James Halliday announced the annual Wine Companion awards on Tuesday night this week, at an invitation-only ceremony in Melbourne. This is the prelude to the release of the 2015 Wine Companion due out on Friday August 1.

Six major awards were presented:

• Wine of the Year: 2011 Xanadu Stevens Road Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon, WA (Sponsored by Qantas epiQure)
• Winery of the Year: Hentley Farm, Barossa Valley, SA (Sponsored by SMEG)
• Dark Horse of the Year: Haselgrove Wines, McLaren Vale, SA (Sponsored by Nikon)
• New Winery of the Year: Flowstone, Margaret River, WA (Sponsored by Kennards Wine Storage)
• Winemaker of the Year: Castle Rock Estate’s Rob Diletti, WA
• Best Value Winery of the Year: Hoddles Creek Estate, Yarra Valley, VIC

Halliday’s Scores compared to the Winefront’s

Halliday also announced his best wines, and Gary Walsh at the Winefront wrote a note on WF’s Facebook page that compares Halliday’s scores with some of the Winefront’s. I’ve said more than once that Halliday’s scores are consistently 3 – 6 points higher than the WF’s, which covers several brackets. That’s a serious issue in the 100 point system since you only have a range of around 10 points to work with (87 – 97):

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Big Name Chefs will flog any rubbish for pots of money

‘You cannot criticize a man for going to work. You really cannot,’ says Celebrity Chef Marco Pierre White. ‘But you can criticize a man for choosing to go to work as a pimp and a whore,’ says a reader on Eater.

White became the brand ambassador for Knorr ‘Homestyle’ stocks in the US. ‘He is no stranger to Knorr (a division of mega-conglomerate Unilever), as he’s promoted the company’s boullion cubes in the UK since 2006.’ White claims to have used Knorr stock in his kitchens for 30 years and says: ‘It is my secret ingredient.’ MORE.

Marco Pierre White making love to a hindquarter (Source: www.eater.com). 

The surprise is that more and more celebrity chefs are doing more of this and seem happy to trash their own brands in the process. They don’t seem to mind spruiking complete rubbish either. ‘We are excited to once again be supplying the MasterChef Australia pantry with the same great food customers will find in our stores,’ says Simon McDowell from Coles. Should we be excited too?

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The Wine Wonder of the West

Compared to the more remote Great Southern, Margaret River is a bustling place. The town is substantial, and conveniently located half way between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin. It’s about half an hour’s drive either way. There’s the highway or Caves Road, named after the magnificent limestone caves here.

Limestone is a feature often found in great wine areas, from Bordeaux to Coonawarra. It’s a little warmer here than in Bordeaux – 1600 degree-days vs 1500. Coonawarra is about the same as Bordeaux. Limestone plays a minor role in Margaret River’s vineyards, which sit on a ridge of ancient granite said to be 2,000 million years old. Most of the soils are granite gravel loams which are ideal for grape growing. Gravel also features in the soils of Bordeaux.

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The Albany Highway is a good road, two lanes but lots of overtaking lanes. The scenery is easy on eyes: undulating green, lots of trees, rolling hills. Mount Barker is about 400 kms south of Perth. It’s a real country town where wine takes a back seat to sheep and cattle. Let me rephrase that: wine is almost invisible among the Elders rural supplies, the Mitre10, the butcher and the IGA.

Jason’s restaurant The Happy Bull is an oasis where good coffee is served, and good honest food. Steak is a specialty. Our temporary home is a historic homestead in Porongurup range, described as the oldest mountain range in the world, 20km east of Mount Barker. There are 3 wineries nearby: Xabregas, Mount Trio and Castle Rock, which takes its name from a huge boulder balancing on a tiny footprint. The view from the rock across the plain to the north is worth the 3.3km hike.

Our first night was freezing, and we ended up piling more and more wood on the fireplace and later, more and more blankets on top of the bed. It was 2 degrees the next morning, which saw us racing around and flapping our arms to get warm. We didn’t until we jumped into the car and got the engine warmed up.

