A great video on glassware

The guys at Spitbucket have posted a fantastic video on the impact of glassware on your wine:

How Does Your Glass Affect the Taste and Smell of Your Wine Episode

This video uses Riedel glasses to demonstrate the impact of quality wine glasses. I would also endorse Plumm glassware to do the job.

Check out the Eve decanter by Riedel at the end...what a stunner! If you want one, I promise I won't ask full retail for it!

Confirmed for 2011!

It's now confirmed - Gryphonwood will be offering a Chardonnay from the 2011 vintage. Guy Wagner at Bass Fine Wines has secured some good fruit for us, and it is now fermenting! Of course, we will also have 2011 Pinot Noir.

I am looking forward to expanding our range...now we have to think of white wine labels!

Sombre signs for 2011

Indicators around Northern Tasmania are pointing to a rough end to the 2011 vintage. Many producers are facing yield losses and the possibility of not picking at all! The cool season has pushed back ripening into dangerous waters, as canopies begin to senesce and leaves fall. Add to that cooler temperatures and the ever present threat of further rain.

Looking in the winery, there are numbers of producers having to sacrifice ideal sugar levels to secure a crop. Some are hoping that berry shrivel will help them get to the necessary level of sugar to make a wine. Others still have decided that they will achieve neither the sugar level or the quality of fruit to warrant harvesting their crop.

A hard year for all, it seems....

A new wine community!

Spitbucket - the community for all things wine

I stumbled across a new Australian online wine community - Spitbucket!

This is pretty exciting, as I have oft looked at communities on the web that revolve around wine, and they are almost exclusively American, with very little content or relevance to Australians and our wine industry.

I really hope this community (and its upcoming forum) thrives!

Check it out, support it, and I'll see you there.

Pinot Unearthed's Sydney dinner a great success!

The guys at Pinot Unearthed hosted their Tassie Pinot Dinner at Fix St James in Sydney this week, and by all accounts so far it was a booming success! The wines were a hit.

OBP2009 tasted well - I heard this from a new and unusual source (for me): tweets!
One of the night's commentators had a tweet link that I thought I would follow (like a trail of bread crumbs). Little did I know that a group of diners at the event were tweeting their way through each wine!

There was a whole sublayer of conversation going on under the table and in peoples' laps...
had I been there, I am sure I would have been shaking my head at these people playing with phones in the middle of a dinner function, despite the fact they were actually saying nice things about our wine!

The irony, eh?