At the end of the day, are clichés really a poisoned chalice?

I’m amazed that everyone is so down on clichés. When all is said and done, clichés help to make sure we’re all on the same page. People get clichés, so there are no ifs or buts. What’s wrong with tried and true? I’m sick and tired of people telling me I must think out of the box. Some of us give 110% but not all of us are rock stars. Not all of us want to push the envelope or go out on a limb all the time. At the end of the day, the path of least resistance has a lot going for it.

How long can I keep this up for? Let’s go with the flow and see for ourselves. We’re all in the same boat here, and the proof is in the pudding. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s too late for a paradigm shift. I know the ball’s in my court, and I’m willing to step up to the plate but let me give you a heads-up: I’m no genius, I’m no smarter than the average bear. I don’t mind collecting the low-hanging fruit; I’m happy to leave the cutting edge stuff to the leading lights.

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Dave Powell has lost his company and faces bankruptcy

‘I’m deeply distressed and saddened by the events that have unfolded at Torbreck over the past week,’ Dave Powell told the press. ‘It was never my intention to leave Torbreck and to have lost the company, my hard work of 20 years, and my sons’ inheritance is an absolute nightmare for me.’

Earlier this month, news broke that the winery’s owner Pete Kight and the board of directors made a decision to part company with Dave Powell. ‘I was offered a deal five years ago when I had my back to the wall financially,’ says Powell, ‘which my lawyer told me not to sign. In extremis and under the illusion of goodwill I signed it anyway and that one stupid mistake has cost me my life’s work. I was offered a ‘job’ after losing Torbreck, selling my own wine on commission.’

Dave Powell is now facing bankruptcy, living in a house given to him by friends, and driving a borrowed car. He has written an open letter to his fans and customers, which you can read here . In it he claims he was screwed by Kight, and let down by his partners. Kight says he gave Powell plenty of opportunity to buy back the farm, and a big expense account. There’s talk of a $92,000 tab from Danish strip club, a $15,000 lunch at Tetsuya’s and more here.

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The big guns didn’t just lose, they were disgraced

In the foreword to the report on the results, Editor Peter Simic tells us that this is the eighth annual challenge, and that ‘we have also purchased top iconic wines normally not entered into any competitions, giving a fascinating “too hot to handle” head-to-head competition.’ That’s a pretty clunky sentence for a publisher of Peter’s experience, but a what great idea!

Indeed, near the end of the 20 pages of reviews we find Grange and Hill of Grace sitting in a corner like two school boys who’ve misbehaved in class. It’s the class of Shiraz and blends $200 +, with a couple of fancied Guigal Cote-Roties keeping  them company. IMHO 3 stars out of 5 is a disgrace for wines that carry price tags in the $600 – $800 range. The class winner is Exile Barossa Valley Shiraz 2008 at $220.

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Give me Cabernet or GSM, Merlot or Pinot – anything but Shiraz

‘Shiraz is the wine on everyone’s lips,’ writes Huon Hooke in his latest newsletter. ‘About 28% of all Australian wine is shiraz, more than one in four bottles – an almost incredible statistic.’ The latest Winestate magazine is running the World’s Greatest Shiraz Challenge, and has rounded up almost 600 wines. There’s even a website dedicated to the variety http://www.shiraz.com.au/ , which turns out be more about food.

‘Shiraz is Australia’s distinctive red,’ writes Andrew Corrigan in Winestate, ‘ and our most famous offering to the world of wine.’ Then follows the usual list of Shiraz Greats starting with Grange, Hill of Grace, Mount Langi Ghiran and the rest. Yawn. How did it come to this? As usual, Robert Parker had a lot to do with it, flying down under in the nineties and giving 99 point scores to massive Shiraz reds from McLaren Vale, the Barossa and Heathcote.

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August 31, 2013

Lafite and Latour

‘Suspects were arrested in China holding more than 32 Million Dollars of fake wine by the Yanti police,’ the Wine Cellar Insider reports. Police apparently arrested10 suspects and seized more ore than 40,000 bottles of fake wine in one raid.

