That is simply not possible…or is it?

Morning under nets

Nets on an 8 month old vineyard? You have to be joking. Keep an eye out for the next insane installment of DAW.

Written in 2016, the answer to this of course was a resounding no. And yet, there is the evidence: mature vines shrouded in a wedding veil of snowy white bird netting, lightly burdened with glossy bunches of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir all ready to pick.

As you have guessed, life took it’s usual U-turn and we got a rare chance to purchase a 28 year old (at the time) dry-grown vineyard on the West Tamar in the sweet spot for sparkling production. It was simply too good an opportunity to resist; and so we didn’t, even though it meant selling the original site (which is still in very good hands with a bright future and many more stories to tell) in order to finance the new one.

So what has happened in the intervening decade? Too much to make light reading here but nonetheless, read on and I will try to give you some sense of the key moments, of years passing, like flickering newspaper pages or the sped up hands of a clock in an old Hollywood movie.

And at the end of it all, there will be wine.

A Foie Gras Moment

 

cristalIt is true that I often need to remind myself why I am doing this and if I can explain it to you, then maybe I can work it out for myself. So I will try.

On occasions, I admit to being a fan of unmemorable wines, wines that don’t demand attention or interrupt the otherwise really important conversation.  And I mean it, honestly I do, as much as, when a lot younger and hopelessly intent on saving the world, I meant it when I said that I would never eat foie gras because it was cruel, inhumane and absolutely BLOODY DELICIOUS!

 

So a little while ago I went to a friend’s 40th.  A whole bunch of us, who should have perhaps displayed a more responsible enjoyment of the picks of our combined cellars, treated some venerable labels as if they were innocuous ten dollar bargain bin specials.  Many, it’s true, slipped by without a detailed tasting note; a few stuck their heads up above the crowd and demanded that some memory of them remained the next day.  But somewhere in the priceless treasury of great wine, I found myself with a glass of Louis Roederer Cristal, a champagne which the vast majority of people in the world will go to their grave never having tasted.  This is a scenario which we should avoid at all cost…and it will cost.  Lots!  The current vintage will set you back up to $400.  Can a mere bottle of wine be worth that?  Can it deliver all by itself an experience equal to a whole evening at Tetsuya’s or a season ticket to the Opera House or perhaps a weekend driving super cars around Mt Panorama?  Hard to say.  Every experience is shaped by place, time and company and is impossible to replicate.  But for this drinker, on a befuddled afternoon behind the closed doors of a small east Melbourne restaurant, the lights flickered, the noise receded and perhaps even the earth moved as, with two meager mouthfuls, I experienced such a revelation, such a crescendo of flavour and texture, that it put every other wine I had ever tasted into a new context.

 

So for those who don’t want to be among the unfulfilled masses, for those who want to eat foie gras, drive a Ferrari 250 GTO and drink something as good as Cristal tasted to me that day, then perhaps you can glimpse what drives me.  One day, I want to be your great wine experience, I want to make your lights flicker and the earth move.  I want to be your foie gras moment.

The beginning

CheersThis moment has been a long time coming…it’s difficult to say how long. Maybe since I arrived in Tasmania for my first vintage in 1994, maybe from earlier vintages in France, maybe even from my first wine job as a 20 year old cellar rat when I was first shown the magic inside a truly great bottle of wine. The truth is, many of the significant moments in my adult life have been marked by great wine; from places like this, from people with the same dreams as me. My hope is that one day, others will connect important moments in their life with a bottle of wine they once drank from here, from me, from my dream.