John McDonnell from Wine Australia is bringing over Tim Adams from Clare Valley for a three stop series of consumer tastings.

Where’s Clare Valley?

It’s a long way from Clare to here. Clare being a valley in South Australia and here being Galway, Ennis and Cork. Clare Valley, a couple of hours north of Adelaide, was named by Edward Gleeson who left Sixmilebridge in County Clare in 1850.

And who is Tim Adams?

Big Tim is a celebrated winemaker and he’ll be talking about his home in the Clare Valley, his neighbours and, of course, the wines from the area, which you’ll get to taste.

His wines are superbly made and widely available in Tesco (there’s something for everyone, too. The whites include Riesling, Semillon, and Pinot Gris. The reds,  Shiraz/Cabernet, Shiraz, The Fergus – a GSM blend – all gorgeous).

It won’t just be his own open for tasting, there will be a few from some of his wine-making neighbours

When, where, for whom and for how much?

That’s a lot of questions, but here it goes…

1. Tuesday, 7th September, 6.45pm Blackrock Castle, Cork
2. Wednesday, 8th September, 6.45pm Glór, Ennis, Co. Clare
3. Thursday, 9th September, Cafe 8 Galway City Museum

It’s for everyone, consumers, non-consumers, men, women and beast

It’s only €20 – great opportunity to get up close and personal with one of the greats in Australian winemaking.

To book: Phone Wine Australia in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare on (065) 707 7264 or email ireland@wineaustralia.com

I’ll be heading to the Galway gig for a formal handover of the Tag Rugby cup to the team franchise owner, Tim. I’ve put a bit of a speech together, so I hope you can make it.

The Twelve Hotel in Galway has recently picked up their third award in a row from Wine Spectator’s annual restaurant awards.

The press release reads

West Restaurant at The Twelve Hotel in Bearna has won Ireland’s only 2010 Award of Excellence, designed to recognise restaurants whose wine lists offer interesting selections, are appropriate to their cuisine and appeal to a wide range of wine lovers, from one of the world’s foremost and best-respected authorities on wine, Wine Spectator magazine.

Detractors may ask if they are “Ireland’s only winner”, then who else entered? . So, L’Ecrivan, Thornton’s or Guibauld’s may not have entered (let alone other Irish restaurants with fantastic wine lists). Valid question and one I emailed to Wine Spectator, but I’ve yet to receive a response.

Perhaps the awards are more like an independent audit i.e. validation that you’re doing the right things with your wine list. When you win, you can deservedly leverage all this hard work as marketing material.

In either case, the wine list looks very impressive. Cheers to the West restaurant in Bearna’s Twelve Hotel.

Wine is sold, described, criticised and presented is changing for ever. The surprising thing is that many of the people who work in and around wine haven’t noticed or are in denial about the power and scope of the revolution.

Then, looking towards the punter, Tim goes onto say,

“One of the most remarkable things about the internet, typified by Wikipedia but apparent everywhere, is that people are happy to share their opinions for nothing. Some of these opinions are worth more than others, but they are freely and often rapidly expressed. If you want feedback on a new wine, label, brand or concept, what better way to get it? Using new communications tools, punters readily exchange views, news and tasting tips on a worldwide scale.

Latent demand and harnessing the power of social media

On one side we’ve got what looks to be a pretty conservative industry, but on the other a very progressive, clear demand for engagement (not just the fermented grape juice). So, how can the former exploit this latent demand?

The shelf-talker of the future?

A “shelf-talker” is often a the tasting note and/or opinion given by an established wine writer in his publication which is then reprinted or re-purposed by the retailer.

Having seen just one aspect of what’s possible with adegga.com and their barcode-based dynamic wine labels, I took to glimpsing into the future of what the shelf talker could be, using the “wisdom of the crowd” and the power of reviews “from people like me”.

By aggregating reviews, there is an added veracity to the endorsement of the wine. Amazon is the poster child of the power of reviews, but what say you, could this work?

Video from a trip in June to Carcassone and one of Lorgeril‘s properties, Château Pennautier.

Lorgeril wines

A number of Lorgeril wines are available from Mitchell & Son and their Château de Pennautier is available from Dunnes.

