4F Hepcat wrote:

Film Noir Buff wrote:

fxh wrote:

eg - Some of this certainly does get shipped overseas. More in previous years when the aud$ wasn't strong and we had a glut of wine - we always have a glut of wine.

Remember here that a lot of our wine - certainly the mass market big sellers isn't always - or even often - locale / terrior based, but big trucks of grapes are sourced form all over the place and mixed up to make a blend.

The sort of stuff we call clean skins is most likely found in your a local wine shop with perhaps their own label or brand and no where else much, or not even a brand sold in Oz.

F'instance take [yellow tail] in the early to mid 2000's it was USA top selling wine by a huge margin. No one in Australia had heard of it. You couldn't buy it here then. Millions of litres of it were shipped out.

Now its available here but not much of a seller.

What happened was a family group decided to use the vast amount of grapes  overproduced in Australia - combine it with the advanced factory methods perfected here to produce consistent wine year after year from batches of grapes sourced from nearly anywhere. They also understood that the average American doesn't like wine. So they produced a fruity alcoholic drink that had the tannin, acid, soil all removed to make a smooth drink . Not really a wine.

Yellow Tail is a triumph of marketing utilizing the Australian know how of making bulk consistent wines.

Reminds me of the time this suthern gal claimed she'd discovered zinfandel and begged me to bring her a bottle. I brought her a nice Swiss selection and she practically did a spit take when she tasted it. Turns out she'd been buying something called zinfandel from a local "wine" shop which tasted a lot like liquid sour balls.

There does seem to be glut of really crappy wines around and from my recent experience, most of the Australian wines have deteriorated into mass produced blandness. At one time, I would say throughout the 90s, the New World wines had an edge over Europe and in particular, France. Not so now, European wine, including German wines from my limited exposure, seem to have more quality of depth and complexity.

The Australian wines that are usually sold in Europe at discounters and wine shops are mass-produced blands with a reliable quality. Bear in mind that this is still a product where nature can take a heavy toll on the quality, a fact that both mass- and high end producers are struggling with. Australians have a huge wine-industry that is known for a homogenous quality. My main beef with these producers is their reluctance to declare all ingredients, e.g. chestnut flour is often subjoined and allergy sufferers are wondering why suddenly their throat is swelling. I have recently been down there and dragged myself through several winetastings that confirmed that what is sold in Europe has nothing to do with the excellent quality Ozzies are able to produce. I personally like wines with a solid amount of acidity which Australian wines mostly lack because of the hot weather, so unfortunately they sometimes mix it up with citric acid, which even my rather unsophisticated tongue can more often than not taste.

German wines, especially those from Mosel where I grew up, had a bad reputation until the mid 90s, and rightly so. Several factors, ranging from bad marketing to the quick bucks that could be made with the easier to farm flatter parts of the land led to indistinguishable mass produced bad wines with no terroir*. I am glad that my home region revived this manufacturing tradition into a solid industry without giving too much leeway to equalizing modernisation.

* I am terrible sorry to use this aggravating and overused term of oeonological prose, it is the equivalent for Sprezzzzatura for the endlessly blubbering winesnob.

Last edited by Fritz the Cat (2012-05-21 08:52:16)

4F Hepcat wrote:

^I am convinced, in moderation and controlled doses, that whisky is far more healthy than beer and wine. As a medical men Chevere, what say you?

Perhaps, I'll tell you after I decode the controlled dose bit.
On the other hand, the hangovers are kind.

Tonight- Mortlach cask strength 17yo. But very curious about that Roughstock.
Hepcat, how is it? Is it new make? Rye? In the Netherlands?

^ Thanks for the Montana tip, will try it.
Just joking about the controlled dose bit. My grandmother used to carry a full 8oz glass of Chivas on the rocks and nurse it thu the afternoon.
My Dad used to go through so many bottles of Chivas 25 I used the blue velour bags for everything from shoe polish rags to school sandwich bags.
So, for my 22nd birthday I gave myself a bottle of Glenlivet (we're talking 1977). I have, as you say, read very scary bilirubin level reports.
Needless to say, always on the lookout for new stuff (though not new make). Now about that Dutch Rye...

Last edited by Chévere (2012-05-22 16:32:39)

fxh wrote:

You didn't see a variation when you visited our shores. And neglected to try some great cool climate wines?

I cant stand those low viscous jams like Penfolds or Lindemanns (although I used to enjoy BIN 389 in the 90s). My teutonic tongue yearns for d´Arenberg and the whole Orange Valley with its cooler climate.

Fritz the Cat wrote:

fxh wrote:

You didn't see a variation when you visited our shores. And neglected to try some great cool climate wines?

I cant stand those low viscous jams like Penfolds or Lindemanns (although I used to enjoy BIN 389 in the 90s). My teutonic tongue yearns for d´Arenberg and the whole Orange Valley with its cooler climate.

Next time you visit come to Melbourne and I'll show you a good time and some good wines.

Shandy.

After golf they were serving Rock Shandy which I first heard about from Saffers and Rhodesians. Half soda water, half lemonade plus angostura bitters. It looks like a pint but no problems if you are driving. A Gunner is a similar idea but involves ginger beer and lime.

Kingston1an wrote:

Grafenwalder, inexpensive Lidl lager - reinheitsgebot.

Good, cost effective stuff. You can't go wrong with the German Lidl offerings, certainly better quality than the Heinekein in the Netherlands.

Chia grass juice - will drink three glasses of this



followed by

Chestnut sprout and walnut sprout milk

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Yeah yeah, no need to bring common sense into the argument.

Bush: triple blonde at a wopping 10.5 percent. This is a great Belgium brewery that suffers from none of the problems that I associate with Belgium ales i.e. too sugary as a substitute for lack of hops.

This is the brewery:

http://www.br-dubuisson.com/index.php?o … ;Itemid=36

I know it's not the season, and it is sacrilege with ice but there it went, my Lagavulin DE, down my gullet making me sweat and breathe fire.