Grant Burge Moscato Rosa sparkling rose 2007

Barossa, $14

Not really sparkling, more a light spritz.   A light and sweet rose from grenache and frontignac.  Vibrant rose colour.  Strawberries and a bit of lime.  Great summer afternoon / picnic wine.

Cellar list

We invested in some good wine in the Barossa and we're going to cellar it down in Canberra where we won't be tempted to drink it!

What we're cellaring:

1. Grant Burge Filsell Barossa Old Vine Shiraz 2005 ($30, JH 94 pts, to 2019)
2. Grant Burge Shadrach Cab Sauv 2005
3. Bethany Cab Sauv 2004 (to 2030)
4. Yalumba The Menzies Cab Sauv 2005 (Coonawarra) to 2022
5. Henschke Keyneton Estate Euphonium (Shiraz Cab Merlot Cab Franc) 2005 ($37, 
6. Henschke Tappa Pass Shiraz 2004 ($57, 
7. Henschke Julius Riesling 2007 ($24,
8. Langmeil Blacksmith Cab Sauv 2006
9. Langmeil Hangin' Snakes Shiraz Viognier 2007 (
10. Two Hands Branson Coach House Greenock Shiraz 2005 ($35, 
11. Arrowfield Estate Show Reserve Cab Sauv 2004 ($20, to 2014) X 2

Cumulus Climbing Cabernet Sauvignon

This wine is an easy drinking, medium bodied red.  Halliday describes the flavours as 'powerful blackcurrent, cassis and cedar, with touches of bitter chocolate; fractionally green tannins', which is pretty accurate. Quite nice - recommended medium bodied red.  13.5 % alcohol, approx $17.

Stone House 2007 Coonawarra Rose

Dave won't let me drink any more wine until I write tasting notes.  We drank this Rose on a Saturday night - it was our second bottle after a bottle of chardonnay (the most of which I drank). We wanted something a little sweeter to have with the yummy duck curry I bought.  This wine went well, was pretty tasty and cheap at $6 a bottle from Dan Murphys. Recommended.

Trip to Barossa Valley

We've just returned from six blissful days in the Barossa Valley.  Staying in beautiful Greenock, we had easy access to numerous fab wineries, and sampled wines from about 15 - 20 during our stay.  My favourite winery was Henschke in Keyneton, and Dave named Langmeil winery in Tanunda as his pick of the bunch.  We bought two and a half cases: half a case of mixed, gorgeous wines from Henschke, a mixed case from Langmeil, and random others.  We'll write them all up as we sample them over the next few months.

The Barossa is the home of big, flavoursome, high alcohol Shirazes.  We bought a few of these really big wines, ranging in price from $35 - approximately $60, that according to the wineries from which we bought them will be at their peak in 10 - 30 years!  We intend to cellar these and will write up the details for each as we cellar them.

Wine: Pooles Rock Firestick Late Harvest Shiraz 2006

Hunter Valley, $16ish

Well this is an unusual one.  Chocolate, plum and berry aromas.  Similar flavours.  Smooth almost syrupy texture.  And it's sweet!  Almost a dessert wine.  Nice.  Apparently it's good chilled too.

Wine: Wine Society Vineyard Selection Chardonnay 2007

Multi-region, $9

I never thought I'd say this, but there's too much alcohol in this wine.  14% is big for a red, let alone a white, and it overpowers the fruit, making it taste a little rough.  Flavours otherwise good, but hard to taste.

Wine: Warburn Premium Reserve Merlot 2006

Barossa, $9   James Halliday 89 pts

A good wine for the price. Nice deep red colour.  Soft and quite a short palate, but with a bit of fruity flavour.  Enjoyed it with rack of lamb with fennell and pear - went nicely.

Wine: Evans & Tate Margaret River Chardonnay 2006

Margaret River, $21  James Halliday 92 pts

I quite like it.  Subtle fruit (citrus, melon) and even subtler oak.  I like a bit more flavour, so I can get chardies that I like better for this price.

Dinner at Jimmy Liks

Earlier this week Dave and I caught up with a friend for dinner at Jimmy Liks in Potts Point (http://www.jimmyliks.com/). We'd walked past many times before, but had never actually been together. While I recall having eaten there several years ago, my memories of the food were hazy, although I do remember the cocktails being good!



It was very busy for a Tuesday night, in fact we were lucky to get the last table (I say table, but it's one of those places with one large communal table). The space is pretty chic, being dimly lit (you need to use the itty bitty book lights that they provide to read the menus!) and obviously very popular.



The communal table, cocktail list and Asian-inspired menu reminded me of Long Grain in Surry Hills, but the space is much more intimate.