Cellar Master is a wine warehouse, following a similar business model to Majestic in the UK,  Dan Murphy’s in Australia and Sam’s Wine Warehouse in Chicago

Cellarmaster

18 Maple Avenue
Stillorgan Industrial Park
County Dublin
Tel: 012176508
Online: www.cellarmaster.ie

* there are a few more Irish Masters of Wine who ply their trade outside Ireland, but for some reason aren’t listed under Ireland on mastersofwine.org

While they’ve had a very decent website for a while (screenshot above), the renowned French wine guide, “Guide Hachette des Vins” has been dragged into the 21st century with the launch of their keenly priced iPhone app.

The app offers tips on choosing the right wine with 700 ratings among the last 65 vintages and a complete description of each wine with its colour and aroma, grape variety, ageing potential and optimal serving temperature.

It also has a maps of the wine growing regions in France and a dictionary with 230 definitions.

At €0.99 it’s worth a look-see and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing when I get myself an iPhone.

Check it out now

Latest in my “introjuicing” series is Ian Dornan from simplywines.ie

So, Ian, how long are you up and running with Simply Wines and what prompted you to start the business. What did you do before?

Simply Wines has been in existence since October 2003. It started as a web-only operation running alongside a wholesale business until December 2009 when we opened the Simply Wines Warehouse.  I’d spent the best part of 20 years working in various roles in I.T. in a couple of industry sectors but I always had a passion for wine and spent whatever holiday time I could in various wine regions in Europe and beyond.

I’d bring wine home from these trips and you’d share it with friends and family and the feedback I’d received was always positive. By late 2002 I was starting to get feed up with IT. I’d been through both the Y2K and euro and I really wanted to do something for myself, something that would hopefully be a little more family friendly as by then I had two small children who I wasn’t getting to see very much of.  So I started crunching the numbers and doing the research and the rest is, as they say, history!

You have some stunning wines from Australia, particularly the Battle of Bosworth and Pertaringa labels. Do you lean towards Australia in particular?

I didn’t plan it that way, it just sort of evolved. From the cooler climate delicate whites of Tasmania to the big McLaren Vale and Western Australian reds, I think Australia offers a stunning range of wine styles.  I also must say that in general I find the producers very straight forward to work with. What you see and what you hear is what you get, “me old cobber”, which is refreshing. That said, we also have some cracking wines from some family vineyards in New Zealand, South Africa, France and Spain.

What’s your approach to sourcing wines?

I’ve no specific tried and tested way of sourcing wines, it’s a real mixed bag. Sometimes a producer that I’m already working with will recommend someone’s wines, other times I’ve visited a particular region to find something I’m looking for. Trade tastings or wine fairs like London International Wine Fair, ProWein, Vinisud or Vinexpo I’ve also found to be very useful – lots of new wines in a relatively short space of time.  I’ve also started to work with a couple of the smaller specialist importers in Ireland to help enhance our retail offering in a couple of categories, particularly Italy.

Are there any wines you particularly like, what’s your dessert island wine?

The Pirie Sparkling NV Brut from Tasmania is a stunning wine.  Made Méthode Champenoise from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it easily surpasses many Champagnes but at a fraction of the cost.

As for a desert island wine, I’d be happy to be stranded with a couple of cases of one small producer’s Gran Reserva Rioja.  I’d rather not say who the producer is at present as I’m trying to get the distribution rights for the wines in Ireland but they’re one of the last wineries that cling to the notion that it must age its wines until they are ready to drink.

Rioja requires Gran Reserva wines to receive a minimum of six years of aging before they can be released and the current vintage for many Gran Reserva wines on the market is 2001. This particular producer has just released Gran Reservas from 1991 and 1987, graceful wines that show the lightness of texture and finesse that only comes from long ageing.

Any unusual or new wines on the shelves which your customers are responding well to?

I must say I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how well the Waterstone Bridge Tarrango from Gapsted Wines in the King and Alpine Valleys of Victoria has been selling – a really good alternative to Brown Brothers.

I also import the Bodegas Bohigas wines from Catalunya.  Their Crianza and Reserva are Tempranillo based blends, aged in American oak, and offer a really good alternative to Rioja (and their Cavas are fairly good as well).

