G'day mates - how are yew? So I'm back, after crossing 8 timezones, starting at at 8 am n Sidney and landing at 8 am in Copenhagen the next day - or s it the previous? after a voyage of 32 hs. My first visit to someplace outside Europe and, I must say, not an experience I would have been without. The land of Oz - very welcoming, language related to English, currency razoo (?), the males are called 'mate' or 'bloke', while the females apparently can be called 'love', or, rather not, 'sheila' which latter appears pejorative. A group, regardless of gender, is 'you guys'. If the group is composed of kangaroos it is called a 'mob'. Main produce appears to be kangaroo skin hats, and slighlty oaked Chardonnays capped under stelvin.
Our first meal was, not surprisingly since we lived in China town, in a Chinese restaurant, the House of Guangzhou, which had a fairly good and comprehensive wine list. This apparently was more rule than exception - the only place we did NOT find an acceptable wine list was in a Japanese teppanyaki, Ichiban, where you had the choice of one white and one red, both from Lindemans. Not spoiled for choice, there. To a Swede, wine prices in the restaurants were seriously affordable, and not much different from what we found in the few bottle shops we visited. Prices stayed mostly in the range AUD 25 - 35, with an outlier of AUD 67 for a PInot Noir from TAsmania, Fire Gully 2001, which on the one hand was quite enjoyable but on the other did not taste muchlike a PN. Lots of chocolate and mocha, black berries, but if somebody had told me it was made of Merlot rather than PN I would have accepted that without hesitation. Following the advice of Salil, we took a coach tour to Hunter Valley with Boutique Wine Tours, and visited in all 4 producers. Thank you for the tip, Salil, it was great. Favorite palces were the very small family run Ernest Hill, and the largish Brokenwood, where our experiences were better than yours (yes, we got to taste the Graveyard Shiraz which to my mind will need some serious cellar time to reach its potential) - place was rowdy and boisterous, but the service was, as almost everywhere, warm and friendly, and well-informed.
Obviously the producers are busily converting to stelvin caps - out of 13 bottles brought home, 8 were uNDer stelvin.
Varietal on the move: verdelho - they all had one, or several. Verdelho is of course most known as one of the 4 classical Madeira grapes - here it was vinified as a white dry table wine, with lots of tropical fruit, spicyness, soemwhat like a Muscat d' Alsace but more notes of orange zest. Recommendations were to serve it with shellfish and oriental spicy food, which may be a good idea. I wouldn't save any of these wines for the long haul - they appear to be for early drinking. Reception everywhere was on the 'I'll-put-another-shrimp-on-the-barbi-for-you' standard. And then we heard that in Oz, the Sidney-ites are noted for being a bit reserved and stuck-up. Oh dear.
Favorite restaurant was 'Fish At the Rocks', the Rocks being a part of the town with a certain notoriety for good eating and drinking places. A bit like "Ma cuisine" in Beaune, but even friendlier service. Also loved 'Kobe Jones' in Darling Harbour, but don't order their house wine which we found rather uninteresting.
Loved the city. Loved (what I saw of) the country. That I, besides the wine, ahve added 32 bird species to my list of firm observations, is not beside the point and next time I'll bring my binoculars.
Too bad it is not reachable by Volvo.
Cheers
Nils Gustaf