Wine Rally - German wine bloggers on the move

German wine bloggers have established a monthly scheme called “wine rally” where one blogger hosts a blog entry collection around a predetermined theme. The last one was for instance about “Chenin Blanc”. wines.

I have participated in two rallies over the last couple of months and it was great fun. Moreover, I learned a lot about the topics discussed myself. I also binds the blogger community together somehow; it is networking in action.

Since the blog entries are in German, I will try to summarize some of the highlights of the last rally for you here in English. The host this time was Christoph Raffelt. On his blog Originalverkorkt one can find interesting wine reviews and stories around food and drinks. Also the photos on the blog are very appealing.

- About 15 bloggers participated this time.
- Most Chenin Blanc wines tasted by the bloggers came from the Loire Valley, some from South Africa but generally new world wines were not favourably reviewed.
- Many of the tasted wines came from biologic or bio-dynamic production.

Which wines were tasted?

- Crémant de Loire
- Les Doucinières von Vincent Girault (Loir)
- Crémant von Château Tour Grise (Loir)
- Domaine Patrick Baudouin Effusion 2004 (Anjou)
- Domaine de la Taille aux Loups by Jacky Blot
- Vouvray by Gaston Huet
- Coteaux du Layon by Jo Pithon
- Coteaux du Layon
- Plaisier der Domaine de Romchambeau (Coteaux de l`Aubance)
- Vouvray 1999, Domaine du Clos de L`Epinay
- 2001 Saumur Blanc Brézé by Clos Rougeard
- Clos de Coulaine by Claude Papin, Château Pierre Bise (Savennière)
- Raats Chenin Blanc and Raats Original Chenin Blanc (Steen, South Africa)

And who were the participants? In the following I just list blogs and their addresses. For readers who are fluent in German this could be a real treat because many of the German and Austrian wine bloggers are true originals. Check it out.

• six-to-nine (Pivu)
• vinissimus (Robert Freudenthaler)
• myexperience4u (Svetlana Kittke)
• Weingut Lisson (Iris Rutz-Rudel)
• Kaulweinblog
• K&M Gutsweinblog (Bernd Klingenbrunn)
• Culinarium Curiosum (Sabrina und Simon Klaiber)
• weinwelt (Michael)
• Nikos Weinwelten (Niko Rechenberg)
• drinktank (Mario Scheuermann)
• Winzerblog (Thomas Lippert)
• Weingut Steffens-Keß (Harald)
• viva-vino (Matthias Metze)

I hope this gives you a first impression even if it might be rather superficial. I do not know of any such initiative by Anglo-Saxon wine bloggers and their various communities. If you know something, please get in touch with me. Yours

Australia: New Tax Regime on Wine and Beer

It came as a surprise when I learned yesterday from my “daily wine news” newsletter that the Rudd government intends to increase taxes on wine and beer by up to 300%.

This will increase the sales price of an ordinary glass of beer by about 46 cents and a glass of wine by 63 cents. The alcohol content is supposed to be the basis of the new taxation regime.

So cheap mass wines will be as heavily taxed as a superior quality wine given the same alcohol content. The ratio of this additional tax to the overall sales price, however, will be different.

Health care seems to be the prime motive for this move. After tobacco, now its alcohol which drifted into the field of vision of the health freaks. Of course the regulators have alcohol pops in mind. It seems that young girls abuse this kind of alcohol quite a bit.

I am not sure how many bottles of fine wine are going down in binge drinking. Dry wines are maybe not the stuff for teenage drinking parties anyway.

I guess this will not solve the problem. To learn how to deal with drugs is better achieved by demystifying them and by learning how to avoid intoxication. And wine is food in the first place. If we allow young people to experience this, the dangers are minor. Just look at Mediterranean culture where you hardly can find alcohol abuse among the young which is typical for Anglo-Saxon societies. In the end, teenagers will move on to cheaper sources of booze or other drugs.

In anticipation, the finance ministers might already count the additional dollars in their treasuries.

As a boutique vineyard, I feel we will not be too concerned. Our clients are not alcohol abusers. They also can afford the higher prices (and if not the producers will have to stomach the losses). Most likely the new burden will be shared between the two groups.

