Wine without BS

Learn Tapas... without BS!

A little known fact about myself is that when it came time to pick a career path after high school I actually enrolled into cooking school at TAFE. I've been attending cooking classes since I was around 14 and always enjoyed every part of the cooking process, except the cleaning up afterwards of course!

I never ended up in cooking school and randomly ended up in the finance sector, where I've remained ever since. While I have the utmost respect for chefs, I have to say I don't regret the path I went down at all and would rather be cooking for my friends and family, when I feel like it and at my own pace. A luxury no professional chef really has.

Anyway, enough of the possibly unnecessary intro! My most recent expedition to further my cooking skills was at one of my favourite Sydney restaurants, Mumu Grill, in Crows Nest. The latest cooking class on offer is all about Spanish Tapas as owner, Craig Macindoe, developed a great affection for the small, Mediterranean inspired share plates while living in Spain for six months.

The classes are currently offered most nights of the week, except Saturdays, from 6pm til 9pm and during the course we all had a recipe sheet and worked our way through bread making, several tapas dishes and two different types of Sangria.

There were around 12 people in my class, with 4 people to a table. The tables were complete with the necessary equipment we all needed to work our way through the dishes. It was not at all over crowded but I certainly wouldn't want to be in a class much bigger than this and four people to a table was pretty spot on.

(Craig explains the finer points of making Olive Tapenade to a student)

Craig certainly has a very 'No BS' approach and the content of the course is both informative and use-able with little to no existing skills or knowledge necessary. After starting with a basic bread recipe we made olivetapenade, meatballs in tomato sauce (my personal favourite), cider braised chorizo with prawns, figs wrapped in prosciutto and potato and ricotta tortilla.

(A real highlight is the fact that all dishes are cooked in a wood fired pizza oven!)

While the last few dishes were cooking in the oven we made up a few jugs of sangria and quickly turned the classroom into a dining room were we all sat down to dinner with our tapas creations. 

Wait staff from the restaurant next door were constantly checking in on our beverage requirements so no one went thirsty... something I take fairly seriously as you can see from my line up below.

(White Sangria, water, beer and red wine... I like to have my bases covered when it comes to food and beverage pairing!)

As the night ended there was a certain satisfying end of putting all the dirty cookware and dishware into a container for someone else to wash up! We were all given the recipes we had made and were well feed and had learnt a thing or two in the process. I had a fantastic time and I know everyone on my table said the same.  

I highly recommend this not just as a great cooking class, but a great night out period. If you aren't afraid to get your hands a little dirty, then instead of just going out for dinner why not go out to learn how to cook something new in a fun environment and have something at the end of the evening that is more than just the bill!

 

The cost of the course is $140 per head.... however, you can save yourself a whopping 50% just by becoming a VIP mailing list member HERE

You really would have to be full of BS to not take advantage of this incredibly generous offer as you can then get two people into the course for the cost of one AND free dinner at Mumu Grill during the month of your Birthday as well! 

Most Memorable Wines of 2011

2011 will forever be etched in my memory as one of the worst and best years of my life, the latter sentiment largely due to a five month stint in the United States where I lived in Los Angeles over their summer and spent part of the US spring time touring California and visiting the East Coast for the first time where I saw Boston, New York and Washington DC.

It meant I had a vast array of US wines that are not available in Australia and for this reason I have separated those wines from the wines available or made in Australia. It is sad to see the lack of US wine labels available in Australia given the fact that they have access to good Australian wines in almost every wine store and some of our cheaper, but not always bad, brands are in their major supermarkets like Ralph's and Wholefoods. America makes many fantastic wines at all different price points and if you love Cabernet Sauvignon and haven't had some of Napa Valley's finest you are really missing out. I was told before I left that Napa had Australia beat when it came to ultra premium Cabernet. I'll admit prior to my trip I was sceptical but now having had my second trip to Napa I must confess that many of the Cabernet's on my list below are amongst the best Cabernet's I've ever had. If given the choice, I'd take a $70-$100 bottle of Napa Cabernet over anything of a similar price made in Australia.

However, upon my return in September I was very impressed with the quality of a number of wines I tried from right here in Australia. So, without further adue the below, in no particular order, are my most memorable wines of 2011.