Some of the wines being counterfeited were Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Latour, Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Beychevelle, Chateau Pichon Baron. ‘Lafite has become the poster child for forgery in China,’ the article says, ‘where it has been reported that there are more cases of the iconic 1982 vintage of Lafite floating about than were actually produced by the château.’

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Bordeaux Greed meets Chinese Affluence

This is a great documentary, for both old and newer hands at wine. The story is about wine and about politics – those of the great chateaux of Bordeaux, and the investors that drive the prices up, and the Chinese who’ve displaced the Americans to become the biggest market for the premier grand crus.

Unlike Mondovino, which is fascinating but wanders off in all kinds of directions, Red Obsession keeps a tight focus on Bordeaux and its big brands:  Petrus, Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion and Mouton-Rothschild. The doco is just 80 minutes long and was made by David Roach and Warwick Ross (Young Einstein, Reckless Kelly). Andrew Caillard of Langton’s Auctions (now owned by Woolworths) is the associate producer, and a frequent contributor of insights.

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Yes, it’s out already and James has played it safe by naming Penfolds his winery of the year. No bargains there. In fact, we would’ve given Penfolds the GREED IS GOOD, MORE GREED IS BETTER award.

His top lists include quite a few wines under $25. They’re all 96 points unless it says otherwise:

Knappstein hand-picked Riesling 2012                                                                                

$17 at Winestar, haven’t tried it, gets 94 points from Stelzer and Stock

Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling 2012                                                                                         

$23 at Dan M’s, not one of our top Rieslings – squeaky clean as usual

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Winner of Winestate Magazine’s World’s Greatest Shiraz Challenge VIII

5 June 2013

The wine beat over 700 international Shiraz reds from France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. ‘I couldn’t be prouder of our Filsell Shiraz,’ Grant Burge said as he celebrated the award. ‘We’ve won 5 major trophies, 22 gold medals and 47 silver medals since Filsell’s release in 1992.’

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So big it will poison the auction market for rare Burgundy for years

‘Millions if not tens or hundreds of millions of counterfeit wines are sold every year,’ said energy billionaire William Koch after he won a lawsuit against a consigner who’d sold him counterfeit bottles of old Bordeaux, some of it from Jefferson’s time. ‘The counterfeiters don’t want anyone to know, for $100 they make it and mark it up to $15,000, I myself paid $100,000 for a counterfeit wine. To me the whole industry is corrupt.’

Wine scandals are pretty common, perhaps because wine is such a fickle commodity. Even experts and experienced people in the trade are often taken in, which brings us back to one of my favourite topics: the difficulty of judging wine. The older the wines are, the more difficult they are to judge.

The usual kind of wine scam involves passing off cheap wine as something better and getting more money for it. That’s what happened from 2006 to 2008 in the USA, after the movie Sideways had ridiculed Merlot and Americans turned to Pinot Noir. E & J Gallo was found to be selling an $8 French Pinot Noir under its Red Bicyclette label that was mostly made from Merlot and Syrah – some 18 million bottles of it, worth nearly $5.5 million.

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For once, the lazy way is the best way

The Online Option

A good friend wrote in and asked why I didn’t mention BWS as a wine retailer. He and his partner buy most of their wine there for reasons of convenience: the BWS is right next to the Woolworths supermarket they buy their groceries from.

The answer is terribly simple: You won’t find good deals at BWS unless they have a 30% off sale on. I told my friend that I do most of my shopping online, and that the BWS website is not searchable and thus not of much use. He wrote back saying ‘neither of us has ever considered the possibility of having wine delivered.’

I suspect there are many other wine lovers out there who haven’t. Instead, they join the big crush in the grog shops before Christmas, Easter, Anzac Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Australia Day. Parking is a hassle, so is shopping in the crowded aisles, getting through the checkout queues, schlepping all the grog to the car and unloading it at home and schlepping it up or down to your place.

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