We ordered chicken betel leaves with smoked eggplant chilli and eschalot relish to start. It was gone in one big mouthful, but really good! For mains we had a salmon salad with watermelon ginger lime leaf and roasted eschalot chilli dressing, and the crispy skin duck with yellow bean tamarind and orange. This was ample food for the two of us, and both were fantastic. I'm glad we changed our order at the last minute from the beef to the salmon salad, as the flavours and textures of both dishes actually complemented each other. Our friend had the aromatic curry of eggplant with picked pineapple and chilli, which was also delicious.



Most of the cocktails appeared again to be Asian inspired (using, for example, sake and nashi pear liquers, I think). They weren't as good as I remembered from last time, but still held their own (although cocktails at Long Grain are better in my opinion).



All in all, we rated Jimmy Liks really highly. The food was fantastic and the service was pretty good also. I don't think you can book, and it's obviously pretty popular with the eastern suburbs crowd so you might have to wait for a table, but the food is worth the wait. Besides, you can always take a seat in the cool bar while you're waiting for a table.

Wine: Cumulus Rolling Sauvingon Blanc Semillon 2007

Central Ranges, NSW

I like sauvignon blancs in moderation - those yummy tropical flavours are lovely for a pre-dinner drink or two - but I find it cloying after a couple of glasses.

This wine has those tropical flavours but nicely balanced with lemon and almost a sort of honey.  I like it!

Adventure: Mosel Valley, Germany

Cat and I journeyed here in October last year.  It is a postcard vineyard landscape: a gorgeous river meandering through cliffs and steep banks terraced with vines - and the occasional castle.  This is the centre of German riesling territory.

We stayed in Koblenz and took the train to Cochem, which takes under an hour.  We took a leisurely boat back, which takes about 5 hours.

Cochem is lovely too, with steep windy cobblestone streets leading up to an awesome castle on the hill.

We couldn't quite work out the deal with wine tasting: it seems that unlike with Australian cellar doors you only taste a wine to see if you do in fact want to buy a bottle, rather than sampling all of what they have on offer and seeing what you like.  Anyway, we found one cellar door who were very helpful if a little gruff and we sampled their rieslings.  All but the driest tasted too sweet to us, being used to Australian rieslings, but the dry was pretty yummy and the 'half-dry' would be a good match with sweet or spicy food.

Anyway, I'd thoroughly recommend a trip to this stunning part of Germany.

Wine: Taylors Jaraman Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Clare Valley / Coonawarra, $31

Dave says: 

This multi-medal wine was good but I wanted more for the price.

Had some warm chocolatey and blackcurrant flavours and also some cooler green capsicum / tomato tones.  Tasted a bit young to me, maybe a bit of cellaring would be worthwhile.  Lots of alcohol at 14.5%.

We had it with rack of lamb and it worked pretty well.

Certainly yummy but I didn't quite get the rave reviews it gets.

Cat says:

We bought this one on the recommendation of James Halliday, who in his 2008 Australian wine companion gave this wine 94 points. The wine companion says, 'Big, rich and ripe cassis and blackcurrent fruit solidly supported by integrated oak'. I don't know what the distinction between cassis and blackcurrant is (aren't they the same?), but I mostly agree with this description, except for the 'big' bit. It's certainly rich and ripe with lots of blackcurrant, but I've had bigger wines, for less money too. I liked this wine, although I think I've had better for the price. The fact that it's more medium bodied than full meant that it was better with the rare lamb rack I cooked to go with it.

Restaurant: Nove, Finger Wharf, Woolloomoolloo, Sydney

We headed to Nove on a balmy Sydney summer afternoon.  Sitting outside, looking over the Woolloomoolloo wharf to the city skyline was very pleasant indeed.

Cat started with a refreshingly bitter Campari soda, which was welcome on a hot and humid day.

I had whole snapper with a sort of olive, orange and pine nut tapenade.  The fish was fresh and tasty, nicely cooked so the skin was crispy but the flesh moist.  The tapenade worked well although it was oilier than necessary.

I tasted some of Cat's pizza - goats cheese, pumpkin and pesto - which was your classic thin-based variety and was yummy.

We washed the meals down with a Patina rose from Orange.  It had a vibrant campari-red hue and was lemony and acidic with hints of berries and spice.  Not too sweet.  Nice and refreshing.

I grabbed an affogato for dessert.  It was great.  Really good coffee with that proper vanilla ice cream with vanilla specks through it.

Service was attentive and friendly.

Our meal came to $88 (would have been cheaper if it wasn't a Sunday).  It's substantially cheaper than the other restaurants on the wharf and still does good, simple, fresh pasta, pizza and a small selection of meat and seafood.

DJ

Welcome to our blog

If you've stumbled upon this, welcome!

The idea behind this blog is to record our experiences with yummy wines and great restaurants for future reference, but we welcome visitors on our journey and welcome your thoughts on any of the wines and restaurants we try.

Cheers!

C & D