Made or purchased in Australia

Primo Estate 'Joseph' 2008 Nebbiolo
Xanadu 'Reserve' 2008 Chardonnay
Taltarni 1977 Cabernet Sauvignon
De Bortoli Gulf Station 2008 Pinot Noir 
Grove Estate NV MCB (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon & Barbera)
Thomas Wines 'The Kiss' 2007 Shiraz
Oak Works 2008 Tina Molle
Logan Wines 2010 Sauvignon Blanc
Chapel Hill 2011 Il Vescovo White blend
Two Paddocks Picnic 2009 Pinot Noir
Lowe Wines 2009 Zinfandel
Logan Wines 2011 'Hannah' Rose
ByJingo 2006 Montepulciano
Henschke 1992 Hill of Grace 

American Wines

J.Lohr Monterey 2009 Valdiguie
Phiffer Pavitt 'Date Night' 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
Kelly Flemming Wines 2009 Sauvignon Blanc & 2007 Cabernet
Wolffer Estate 2006 Fatalis Fatum red blend
Bridlewood Reserve 2007 Syrah
Corison 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon
Red Tail Ridge 2008 Sparkling Teroldego
Opus One 2007 Bordeaux Blend 
Seghesio 2009 'Home Ranch' Zinfandel
Smith Madrone Chardonnay (Vintage not noted)
Kenneth Volk Vineyards 2008 Negrette
Rancho Sisquoc 2009 Sylvaner 
Andrew Murray Vineyards 2008 Esperance Red blend

(The barrel room at Opus One. The centre of each barrel is painted with red wine so that spills as a result of topping-up the barrel do not make the barrels look messy! This is just one example of the kind of attention to detail I saw during my tour of this amazing facilitiy.)

 

 

 

What wine are you?

I was honoured and excited recently when Rocketman Media contacted me for a consulting project, saying that their client had specifically requested me to assist in the creative input of their up and coming social media campaign.

I'd never done anything like this before but I had loads of fun with getting the characters for this video mapped out and I'd be keen to see if can pick out what celebrities may have been inspiration for a couple of the characters in the below video.

 

Check out the United Cellars wine types video here

Now click on the link below to take the quiz yourself and find out what wine type matches your personality! You will also be given a codeword at the end that entitles you to $50 off your next purchase above $250  with United Cellars.  It is all just a bit of fun, which is what wine is all about and you may even be introduced to a brand new character as well!

 

Quiz - What wine are you?

I took the quiz and came out as Pinot Noir (very accurately pictured above). Please share with me what wine you are and hope you enjoy!

 

Update on Wine Week+ with Google Australia

Here’s the latest round of updates for Wine Week+ ( Twitter hashtag #wineweekplus) on Google+ the week of December 12.  We’re going to publish our calendar of events next Wednesday, December 7.  So if you’re planning to host Q&A on your Google+ page, or are planning to do some hangouts, please let me know what time/date you’re planning to do it, and what your topic(s) will be.  Don’t forget to include what time zone you’re in!

(We look forward to announcing our special guests for the food and wine pairing hangout!)

I’m also going to be hosting a very special Hangout on Google+ on Wednesday, December 15, at 6pm  I’m going to host a tasting Hangout, featuring 3 interesting bottles of Australian wine.  I’m going to select 9 people to be in the Hangout with me and try those 3 wines live on air with me providing tasting tips.  If you’d like to join me, go to the Wine Without BS Google+ page  and reply to my post about this Hangout -- tell me in 50 words or less why you like to drink your wine without BS.  I’ll pick my favourite responses and get you set up with the 3 wines we choose. 

I am really looking forward to Wine Week+ and am honoured to be involved and hope you can join us. just ensure you have a Google+ account !

Join me for 'Wine Week +', brought to you by Google Australia

 

Google Australia is putting together 'Wine week +' on Google+ to help Aussies (and Kiwis!) who love talking about wine to find each other on Google+. I'm helping them put together a program of wine-related activities for the week of December 12 and we hope you can join in the fun.

We will be starting with a Google staff wine tasting on December 7th and are looking for Australian and New Zealand wineries happy to share some wine with us to contact me at stewart@winewithoutbs.com.au

If you're a winery and you'd like help getting your own page on Google+, you can start here

I will also be hosting live video 'hang-outs' on Google + every day that week. I'll have topics of interest to all wine lovers throughout the week and ensure I get some special guests involved to make the whole week as fun and as diverse as possible.

All you need to do to join us is get a Google + account and add Wine without BS and Google's, Courtney Holne to your circles.