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Once more with feeling

We keep running into this issue, and we will show crass examples from time to time. The wine in question is Cape Mentelle Georgiana Sauvignon Blanc 2012, which sell for about $14 – $15. The wine gets 93 points from both James Halliday and Tyson Stelzer, so it really hits our sweet spot of well-priced wines with high scores.

What went wrong? Let’s make clear that we’re big fans of Cape Mentelle’s Trinders Cabernet Merlot and Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc. We could not taste the Georgiana at the winery – they don’t offer their cheapest wines there, which is another story. We ended up buying a bottle (yes, they sell it for $17).

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When is a wine a hollow log?

Grapes and Lager were kind enough to send us this great little video: The Mystery of Cow Bombie

Several months ago, Cow Bombie Margaret River Shiraz 2012 won a trophy for best red at the Margaret River show. This is a wine that costs $11 at Dan’s, so we grabbed a bottle to see if this was the bargain of the year, and this what we wrote:

‘Another trophy falls off the mantelpiece, despite the cute label. Cow Bombie is the name given to one of the biggest breaks off the Margaret River coast line so perhaps it’s fitting that his is one of those big, chunky, four-square Shiraz reds that lack refinement of any kind, along with charm, interest and enjoyment. 85 points. AVOID.

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Which wine merchants can you trust?

We get a lot of mail from subscribers who ask us about various online merchants. We prefer to buy from real wine merchants who live and breathe wine, who have real shopfronts and have added an online business to keep up with the times and make them more competitive.

Favourite merchants – for range, prices, shipping, service, websites

Kemenys Sydney – $10 per case, free for 4 cases or more. Beer is an option here.

Winedirect Adelaide – free freight to most places. Selected range of South Australian wines

MyCellars Adelaide – free freight for BWU$20 subscribers on any qty. also free over $250

Winestar Melbourne. Huge range, free freight to 97% of Australia

Winelistaustralia Melbourne – huge range, free shipping on orders over $250

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ABC’s Catalyst shows real Ticker

If you love wine, you’ll most likely love good food as well. Since most good food is rich, do you worry about its effect on your health? All that saturated fat in beef cheeks, the duck fat in the confits, and those triple cream soft cheeses you love?

Pour yourself a glass of wine and put some of your favourite cheese on a plate, then sit back and read the skinny on the fat story. ABC’s catalyst ran a story about cholesterol last year –  THE HEART OF THE MATTER – that the didn’t surprise some of us one bit. If you missed the Catalyst report, that’s too bad because the ABC gave into pressure from the establishment and pulled the programs off iView.

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We were going to tease out the best wines under $25 from this list, but we decided it was time to have some fun as well. You see, Jukes is a master exponent of hyperbole; he just loves going over the top both in the colour and volume of his descriptions – check what he wrote about the 2010 St Henri (and this is less than half of it):

‘… the whole experience is almost transcendental. Epic and thrilling I couldn’t spit it out.  I couldn’t whiplash it out of my mouth even if I was crashed into at speed while waiting for a red light to change.  Weirdly it wasn’t swallowed either – it was subsumed into my soul.  20++ (100++).’

Matthew Jukes is the Tom Wolfe (The Bonfires of the Vanities) of wine writers. ‘Wolf writes Big and Tall Prose,’ says James Wood in the New Yorker, ‘big subjects, big people, and yards of flapping exaggeration. No one of average size emerges from his shop; in fact, no real human variety can be found in his fiction, because everyone has the same enormous excitability

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It’s an annual event, and this was the 15^th time it was held. Sydney’s Quay restaurant was packed with what must’ve been close to 200 people. Tickets to this event sell out fast as you get to taste the best wines Penfolds has to offer with the some of the fanciest food around. All with a full view of the Opera House and Circular Quay.

Why was Best Wines under $20 here, given that the wines here ranged from $30 to $600? And we claim never to go to industry functions because we want to keep an arms’ length relationship with an industry that is full of really nice, passionate and generous people. We got a free seat at the table, just to make that clear.

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