Then there is bartering, more and more common in rural areas of Australia because of the various taxes and impositions. You repair my roof for a couple of cases of prime wine. I slash you paddock for your locally produced beer.

Well, we will see what these do-gooders can achieve. And don’t forget, there are elections somewhere around the corner.

Cheers

In the tropics

Well, springtime in Germany showed all these wonderful blossoms of fruit and other trees so that I was intrigued to present to you one of my most beloved orchids which grows in my tropical garden in Jakarta.

I have to admit that I do not know the name of this wonderful flower. It was given to me by my friend Peter Hagen when he and his family left Indonesia for good some years ago. It has flowered only for the second time and is the only orchid of this kind which I possess.

Happy spring greetings from Jakarta

Tropical garden flower

“My orchid”

Homecoming - Jakarta, Indonesia

I received a wholehearted welcome when I arrived at Jakarta International Airport. My twin daughters and my wife picked me up after 10 days in Germany.

We celebrated our reunion with a hearty meal and some good wine.

I love the ‘2000 Sharefarmers Cabernet Malbec’, a single vineyard wine from Coonawarra (South Australia) from Petaluma which consists of 64% Cabernet and 36% Malbec (www.petaluma.com.au).
The Cabernet gives spice and structure and the Malbec provides colour and vibrant fruit.

The other wine I fancy is the ‘2001 Ross Estate Old Vine Grenache’ from the Barossa Valley, South Australia (www.rossestate.com.au). The wine has a rich fruity aroma, good palate weight and a soft finish. I start to become a Grenache lover.

Both are very well made wines for every day and readily available from our duty free shop. They go well with any kind of pasta but also red meat dishes.

Afterwards I smoked a cigar and was happy to be back in good old Jakarta.

On the road again

I am on my way to Europe again. My last evening at home in Jakarta we spend with a bottle of ‘2005 Understudy Cabernet Petit Verdot’ from Pertaringa Vineyards, a winery in the McLaren Vale, South Australia.

I bought it in our local duty free shop at Jalan Fatmawati for US $ 15.50 and its a ripper of a wine with a great quality-price ratio.

It is made of 70% Cabernet and 30% Petit Verdot grapes, traditionally vinified and matured in French and American oak. The ‘Understudy Cabernet Petit Verdot’ is Pertaringa’s “second wine” after the flagship reds (Pertaringa’s Rifle and Hunt Cabernet Sauvignon).

The wine has a dark red colour and a very intense nose of blackcurrant. It is spicy and rich in flavour, has a good structure, length and a long finish. needless to say that it won a couple of awards in various wine shows.

Pertaringa is not exactly a small vineyard (www.pertaringa.com.au). It has 31 ha under grapes, most of it Shiraz (13 ha), but also Chardonnay (4 ha), Pinot Noir (4.5 ha), Riesling and Semillon (3 ha each), and smaller areas of Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc and Frontignac. The vineyard was planted in 1970 and purchased by Ian Leask and Geoff Hardy in 1980. Ever since it’s been run by them and their families. Pertaringa is an Aboriginal name and means ‘belonging to the hills’.

Understudy Cabernet Petit Verdot

Address:
Pertaringa Wines
Conerner of Hunt and Rifle Range Roads
McLaren vale
South Australia 5171
Ph.: +61-8-83238125
Cellar door open seven days a week (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, rest 11am-5pm)

PS: I’ll be gone for a while. Please leave messages.

Bloggo ergo sum - a note from the sidelines

Blogging has become quite addictive to me. But its not just writing and producing new blog entries (and researching new topics!). The discovery and the reading of other peoples blogs is as exciting as working on you own. Ronald Meinardus (http://myliberaltimes.com), the work colleague of mine, who got me into writing and maintaining a blog, always stressed 1) the importance of having a good concept, a kind of strategic vision and 2) the dedication, the engagement, and of course the participation in the work and life of others.

As the numbers of your visitors go up and the network you grow into becomes more familiar, the more, and thats my experience, I withdraw into the “bloggossphere”. And there is so much to discover. I took my time, needed more than six months until I finally had a conrete idea what I wanted to do. Now I’m in my fourteenth month and cannot believe how much joy the writing has given to me.