More information to come folks so please check back for updates! If you have any topics or questions you'd like discussed during 'Wine week +' please let me know.

Wine without BS TV on YouTube

Today I have launched the Wine without BS YouTube Channel after working with the great team at Unthinkable Media over the past few months.

Due to my extensive time in the United States this year I thought it would be very fitting to honour this memorable time by launching with a Halloween Special!

I hope you enjoy the clip and I would love to hear any and all feedback as well as see any pictures of Halloween parties next week that may borrow ideas from the video.

Happy Halloween!

 

Bridlewood Estate Winery

While currently living in Los Angeles, I was lucky enough recently to be invited to a VIP/Press only day at Bridlewood Estate Winery, located in the Santa Ynez Valley, 30 miles north of Santa Barbara which is approx a two and half hour drive from Los Angeles. This event was to show-off the new Bridlewood Gallery, which is a collaboration between nine California Central Coast artists and the winery, which brings different styles and types of local art and puts them on display for visitors to Bridlewood Estate.

Art lovers should definitely check it out as it gives you the chance to see an interesting variety of art by local artists based in the Californian Central Coast, all in the one place that just happens to be a winery to boot! However, art is not my forte and I will move straight onto what brought me to Bridlewood... the wine!

I was lucky enough to spend time with Bridlewood's wine maker, David Hopkins, who really enjoys working within a region as large and diverse as the Californian Central Coast. The region known as California's Central Coast is rather unique given its sheer size of around 100,000 square acres, stretching 250 miles (402 Kilometres) from Santa Barbara up to the San Francisco Bay area, where the sub-regions offer vineyard blocks of varied weather conditions. This allows David to make great Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Viognier in cooler places, while using areas of greater warmth to make great Syrah, Grenache and Zinfandel.

During my visit I worked my way through the full range of wines on offer by Bridlewood and even enjoyed barrel samples of upcoming Pinot Noir and Syrah that were not far off being bottled. All of the wines were high quality and enjoyable wines, however I am picking out two of my favourites, the 2010 Reserve Viognier and the 2007 Reserve Syrah.

The 2010 Viognier was a classic light lemon/pale straw like colour and had a nice aroma of banana and subtle vanilla. Flavours included pear, green apple and subtle banana. The aroma and subtle taste of banana made this Viognier rather unique as I cannot recall coming across a Viognier quite like it and I highly recommend it.

(The spanish style building at Bridlewood Estate pays homage to California's historic missions)

The 2007 Syrah was the biggest surprise to me as, having now been in the USA for two months with plenty of time in wine country, I hadn't until now come across a pure Syrah/Shiraz that really impressed me. I mean I have had some good Syrah's here, but the better ones were often blended with Petite Syrah.

It is a dark cherry red colour with a unique and very pleasant aroma of dark berries, spices and an ever so slight note of a jube lolly. The flavour is full of juicy fruit combined with well integrated hints of spice and oak. This is easily the best 100% Syrah/Shiraz I have had from any wine region within the United States.

Both wines sell for $25 a bottle and are available from Bridlewood's Online Wine Shop.

Wine lovers in and around Los Angeles should definitely take a weekend trip up to Santa Barbara and include a visit to this beautiful winery that was once an Arabian horse farm and an equestrian rehabilitation center. Visitors to Californian Wine country need to ensure the Central Coast is included alongside the more famous regions of Napa Valley and Sonoma in their travel plans and that, despite the dominance of Chardonnay and Cabernet in California, that it be known that many other varieties are not only worth trying but really shine alongside the two superstar varieties in this great state of California!

(A section of California's Central Coast. Picture taken from Hearst Castle)

Wine without BS on TVS!

After meeting Yianni Zinonos in late 2010 he invited me to do a segment on his Logie Nominated Lifestyle program, Yianni's City Life. Yianni admitted he had never done a segment on wine before, mainly due to the fact that he does not actually drink wine, but understands many of his viewers do and so in February 2011 we shot the segment that has already aired twice this week.

My segment with Yianni will air today and the episode commences at 12pm EST today!

Tune into TVS or view on-line HERE

NOTE:  My particular segment is towards the second half of the episode and goes for around 11 minutes.

For anyone that does take the time to watch it I would really love your feedback via comments or messages on Twitter, Facebook or Linked In

I would also like to take this chance to thank Lunar Wines, Molly Morgan Vineyard and Primo Estate.

