and Kelly thought it was a “good quaffing wine” with maybe some “touches of Chardonnay.” We ended up scoring this wine a 16 (based on an average score).

Before trying the second wine, we discussed the scoring of the wines – as our wine tutor, Leanne Hayward, had mentioned that she thought we were hard taskmasters in our scoring. We decided to make a conscious effort going forward to disregard our personal preference for wine and focus instead on the grape variety and on whether the wine presents the characteristics typical to that grape variety and score it accordingly. Hopefully this would mean that our scores would go up – and Adam would stop giving 10 out of 20 for wines (him being the hardest marker!)

The second white was a 2009 Evans & Tate Chardonnay. Being a Chardonnay, the wine was a little more golden in colour and had very Oakey, earthy, buttery tones with a touch of citrus. It was evident the wine had been fermented in French Oak due to the buttery/butterscotch aromas. It was a balanced wine, with good length. We scored the wine 16.5 (average score), which put it in first place for the wines on the night.

The last white for the evening was a 2010 Castelli Riesling, from Denmark. Technically, Denmark is not actually in the Margaret River and therefore Adam’s wine selection did not fit the criteria of the evening – something that Steph also confessed to, and so we managed to overlook this (after all, who’s going to say no to free wine hey?) This wine was definitely paler in colour than the other wines and had a soft aroma, with slight citrus notes. Overall the wine was well balanced, but had an upfront acidity but lacked any length – it was probably a wine that needs time to age a bit longer. Overall we gave this wine an average score of 15.16.

After a very yummy and large dinner of pasta and garlic bread, we moved on to the red wines.


Red Varieties

The first one we tried was a 2007 Becketts Flat Cabernet Merlot. Both Kelly and John remarked that the wine smelt like both Kangaroo meat and Fairy Floss – an odd combination, but possible, especially from the combination of the Carbernet (tobacco, and capsicum notes) with the Merlot (strawberry and sweet berry notes). The wine delivered a good length, with a balance of tannins and residual sugar. We scored this wine 15.58

The last wine for the evening was a 2007 Forest Hill Shiraz Viognier.  The colour of the wine was a deep red/brown colour – typical Shiraz characteristics. On the nose, we were picking up liquorice, blackcurrant and red berry characteristics. Adam even thought he could smell Nutella and Ribena aromas. Overall we all really enjoyed the wine and thought it had good length, medium/earthy tannins with a good balance of fruit. We scored this wine 16.5, and place it in second place for the evening.

Overall, another enjoyable evening and another boozy night! Wayne was a little concerned about his mates in the ‘force’ so decided to take the back streets home – probably a lesson to us all not to drink and drive! And Kelly summoned her boyfriend Ian – lucky enough to have someone to come and fetch her! A great evening and one we will do again in June at Kelly’s house.

(l-r) Wayne, Kelly, Adam, Steph, John