However, by looking around I also know that I am an amateurish beginner still. There is so much to learn for me. There are wonderful engaging and sophisticated blogs and bloggers out there. Ever since I read Chris Anderson’s book “The long tail”, I am not so much worried about my lack of professionalism. After all I have a day job, and quite an interesting and demanding one as well. The community I grew into, is fascinating too, interesting, engaging and very friendly. Incidentally I learned about wine, wine tastings, wine regions, vineyards, vine cultivation, grapes and what one can do with them, food, the culture around wine production and wine consumption, and many more things.

And when calling out for me in the house does not produce an immediate response my children know, papa is blogging.

Cheers.

The North-South Pipeline

While having our Christmas vacation in Victoria, the topic which enraged the rural community most was the looming north-south pipeline. The city of Melbourne intends to take millions of cubic meters of water every day from the Goulburn Valley. In return the state government plans to upgrade the Goulburn irrigation system and take about a third of the estimated water savings to quench the thirst of the state capital Melbourne. However, it will take the water right from the start before any water savings are actually being made.

Where is the water?

Source: www.bom.gov.au/climate/environ/images/lake_eildon.gif

So it came as no surprise that the pipeline was at the centre of every talk of every rural gathering, from the ‘latte club’, an informal get-together of farm women every Saturday morning at the roadhouse in Glenburn, to Friday pub nights. All rural folks I met were against the state’s project.

Along the road from Yarra Glen to Yea, posters and billboards have been set up to protest this mega project. It foresees the deviation of ‘rural’ water to urban consumers and the construction of a huge pipeline, pumping stations, holding basins, etc. Landowners along the planned route will not only lose precious land but the pipeline will also cut through paddocks and make access to some parts of rural properties difficult, or impossible. The local people know that there is no water to be taken since the region is already one of the driest and has very limited water resources. There is abundance of supporting evidence, for instance the water level of Lake Eildon is only about 20% of capacity, other lakes and reservoirs show similar low filling levels. The Goulburn Valley is one of the food bowls of Victoria worth more than 9 billion dollars in production and exports.

As someone promoting good democratic governance in “poor” countries overseas, I was appalled by the lack of standard procedures as promulgated by every international and national government code of conduct. No citizens participation worth speaking of had taken place, environmental impacts were not assessed, the population was poorly informed, there was (and still is) no transparency etc. The list of omissions and violations of principles of good governance - for instance as related to public consultations and community involvement - is long. The pipeline project is an example how not to conduct modern governance and I might include it into my teaching materials.

The case shows the general dilemma of rural communities in modern, democratic, urbanized societies. Because of rural-city migration and the resulting distribution of the population (concentration in costal cities), the number of Victorian farmers and other rural voters has declined over the years and with it their importance for the political establishment in political parties, parliament and government. Nobody cares about the plight of rural voters. Urban standards as regards nature conservation, agriculture, livestock breeding, forests and trees are slowly seeping into the regulatory framework of rural dwellers. Urban standards of communication have, alas, not made it to rural life. This change in dominant values is usually to the detriment of the rural populations. Many examples could be cited ranging from the cutting of trees, collection of firewood, harvesting of run off water, and many more.

The case also shows that the rural people have no trust in the state government. Because of the prevailing secrecy and intransigence on the side of the government many farmers expect that, once the pipeline is there, no one can control how much water is actually taken. The fact that the government does not take the current concerns of the rural people seriously further aggravates the suspicion. From Jakarta we cannot do much but hope that the project will be either dropped or significantly altered to meet the needs of the rural populations in Central and North Victoria.

Lake Eildon half empty

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake Eildon

News from Glenburn, Victoria

I usually do not hide my liking of globalisation. While strolling through my hometown Trier in fall last year, I discovered on one of my long walks around town an Australian restaurant. Greetings from ‘down under’ in this 2000-year-old town of Trier. Isn’t it wonderful? Emperor Constantine would have been very pleased.

The Emu restaurant in Trier

I also found a cafe just next to the Karl Marx house (the birthplace of the great philosopher) opposite one of my favourite wine bars, the ‘Das Weinhaus’, where you could enjoy the smoke of a shisha (or water pipe). If Karl would have known, he would have been delighted, I hope.

