06/27/06 – Australian whites pt. 2
People,
This week’s e-mail takes a departure from my normal rambling diatribe and instead embraces the properties of shortness; it’s my attempt to prove that, if necessary, I can be uncharacteristically succinct.
We tried Australian Chardonnays (both 100% examples and blends) last week to reasonable success…. the only major exception being my unfortunate bottle of corked Victorian sludge. This week, we move on to the other Australian whites before we spend the next two weeks on the reds. Tuesday’s meeting should doubtless be very interesting, because Australian whites beyond Chardonnay have seen both substantial innovation and substantial success in recent years. The three other main whites are Semillon, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc (which was traditionally more of a New Zealand thing, but has taken off in Australia recently). Please feel to get any Australian white you see that isn’t majority Chardonnay — in other words, you can bring a Chardonnay blend, but make sure that Chardonnay makes up less than 50% of the wine (i.e. a 65% Semillon and 35% Chardonnay blend would be great). The point this week is to taste Australia’s other whites, and there’s a lot to choose from. I’ve already picked mine up — a nice ’04 Riesling that came recommended by Steve-o at Vendome. He also told me that all Australian Rieslings have a nose that smells like tires….. so we have that to look forward to. Hopefully they’ll taste like something else entirely, i.e. good wine.
Here’s a weekly fun-fact for you sketchy enophiles: “In 2000, Great Britain imported more wine from Australia than from France for the first time in history.” Thank you, wikipedia.
We’ll be meeting at Daniella’s house in Beverly Hills, which I understand to have an awesome backyard patio for us to enjoy, weather permitting. Address: (too swanky for you)
Chill those random Australian whites, and we’ll see you on Tuesday night at 9 PM.
Jesse “Brevity” Porter