The next wine tastings to be organised by Wine Australia are themed around sticky wines, also known as sweet wines or dessert wines.

The first tasting is in Cork, for which Wine Australia are sponsoring two complementary tickets to our readers (see the bottom of this post for details on how to put your name in the hat for a chance to win), with a second tasting the following day in Dublin.

Tuesday 6th December: Hayfield Manor Hotel, Cork
Wednesday 7 December: Ely Bar and Brassiere, IFSC, Custom House Quay, D1

Affectionately known down-under as “Stickies”, the story of the Australian wine world is steeped in fortified and dessert winemaking. They seem to find favour around Christmas time, so it’s perfect timing for you to go along for what will be a truly unique insight into this Australian heritage.

Leading the presentation duties is Chris Pfeiffer, owner and winemaker of Pfeiffer Wines in the Rutherglen (www.pfeifferwinesrutherglen.com.au). A regular visitor to Ireland with a huge passion for these wine styles, Chris is the ideal person to take you on this sweet journey.

So whether you have a sweet tooth, are looking for a different present for the wine lover in your life or on occasion you’d just prefer to pour (instead of make) your dessert, this is the tasting for you.

The cost is €20 per person, which includes the tasting and tasty nibbles afterwards. Only 30 places are available at each event so please book your passage early.

For the Cork tasting, book direct with Wine Australia on ireland@wineaustralia.com or 065 7077 264.

For the Dublin event, direct with ely Bar and Brasserie on wineclub@elywinebar.com and on 01 676 8986.

Each tasting begins at 7pm. If you require any further information please contact John at Wine Australia on Ireland@wineaustralia.com or 065 7077 264.

To enter your name into the hat for two free tickets to the Cork Stickie Wine Tasting, simply answer the following question: Noble rot is a form of grey fungus that affects wine grapes used in sweet wine production. What is the other name for this fungus?

Answers accepted in the subject line of emails sent to contests [@] curiouswines.ie (sorry, but multiple entries will exclude you from the draw).

Pictured: Father and daughter team, Chris and Jen Pfeiffer, Pfeiffer Wines. Sourced from http://www.news.com.au/

Thankfully President Obama decided not to visit Croke Park on Monday, the venue for the annual A+ Australian Wine tasting. Had the American president wanted to poop the party, there would have been a lot of unhappy wine people ushered out the back door.

The crowd was made up of importers, retailers, restaurateurs, wine writers, and that band that groups pretty much all of us, ‘wine enthusiasts’. All were there to see the quality on show from the land down under, and as well as this we got a feel for the diversity, colour and character of the Australian wine community.

If you can imagine a large room with 29 or 30 tables (perhaps 6-10 wines per table) each showing a range of wines from different wineries and importers. The day began with the ‘silent zone’. The winemakers and importers had to leave the room and give the tasters some peace to work away themselves. It was also nice because it wasn’t too busy at that stage.

Stand no. 25 was a focused table, ‘The Pinot Pulpit’. Fifteen Pinot Noir’s from across Australia, all to be tasted blind as the bottles, and thus the labels, were concealed. There was a tasting route called ‘The Riesling Trail’, taking the taster through 17 different Rieslings. I thought the highlight was the tutored tasting. There were in fact three tutored tastings which took place in a separate room during the afternoon.

I went to the Chardonnay tutored tasting presented by Bernard Hickin, Chief Winemaker at Jacob’s Creek. ‘The Changing Face of Australian Chardonnay’ was the headline title for the session. A class of around 30 enthusiasts tasted nine Chardonnay’s over the space of 45 minutes, with Bernard discussing each one and tying it in with the above title. Aussie Chardonnay is moving away from super-rich, opulent, textured styles and is now offering more restraint and layered complexity using a more delicate balance of older oak.

I was gutted to miss the last tutored tasting – ‘Barossa Through the Ages’, which included a 1980 Eden Valley Cabernet Shiraz, a 2004 Semillon, and two we’re very familiar with here, Glaetzer’s 2005 Amon-Ra and Langmeil’s 2004 Freedom Shiraz. I had to catch a plane and was worried “the beast” might have been holding up traffic. In actual fact it got stuck here for most of the afternoon, so I was fine for time. You can check out Dermot Nolan’s Barossa beauties post on that one. *Damn*

And I must say, going back to Semillon, one of the highlights of the tasting for me was Peter Lehmann’s 2001 Semillon. Seriously, I mean seriously, brilliant.