Homemade Sparkling Red Wine

Say what? How can I make my own sparkling wine at home, I hear you say. We'll thanks to a little inspiration from world famous Chef, Heston Blumenthal, and an episode of Heston's Feasts, where he used the 1980's as a theme - the well known kitchen gadget, the Soda Stream, was used to sparkle up some cheap white wine that Londoners struggled to pick out when tasted blind against a true Champagne.

Preferring sparkling reds over whites personally, and seeing new Soda Stream machines in my local supermarket, the idea of making my own sparkling red wine was born.

What you will need

A Soda steam machine ($69 from the soft drink section of Woolworths)

 
1 x 750Ml bottle of chilled, full bodied red wine. Or indeed any wine you wish to try as a sparkling wine

AND

50 - 100Ml of fortified red wine such as ruby port

(Vary the amount of the fortified wine to your preference for sweetness. The more you add the sweeter the wine will be)

 
 (Left: Hungerford Hill 08 Cabernet Sauvignon. Right: Peter Lehmann 1999 'The King' AD2020)

 

How to make the magic happen!

Pour the entire bottle of red wine into the Soda Stream bottle

Add the chosen dosage of Fortified wine

Tip! Screw on the bottle cap and gently mix the two wines together prior to attaching to the Soda Stream Machine

Screw the Soda Stream bottle into the machine

Push the button at the top of the machine three times to properly carbonate the wine , pausing in-between each press so that the liquid does not overflow.

Tip! Wait a minute or so before unscrewing the bottle from the machine and do this slowly to avoid the wine spilling out the top.

Pour into a glass and enjoy!

Further Tips and Hints

1. A naturally sweeter red wine will work best and, in some cases, may require little to no addition of the fortified wine. My favourite combination to date was a Barossa Shiraz/Grenache with 70Ml of the Fortified wine. I am also highly confident that the MDV Wines 08 Grenache would work an absolute treat and not require any addition of fortified wine at all. 

2. Do note make the same mistake I did when buying the port and fail to see the word "Tawny". Tawny port simply won't give you a well integrated flavour. Trust me... I tried it!

3. Maximum results are achieved when the liquid reaches the fill line on the bottle, which unfortunately  a 750ML of red wine plus the 100Ml of fortified wine does not . The  current machines come with 1L bottles but I believe the older Soda Stream machines were around 750ML bottles so you wouldn't have this problem. With a smaller bottle you would even have to reduce the amount of wine and adjust the dosage of fortified wine so as not to over sweeten the wine.

Using the new 1 Litre bottles there are a few ways you could get around this problem:

a) Use more than one bottle of red wine to top up the liquid to the fill line (this may require slight adjustment of the amount of fortified wine as well)
b) Simply add fortified wine until the fill line is reached. This will result in a fairly sweet wine but some people may actually prefer this.
c) Put something, approximately 100ML or so, in volume into the Soda Stream bottle to begin with that will not change or taint the taste of the wine in anyway way and will ensure that the 850ML in the bottle will reach the fill line. Examples I thought of were: glass marbles; Ice blocks still in their plastic wrapping; Mars bar  still in its wrapping; or probably the most ideal, Whiskey stones (see here)

 

Why this isn't as silly as some may suggest

• While I am not suggesting this will ever be as good as a true, naturally fermented sparkling red, when carbonated properly and consumed straight away you may be surprised how close it comes. I know one winemaker that blind tasted it was!
• It's 42 degrees (celsius) outside as I am typing this, so should I prefer a red wine over a white wine later on as don't have any proper sparkling red available, it's a viable option for a cool, refreshing beverage if you have the equipment and wine required.
• You can experiment with different wines that are not usually made into sparkling wines e.g Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Sangiovese, Barbera... the list is almost endless as you do this with absolutely any wine that you choose, including white wines, Rosé or even desert wines!
• It's fun and that's what wine should be. Sure, a few winemakers and others may think it is sacrilege that their finely crafted wines are being 'ruined' by being carbonated when they were made as still wines, but if you are enjoying them this way, then do it. It's your wine!
     

The main thing is that you're enjoying wine and having fun... and that's No BS!

 

Wine tasting with the AbFab Girls

I saw this video on YouTube just now and had to share it!

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear from various cellar door staff that scene's somewhat similar to this happen around the country every weekend!