Wine thread

I'll back you on the Punt Road Pinot Noir. Nice drop.

Oh no, HJ, according to your "research", my wife has become my (late) Mother-In-Law!!

Hugh, two comments on this post.
Firstly, Mrs Doug and I were having a cuppa with relations of mine in their apartment on 29th floor of "Soul", Surfers Paradise, a couple of weeks ago. Whilst we were there, a neighbour came in with a bottle of "Bin 389", as a New Year's gift. The relations are both Vegans, and drink mostly green tea, or warm water, (sometimes enhanced with a twist of lemon)!
Sadly, the Bin 389 wasn't re-gifted to us!
Secondly, re corks: Our daughter, who lives in Whistler, hosted a ladies dinner recently. One of the ladies brought a bottle of red with a cork. No corkscrew in our daughter's town house, which necessitated a trip through the snow, to a neighbouring town house in their complex. Fortunately, they were also hosting a party, and were better equipped with bar-accoutrements, than our daughter!!

A great summary of wine wankers. Had to laugh as it neatly summarised my boxing up of my 120-odd bottle wine rack (we are moving) - I had to keep looking at the colour of all the different pinots!

If you've left your Pinots too long and now they're off you've only got yerself to blame, ff.

Lindommer, might it be as much to do with the "room temperature" in the storage area, as the length of time that 'formerflanker' has had them stored?!

Some time ago, I posted that a neighbour had been storing his reds in a western bedroom. I put my Max/min thermometer in the room, and when he saw that it had been up to 38c, I convinced him to store them under his house!!

Or ff may've had his wine rack on top of the fridge, the very worst place. Even if he didn't (apologies, ff) far too many people put their wine rack there. They're not doing themselves any favours, oenologically or grammatically...

You may rest assured that the wine rack was placed in the mildest section of the house - not too hot, not too cold.
The issue was my brain - it kept saying "buy" when on wine tasting tours around Australia, but switched to the Rugby Appreciation Society for the rest of the year and forgot the wines I just had to have. Hence I kept stocking the cellar at a faster rate than I drink.

Not seeing where the problem is here ☺

Had my first crop from my vineyard this year. Saw the wine being pressed this week. Going to be a cracker of a Shiraz. Now for the 2 year wait for it to be bottled. Ho hum.

We have first dibs on that wine here when it comes out eh? Can label it GGR quaffing plonk (jking)!

That's awesome, well done. Knowing people who have their own vines and the work that goes into tending them, you have my respect Sir.

Bottled my 2017 Shiraz yesterday. Momentous occasion for me. Having only had one very small barrel tasting since it was pressed I had no idea how the wine would turn out. The winemaker did a fantastic job blending the new and old barrels and the result is a wonderful Heathcote Shiraz with vibrant rasberry flavours. For a wine that had just been bottled it was extremely smooth and will develop some great characters with age. Now for the crap part of getting a liquor licence and labels and packaging etc. This should all have already been in place but I am a great procrastinator and prefer spending my days in the vineyard not dealing with Govvy departments etc.

By means of background the vines are 25 years old. I have mostly Shiraz clone PT23. There is a bit of Malbec which has gone into the "home brew" for the last two vintages. The vineyard was very run-down when I bought it and I have managed to get it back into reasonable shape, but it has taken a lot of hard work.

Anyway, this should probably be in the Proud Parents thread. I will let those interested know when I am in a position to go commercial.

I now know where Heathcoate is.

I'll be good for a dozen. Don't need labels.

Heathcote produces some of the best reds (Shiraz and Cabernet) in Oz, arguably the best expressions of these two varieties outside of South Australia. There's a strip of Cambrian red dirt running north-south from Colbinabbin at the top down to the township of Heathcote that's every bit as good as the famed Terra Rossa of Coonawarra. Coonawarra probably has the better Cabernets while Heathcote shades the Croweaters for Shiraz. If a vineyard's on the Cambrian strip the wines will always be bloody good.

Called in to Heathcote during a trip in October last year and picked up some top Shiraz from a mate of mine who owns The Bridge Vineyard. He's bounded by Mount Ida, another Seppelt vineyard and Jasper Hill Georgia's Paddock on his eastern front and Sanguine Estate to his north, all outstanding drops. If your wine's anything like this lot you've done well, Baldric. I'll take a box from you.

Had a cracker the other night a Greenock Creek Alices Shiraz - obviously not in the same league as the Roennfeldt but was a peach, dark rich and gorgeous. 2013 vintage could probably do with another couple of years. Went down easy.

2015 Les Hauts de Smith - this is the second label of Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte. My God, what an absolute ripper. I'd hate to think how good the grand vin is because this is the best sav blanc I've ever had by a country mile. So, so good a wonderful deep colour and aroma with a wonderful finish.

It actually could've done with a couple more years, I'm pissed I only had 1 bottle.

Cracked open my one and only 2009 Chateau Prieure Lichine. Only a fourth growth Margaux but my oh my it was very good indeed. Probably could've done with a few more years, but it was delicious, smooth and mellow. I'm more a right bank man myself but I really loved this wine. To show my absolute class, I enjoyed this with some lamb snags on the barbie