Stories, rants, articles and some educational options for good measure.If you’ve got a wine question for us please send it through and we’ll do our best to answer it…
Events and free tasting stock: a discussion
A chat with a fellow producer recently veered into total taboo territory: should wine producers provide free wine at tastings at events, in exchange for the value offered by the event organisers? My friend made an interesting point: no one ever asks a restaurant to provide free food (other than some low rent food bloggers), so why is it still normal to expect wineries to cover the costs & time involved?
Why we’re publishing our winemaking specs
Winemaking, compared to other food processing enjoys almost no labelling regulation. Maybe it’s lobbying. Maybe it’s the established practice not being questioned. Maybe it’s because our inherent assumption is that wine brands are honest and that wine is sophisticated and therefore good. Whatever it is, I think it’s bullshit because it creates vacuums where the information that ends up filling the gaps evolves slowly into unquestioned facts.
Winesplainer: Prosecco V méthode champenoise
Given we’re located in the King Valley, but we don’t make Prosecco, this little explainer might help clarify a few points about how these wines are different. It’s worth noting here that one is not better than the other – that is something that only the drinker can decide, not the producer.
Eat This: Potato and Scallop Pancakes for Breakfast
combination of mashed potato mixed into a batter with finely chopped fresh scallops, which is then fried into submission in butter and eaten with creme fraiche & smoked salmon. Lordy! Add Champagne or sparkling wine in the mix and you’ve really got a memorable breakfast on your hands.
Winesplainer: Pet Nat Sparkling Wines
I’ll take a gamble here and say the closer you live to inner north of Melbourne (or capital city hipster equivalents) the more you would have seen the term ‘Pet Nat’ on a wine list. What I mean to say is, Pet Nat isn’t quite mainstream yet but it’s coming, so I’ve prepared this handy guide so that if you live elsewhere, you’re prepared for the inevitable sprawl.
Winesplainer: Late Disgorged & Zero Dosage Sparkling
Late disgorged means that we keep the yeast lees in the bottle for longer. Often there is an earlier disgorged version – in our case, the 2013 White Label Assembly Sparkling – disgorged after 55 months on lees. The LD version was kept for almost 8 years. Its the same wine to begin with, so it’s fascinating to see how the influence of extra time changes the wine. You might imagine then that this extra time tends to push the cost up, which is why the LD options are always a little pricey.
Eat This: Black Rice Pilaf with 8 hour Lamb
This is a tremendous dish for big gatherings and can be put together mostly beforehand. It’s a black rice pilaf with slow roasted lamb, that features loads of spicy mixed roasted veg, nuts, seeds, herbs, dried fruit and a fancy yogurt topping. It’s filling, nutritious, not too expensive and the lamb can easily be left out to cater for vegetarians. It can be served warm or room-temp depending on your timing. This recipe feeds about 8 people…
A long story about a poorly worded ad
There’s an ad from Naked Wines going around the socials that says ‘chances are your $30 bottle contains just $8 of wine. Let’s fix that’
Let’s fix what exactly??
Labelling transparency & the business of ‘keto’ wine
The health and wellness industry has impacted most categories of consumer products so it’s no surprise to see wine being made & marketed in different ways than we’re used to. In addition to organic and biodynamic wine, we now have natural wine, clean wine, green wine, zero & low alcohol wine, vegan wine and now we have keto wine. I’m sure there will be others…