The Hunter Valley 2 hours north of Sydney is known for one thing in Australia and that's wine and in particular Semillon. Set in a landscape of green fields, gum trees and sleepy towns is one of the Hunter Valleys oldest wineries, Tyrrell’s. A family business now handed down to its fourth generation owner Bruce Tyrrell, it has reach all over Australia and indeed the world. When you drive up the long gravel drive passing 120 year old vines and arrive at the head quarters of this global player you wouldn’t know it. The original pioneer’s house of the first generation Edward Tyrell is but a humble one room ironbark wooden shack complete with iron cooker and is still standing in the gravel car park for all to see. A vivid reminder of how long this new world wine maker has been in operation. Indeed this year they are celebrating their 150th year. Behind the shack is there office, again a wooden house and this is connected to the tasting room which is an important watering hole for the many wine tourists that travel around the hunter in mini buses from vineyard to vineyard.
Proprietor, Francois with Christopher Burr MW at the Brasserie Saint Julien in Barbican, London
Following our most enjoyable tasting last week at the Brasserie Saint
Julien, we are able to give you our notes, and the shipper Daniel
Dancygier of ASAP Assistance Limited has made a special offer of all
the wines we tasted for anyone who would like to purchase some good
regular drinking Claret.
I heard this morning that a good friend of mine had died in his sleep on Sunday night. It was all the more of a shock as I had been speaking to him on Saturday, making plans and doing deals.
Bill Baker was a wine-merchant in the old fashioned, and in my view best way. He told his customers what to drink and what was best, and through experience of his good judgment they accepted his word. Only a week ago I asked him if he had any good old dry oloroso Sherry. He said he had two but he thought I would like one better and as he would be in london he would drop a case off. No invoice no discussion about price. The sherry is magnificent and I e-mail him to say so and could we have some for my Club in St James's? His verbatum reply was, " tis a blend I did me-self g'vnor, I think we'll charge you £25 a bot. plus this frightful government's share!"
I knew Bill had indeed made the selection from our mutual friend in Sanlucar, Xavier Hildalgo, and because it was Bill i also know Xavier would give him access to some lovely old casks. The 'old' wine business was like that, if you liked someone and they knew their stuff, they always got the best. Bill's attitude to price was the same, some might think £25 a bottle for sherry rather steep, but he didn't care, if they didn't appreciate the wine and its value then they should go elsewhere. In fact this sherry for its age and quality is cheap, Bill knew that, he would always offer good value.
Write Comment
Secret Sommelier were pleased to attend this years Wine + Trade (www.wineplus.co.uk ) Fair at Olympia and catch up with Gerard Bassett MW MS to ask him about his new hotel venture, Terra Vina.
There are more podcasts on fine wine to follow - watch this space!
Now, to the 2006 Burgundies. I have attended four tastings and tasted over 500 wines so I have a good perspective on this vintage. But the very best wines top Grand Cru are still to be released. This is not an easy vintage to appreciate at this stage, that is to say there are a lot of poor wines, some fair wines and some good to very good wines, so be careful.
The whites are fine although not great, I particularly like this style of vintage which is pure and quite lean with good acidity, and very typical of individual terroir. I like these whites because they will age quite well and particulary liked the Chablis and southern Burgundy communes where picking was earlier. There is some clumsy chapitalisation which gives the impression of sweet fruit, and as a result often the wines are unbalanced.
The reds are much harder to understand even for the professional. Again we have the unbalanced wines, and we have some dry mean wines which are unripe. There were some nice Cotes de Beaunes reds at junior level, and at a more serious level one should be very selective. I liked the red wines from Robert Arnoux and Nicolas Potel and de Montille, and the whites from Fevre in Chablis, but I will give a full review when I have finished all the tastings and been to Burgundy in four weeks time.
I suspect many of you will have been to some or many of the trade tastings of 2006 Burgundy over the last few days. More of that later, but I want to follow up on our invitation to a tiny but fun tasting of Bordeaux for everyday good drinking in vintages ready to drink and just released from the Chateaux 2001 2002 and the excellent 2003.
It will be fun, because unlike the Burgundy tastings of 100 plus wine each time, there are only six or seven wines shipped direct from the Chateaux and served with some exquisite snacks prepared by the best Brasserie outside Paris, Brasserie Saint Julien in Smithfield market.
We have to charge £25 but you will really get your moneys worth in terms of the quality of these modest but exceptionally good wines and the grub, some of the best fois gras and confit I have tasted! I look forward to seeing you there at 6pm, on 29th January. Please do listen to the rather relaxed video-cast we recorded when we were setting up this tasting!
To book please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Pursuit of pleasure ... Oh come on? eating too many puddings can lead to o... About Alcohol Info It seems that few people understand that getting d... V Expensive fish n c... I'm not sure I could stretch to that, even as a cheaper option. Sounds lovely though. Sorry mate Didn't see the tv last night... it's Christmas. Probably wont catch a single program until January!
The Hunter Valley 2 hours north of Sydney is known for one thing in Australia and that's wine and in particular Semillon. Set in a landscape of green fields, gum trees and sleepy towns is one of the Hunter Valleys oldest wineries, Tyrrell’s. A family business now handed down to its fourth generation owner Bruce Tyrrell, it has reach all over Australia and indeed the world. When you drive up the long gravel drive passing 120 year old vines and arrive at the head quarters of this global player you wouldn’t know it. The original pioneer’s house of the first generation Edward Tyrell is but a humble one room ironbark wooden shack complete with iron cooker and is still standing in the gravel car park for all to see. A vivid reminder of how long this new world wine maker has been in operation. Indeed this year they are celebrating their 150th year. Behind the shack is there office, again a wooden house and this is connected to the tasting room which is an important watering hole for the many wine tourists that travel around the hunter in mini buses from vineyard to vineyard.
I heard this morning that a good friend of mine had died in his sleep on Sunday night. It was all the more of a shock as I had been speaking to him on Saturday, making plans and doing deals.
Pursuit of pleasure ...