Are your customers mainly retail and do they tend to try new wines or stick to their old reliables?

For the most part, our Simply Wines customers are a mixture of straight retail and corporate business.  We do have a couple of smaller restaurants who, for whatever reason, just simply prefer to buy their stock direct and we’re obviously happy to service their business.

As for their purchasing trends, most of our customers will buy eight to ten bottles of their old reliables but are happy to experiment with another two to four bottles of something new to make up their case, generally taking direction from us.

It’s really nice to then see them come back and select your previous recommendations for themselves, confirms that you’re doing something right.

How do you persuade customers to try new wines?

We generally work with smaller, family owed vineyards who all have a story to tell.  We find that by telling their story to the customer, be it (in the case of the Battle of Bosworth wines) explaining why there’s a picture of a little flower on the bottle or how Dr. Andrew Pirie was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to the Tasmanian wine industry or how Jean-Claude Mas developed the Arrogant Frog brand as a tongue-in-cheek riposte to the somewhat cool reception that French wines have had over the past decade, we get them to connect to the wine. We also run our “Tasting Today” every Friday and Saturday and we use that to occasionally showcase new wines.

What changes would you like to see in the wine world?

To start with, I’d really like to see the higher level of excise duty that is currently charged on sparkling wines abolished. I’m not old enough to be familiar with its origins but I certainly don’t believe that there’s any need for it in today’s marketplace, particularly when it’s so easy for people to pop over the border and take advantage of the lower UK excise rates.

In terms of online, has it grown well over the last few years and where do you see it going?

Our online business has been growing steadily over the years and we have a loyal following of customers living outside Dublin who were perhaps finding it hard to get much more than the branded wines in their local Spar or Centra or wherever and so have been very happy to place their business with us.

Dublin customers are obviously spoiled for choice when it comes to places to buy their wines and I was never satisfied with how our retail business was doing here so that’s why I opened the Simply Wines Warehouse, to give people the chance to come and have a look and try the wines we offer and to have a chat with us.  We always ask new customers how or where they heard about us and it’s been very reaffirming that we’re doing the right thing when the answer is that “Such-or-such a person bought some wine and recommended you” or “I got a bottle from a friend and asked them where they got it” and I think that the twin track approach of online and warehouse is the way forward for us.

How are the likes of blogging, twitter and Facebook working for you – what do you see as their benefits?

I only really started to use Facebook in the last couple of months so it’s really hard to gauge how that’s working for us.  I do however really like the immediacy and informality of Twitter and I’ve been using it to strengthening existing relationships and building new ones with would be customers and as a way to drive people to our website through special offers or our rugby related competitions.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Just that we can be found at Unit 2 Ballyogan Business Park on the Ballyogan Road (Dublin 18) and that we’re open from 11:00 to 18:30 Tuesday to Saturday or online at www.SimplyWines.ie

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Hosted by Peter Foley from Cassidy Wines and O’Leary PR, Cal Dennison, Director of Winemaking and Nicole Hitchcock, Senior Winemaker took us through some of the Gallo range, starting with the Barefoots, Gallo Family, Redwood Creek and Turning Leaf.

Watch the video below and/or continue to read about the wines on show.

If I had gone in with any romantic notions of artisanal winemaking, they were quickly dispelled with the term “chemometric sensorial grape maturity assay techniques”. This was closely followed by the term “largest boutique winery” which seems a slight oxymoron.

That said, it’s clear that there’s a whole lot of effort which goes into making their wines.

Above all, what came out strongly was strategy. Most of the wines on show last week were for a specific wine drinking demographic. It’s not a demographic I’m in but that’s okay.Rather, it’s the wine novice, those new to wine or those who don’t ask too much of what’s in their glass. It’s tasty, fruity and it’s the type of wine doesn’t demand attention. They’re not the deep, brooding complex wines we love to savour, though that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable.

Indeed, Steve Heimoff, a US wine writer I have a lot of respect for, wrote about this recently:

“Do we wine aficienadoes make too much of “savoring”? No. Great wine, like great cuisine, is an extraordinary experience. And that may be the ultimate definition of the difference between an 85 point wine and a 99 or 100 pointer: Can it be savored? Not just “is it good?” or “is it easy to like?” or even “does it go well with food?,” but “Can you sip it again and again, as it warms in the glass, and be astounded?”