Australia is one country I truly admire for their pro-active approach to engaging with consumers from around the world. We joke that the French must look on in bewilderment and fear that such a young wine producing nation is so far ahead of the game on the marketing scene. Whereas as the Old World has had time to let the quality of their wines establish their reputation, it’s the New World that has to start from scratch, offering something different and striking a different cord with consumers.

That’s what Wine Australia (A+ Australian Wine) do. A collaboration of Australian wineries who pay into a pot every year to fund the promotion of their industry in foreign markets. Only last week, we had Ireland’s Wine Australia representative, John McDonnell, show the Bandon Wine Club how Australia is not just about cutesy Koala-labelled bottles of Chardonnay. As an independent tasting, John included wines available throughout Ireland from different retailers.

Pirie South Riesling 2006 (Tasmania) – We’re onto the ’07 in this range, but the ’06 was holding up brilliantly, with plenty of life left yet. Apple, citrus, a touch honeyed, this dry white was regarded highly for its soft, “broad” palate, accessible for those who would usually scorn at the thought of drinking Riesling.

Tahbilk Marsanne 2008 (Central Victoria) – Although not everyone’s favourite white of the night, this was my favourite, not only because it appealed to my curious side, but I liked the savoury element. It was honeyed and textured with a lick of spice. Highly recommended.

Little Yering Station Chardonnay 2009 (Yarra Valley, pictured) – This one encouraged discussion of a very current issue, as its one in a new wave of Chardonnays made without the use of oak. I thought it had fresh mango and papaya on the nose with soft citrus flavours on the palate and a very clean, crisp finish.

Langmeil Three Gardens GSM 2006 (Barossa Valley) – Red fruit, black cherry and mint nose, a touch vegetal with vanilla, blackcurrant and red fruit palate. This isn’t a Barossa blockbuster and Mike thought it was better for it. Impossible not to like, but particularly good if you’ve acquired a taste for more restraint in your wines.

Wakefield St Andrews Shiraz 2001 (Clare Valley) – This was the show-off wine of the night and one from John’s personal stash. As I understand this vintage is no longer available. Big pepper and Tandoori spice with gamey hints and a fruitiness covering the red, black and blue berry fruit spectrum. Soft yet evident tannins, very luxurious. Gorgeous all-round.

Majestic Ferngrove Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 (Franklin River) – The only wine tasted from Western Australia, this cool climate Cabernet was again showing the importance of regionality and ‘terroir’, something the Australian’s are really pushing at. Perfumed and floral aromas, dark fruit, aniseed and licorice flavours were held together by soft yet gripping tannins.

Woodstock Muscat (McLaren Vale) – The last wine to be tasted. Only we didn’t taste it because I forgot to grab it from the shop before I left work that day. Grrrr!! Pity, as it would have been an even better end to an excellent night.

Picture sourced from wineaustralia.com

The recent launch of apluswines.com is a very welcome addition to Wine Australia’s armoury, providing a much more approachable, consumer-friendly website, supported by a social media presence through Twitter and Facebook. I’ve already had a good look at the site and I’ll certainly be encouraging our wineries to submit a profile if they have not done so already. I noticed Bleasdale, Heartland, Langmeil (nice video, guys) and Glaetzer have already created profiles with contact details and links to their own sites.

To briefly explain, Wine Australia is the overseas promotional arm of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation. Its role is the generic marketing of Australian wines on behalf of its member wineries. It is funded entirely by the Australian wine industry and select corporate sponsorship under the Australian Wine Export Partnership.

It’s a useful thing to have links to so many wineries in one place, but in addition the site acts as a learning centre, starting with the basics of wine making. Grape to Glass is an easy read bringing you through the wine making process and finishing with a case study from Stonier wines in Victoria. The Wine Guide is a useful introduction to the different types of wine and then the Wine Regions section introduces the reader to the regions and the importance regionality, an angle the industry focuses on a lot these days.

As mentioned before, the wine industry in the Old World can learn much from Wine Australia. New Zealand has done a great job making their offering accessible, and within the US, the Americans market themselves brilliantly, but there hasn’t been the same effort made by the French and Italians. A number of our producers don’t even have a dedicated website, and those that do could do with major improvement to their image, navigation and content. It’s all about creating awareness and educating the consumer, and Wine Australia seem to be the benchmark.