Consistency over complexity is the key. This really is the key to the overall strategy: knowing your audience and serving them consistency consistently.

To the wines

We started with the Barefoots and moved through the Gallo Family Vineyards, Redwood Creek then the Turning Leaf. There seemed to be a bit of a pattern. In the earlier wines, ripe fruit and sweetness dominated.

In particular, the “White Zinfandels” (which are actually pink). Sweet strawberries and cream were the main flavours in the Barefoot while the Gallo Family White Zinfandel is more Jolly Rancher cherry. That sounds a little simplistic, but what’s not to enjoy about either?

The earlier wines were the Farrelly brothers, well made and very easy to enjoy. They may have lacked the depth of the Coen brothers, but they’re aimed at a different audience, though not necessarily a mutually exclusive one.

The Redwood Creek reds were more “sophisticated” wines, where they become more actor than extra in this production. The reds from Turning Leaf were similiarly sophisticated, yet very smooth. However, it was the Chardonnay which really stood out for me. A nose of stonefruits, and buttered toast. To taste, a honey and yeasty flavour with a soft creamy texture. Soft oak with none of the harshness which has given good auld Chardonnay a bad name. “Burgundian” wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

So, it’s quite clear as the tasting progressed the wines started growing out of adolescene into adulthood. To keep the Hollywood analogy going, they became less Pamela Anderson and more Helena Bonham Carter – darker, more brooding and intriguining.

This reflects the brand strategy, get ‘em in easy, and develop with them as their tastes become more sophisticated. Perhaps Farrelly brothers versus Coen brothers is too stark a metaphor. Maybe, looking across the range it’s more like a Pixar movie – something to enjoy at many different levels.

Regardless of the brand, analysis and research are key characters. Careful, detailed analysis of all stages of wine production, kaizen-like continuous improvement and the confidence of knowing exactly what’s in the customer’s glass matches what the customer wanted.

You’ve probably seen Olly Smith, or Jolly Olly as he’s better known on the Beeb and elsewhere on the telly.

He’s the Duracell bunny of wine and love child of Matt Lucas, Boris Becker and Boris Johnson. Most importantly, he’s now on the internetz, with his Drink Tank series.

Below, the first episode on aromatic whites. The second episode is all about spicey reds including “Shiraz-ama-tazz”. Vintage stuff.

Old vines, “vieilles vignes” or “alte reben” is often present on wine labels to denote that the vines from which the wine was made are of a ripe old age. Despite the strict rules which apply to how wine is made, there is still no clear definition of how old is old enough to appear on the label.

It’s quite similar to the term “Reserve” – no one, apart from the winemaker really knows what it means, but it’s an indication of quality of some sort, if the winemaker (or his marketer) is honest enough.

Why focus on old in the first place?

The belief is that the older the vine, the better the wine. Why? Older plants produce less fruit (yield) and the thinking is that this concentrates or intensifies the flavours.

How old is old?

If it wasn’t for Phylloxera in the close of the 19th century, we may have had some truly ancient vines in Europe. There are rumours of a 400 year old still producing fruit in Slovenia, but to get the oldest commercially wine, we need to head to the Barossa Valley in South Australia.

Langmeil Freedom vineyard, 167 years old

One of the oldest there is Langmeil Freedom vineyard whose Shiraz vines have been growing there since 1843, making them 167 years old. They called it the Freedom Shiraz and it’s available from Curious Wines here (€65). Sounds expensive, but the vines from which the wine is made were planted by Lutherans who were escaping religious persecution and war in Prussia, and a mere seven years after the state of South Australia was colonised.  At the time of planting, we were about to enter the Irish Famine. Think of drinking a glass of history.

Barossa Old Vine classification

Why mention Langmeil? Well, with no precise definition of what “old” actually means at least we can all agree that 167 is pretty old. In fact, the Barossa winemakers have established their own classification based on vine age, as follows:

• Old vine: 35 years or older
• Survivor vine: 70 years or older
• Centurion vine: 100 years or older
• Ancestor vine: 125 years or older

So, can we still call these Barossa beauties “new world”?