If you’re in Cork this Wednesday (December 1st) with a bit of free time, head down to the Cork School of Music on Union Quay. Blake Creedon, the Irish Examiner’s wine man, will be hosting a tasting with Wine Australia, where you’ll be able to try a range of reds, whites, rosés, sparkling and dessert wines from a list of stockists across Ireland, including yours truly.

Blake Creedon: “I was delighted to accept an opportunity offered to me by John McDonnell of Wine Australia Ireland earlier this summer.  They’ve given me free rein to pick a few dozen of my favourite wines from Australia, regardless of price, styles or retailer. In return, they’d provide the wine and the venue for a one-off wine-tasting evening, namely… “Blake’s Favourite Fifty Australians”".

Wednesday, December 1, from 6pm to 8.30pm at Cork School of Music, Union Quay.
Tickets are €20.
Booking (via Wine Australia Ireland on 065 7077264) is advisable.

For more information, go to Blake’s Festive Fifty

After the huge success of our Clare Valley tasting this September, Wine Australia is coming back to Cork to host another delicious Australian wine tasting.

During the summer they gave Blake Creedon, Wine Scribe for the Irish Examiner newspaper and blog master on blakecreedon.wordpress.com the challenge to pull together a selection of his favourite Australian wines. Not a list of Australia’s best wines, but a list of his personal favourites. In his own words;

My column and blog can never provide what they’re intended to inspire — the pleasure of enjoying good company and a decent glass of wine. Well, here’s a rare opportunity for me to thrust a glass into your hand, saying ‘here, try this’.

Wine Australia has given me free rein to put together a list of wines from down under. I’ve long been convinced of the depth and breadth of quality wines made in Australia. But the process of whittling down the prospective wines (it was at 90 or so just a few weeks ago) has come as an eye-opener even to me: Trust me; there are all sorts of treats in the final list. Scrap that, don’t you dare trust me – come along and suck it and see.

On Wednesday 1st December, Blake and John McDonnell of Wine Australia will host a tasting of Blake’s Favourite Australians. They would love you to join them. There are 65 wines in the line up covering all styles, regions and prices. In fact this could be the perfect event to take away all those Christmas buying/present selecting challenges.

Cost & bookings

Wednesday 1st December, 6pm – 8.30pm at the Cork School of Music on Union Quay
20 Euro per person with some tasty nibbles being served.
Places can be reserved direct through the Wine Australia office on 065 7077264 or ireland@wineaustralia.com.
Places are limited so if tempted, or if you need any further information, please get in touch sooner rather than later.

Wine Australia is inviting all wine clubs to take part in the 2010/2011 Wine Club Challenge, the inter-wine club competition with a winner’s prize of two return tickets to Australia up for grabs.

To be involved, all you have to do is invite Wine Australia to present an Australian wine evening to your club before June 2011. The cost for the evening is €200.00, which covers the cost of your presenter and wines. As well as a fun and informative evening, 2 club members will be selected to represent your club in the challenge final, which will be held early June next year. They will be joined in this by teams from wine clubs throughout the country vying for that tasty prize.

Run three times previously, this proved a very successful and fun night for all the clubs who took part. And especially for the members of the Premier Cru Wine Club who have won those tickets to Australia on all three
occasions. Will they continue their fortunate run? Personnally I think more wine clubs have to put up a better fight!

To book the Australian wine evening contact John at Wine Australia on 065 7077264 or ireland [at] wineaustralia.com

Three public wine tastings will be taking place across the country next month telling the story of Australia’s Clare Valley. We’re helping the organiser, John McDonnell of Wine Australia, to spread the word and round up a few troops. So where will you be on the 7th, 8th and 9th of September?

It’s a long way from Clare to here

Wine Australia is delighted to send you details of a series of events we will host in early September. Entitled “It’s a long Way from Clare to here”, these evenings set out to tell the story of one of Australia’s most
famous wine regions, the Clare Valley in South Australia.

Located about 2 hours drive north of Adelaide in South Australia, the valley has a wine making history that goes back to the 1840’s. And with a name like the Clare Valley, the region obviously has strong Irish links. It was named by Edward Gleeson (known as the King of the Clare) who left Sixmilebridge in Co Clare in 1850.

Now home to about 40 small to medium sized wine companies (most family owned), not only is it one of
Australia’s prettiest wine regions, but it is also producing some stunning wines. Our evenings will give you a
chance to taste many of these wines and learn more about Australia’s ‘Irish’ wine region. Tasty nibbles will also be served on the night.

Leading our tour of the valley we are delighted to have Tim Adams, owner and winemaker of Tim Adams Wines. With over 30 years experience growing and making wine in the valley, there is no better man to take us on a tour of his Clare. Wines of O’Leary Walker, Mt Horricks, Jim Barry, Knappstein and Wakefield will also feature.

Cost and Bookings

The cost of the evening is 20 Euro per person and places can be reserved as follows;
1) For the Cork and Galway events, direct with our office 065 7077264 or ireland [at] wineaustralia.com.
2) For the Ennis evening, direct with the Glor box office on www.glor.ie or (065) 6843103

If you need any further information about these events please contact us.

Best wishes and we look forward to hopefully welcoming you at one of our Clare Valley nights in September.

After a Morning in the Barossa on Tuesday, John McDonnell of Wine Australia kindly donated this ultimate guide to the valley and its people and we promptly threw it up as a prize on Wednesday morning.

Ebenezer is the increasingly famous sub-region of the northern Barossa where Ben Glaetzer sources the grapes for the increasingly infamous Amon-Ra.

There were a modest five correct answers, one of whom was disqualified for having already scooped a book from the tasting himself. (Well, actually Lar Veale was disqualified for bringing The Shamen and Ebeneezer Goode into things, which we would all rather forget!)

So, from four, Damian Bannon was drawn from the hat this lunchtime.

Congratulations Damian, we’ll be in touch for your address and get that out to you. Enjoy what is a beautiful book.

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending the morning Trade tasting of the previously posted Evening in the Barossa, hosted by Wine Australia and Toby Barlow of St. Hallett Wines.

Six whites and seven reds were laid out in front of us, as Toby took us on a verbal and visual tour of the Barossa, around ten different wineries and a breadth of styles that would dispel in an instant any myth that Australia doesn’t “do” terroir.

The Barossa “region” encompasses both the Barossa Valley, famous for it’s Shirazes, and the Eden Valley, with it’s trademark Rieslings. However, both regions are about so much more, with Viognier, Pinot Gris and Semillon featured in the whites on show, and a range of stunning old vines from Grenache to Touriga Nacional (!) contributing to the series of red blends.

Now here’s the geeky (but fascinating) low-down on the land: the whole region in no more than 30km north to south and 25km east to west, encompassing both of the famous valleys. Barossa Valley itself follows a classic topography, with the valley floor varying by a maximum of 100 metres and averaging 274 metres above sea level. The Eden Valley, meanwhile, right next door to the east, has elevations ranging from 380 to over 600 metres, with most of the wine-growing located in the higher sections – this would explain how you can get crisp, steely Rieslings from vineyards only a literal stone’s throw from the powerhouse, deep red Shirazes we’re more familiar with from the Barossa Valley.

More than that, both valleys benefit from hugely diverse soil and rock structures, meaning even grapes grown in the same vineyard can add different attributes to a final wine. Combined with pockets of priceless and jealously guarded old vine plots, many over 100 years old, you can see why the Barossa is capable of stunningly complex, long-lived wines, and a range of diverse styles within.

Now, giveaway time!

John McDonnell of Wine Australia has very kindly donated a copy of “Barossa Wine Traveller” to the Curious Blog, a personal tour guide to the places, characters and flavours of the Barossa, written by Aussie wine authorities Tyson Stelzer and Grant Dodd. It’s a beautifully descriptive and pictoral tour of this fabulous region, bursting with a passion and deep love of this fantastic region. (It’s the next best thing to tasting the wines themselves, and I guarantee will have you reaching for Barossa on your next visit to a wine store!)

To win, simply answer the following question in the comment box below (hint: the answer’s in the question!):

From which sub-region of the northern Barossa Valley does Ben Glaetzer source his Shiraz for the iconic Amon-Ra?

A winner will be pulled from the hat on Friday of this week from the correct answers below.

Final and sincerest thanks to John McDonnell of Wine Australia and Toby Barlow of St. Hallett’s. If you missed the tasting last night, get yourself to the next Wine Australia event, John always puts on a great show.