Michael my brother-in-law, who lives in Healesville, a beautiful little country town in Victoria about 3/4 of an hour northeast of Melbourne, used to buy Bitburger Beer for me. He knows that I love this brew from my home region. During his recent wedding I could enjoy some more of it. Great feeling to be so far from my birthplace, and to be able to drink the same beer thousands of kilometers away, far south on the other side of the earth. Goodness me.

Country folks need a drink from time to time, and vintners do not always drink wine!

Another product from my home region has found its way to Australia, Gerolsteiner mineral water. The name ‘Gerolsteiner’ was made famous in sport enthusiastic Australia through the sponsorship of the cycling team with the same name. But now you can buy this wonderful drink (good after a hangover or in case of gastroenteritis).

The sparkling water from Germany

Let me follow this up with some ‘news’ or observations of what has changed since we last visited Glenburn and its surroundings.

● The Yarra Glen Grand Hotel had been finally sold by John Lithgow and we found the pub full of people enjoying the new atmosphere created by the new owners.

● The old Henkel Vineyards (descendents of the German sparkling producers) cellar door was sold and is now called Mandala Wines which is owned by the Smedly family (www.mandalawines.com.au). Henkel is erecting its signpost a couple of kilometers further north of the old place near Dixon’s Creek.

Mandala Wines, the new cellar door in the making

● The Wine Hub at the Yarra Valley Dairy (www.yvd.com.au) has gone out of business and with it we lost one of our retail outlets.

● Cheese Freaks in Yarra Glen is gone and has become a nice little restaurant.

● David left the local Healesville band the “Heartstarters”.

● Giant Steps Winery (www.giants-steps.com.au) in Healesville, owned by Phil Sexton and his family, is in full operation (bar, coffee house, restaurant, bakery, winery, etc.) and has been also adopted by the locals who patronize it in great numbers.

● Steve Webber of ‘De Bortoli Wines’ in Dixon’s Creek (www.debortoli.com.au) was awarded the very prestigious “Winemaker of the Year” by the wine magazine ‘Gourmet Traveller’ (www.gourmettravellerwine.com.au). Congratulations!

● Michael and Helen got married of course. Congratulations again. Cheers.

There are of course more news to report, but the above is what jumped into my eye while touring the beautiful Victorian countryside. Needless to say, we sampled quite a few local wines from the Upper Goulburn and the Yarra Valley.

Christmas in the vineyard

We had a wonderful Christmas eve dinner in the vineyard. Michael, my brother in law and his wife Helen stayed over night and as customary in Australia we opened our presents in the morning of the 25th.

It’s present time

Later that day Florian and Nelly, our friends from Jakarta holidaying in Victoria, joined us and we had ‘lunch in the vineyard’ or rather on the lawn in front of our dwelling with magnificient views of the Glenburn hills. We ate turkey of course and drank lashings of Two Hills wines. It was a sunny but rather chilly day and our guests from Asia needed jackets.

Nelly, Flo and Margit

Christmas lunch on the lawn

It felt so good to be back home among family and friends. We did not mind the low temperatures but enjoyed the clean air, the quiet, nature and the splendid surroundings. What a lovely Christmas this was.

Back home in Jakarta

We arrived last night in Jakarta after a wonderful three weeks at our small vineyard in the Victorian countryside. Our Qantas flight was like almost all economy class flights these days; a rather sobering affair. Airlines all over the world save on almost everything it seems, especially the quality of food and service on board are sacrificed for quarterly profits. That’s at least my impression from the flight- intensive life which I lead. In fact the meals on this Qantas flight were so awful that I suggested to my wife we bring our own food in the future.

The airline had also saved on TV/video screens. There were only one large screen and two small monitors in our large section of the plane. Whereas in other planes they would have done with at least some more small ones every five meters, we had to do with the three, one for each 15 metre aisle. It was hard to see what was going on and to follow the films. There seems to be not enough competition on flights between Indonesia and Australia so that the airline can get away with these low standards.

The movies shown were good though. Not for all the passengers I must admit. The mainly Asian crowd did not know what to do with these two movies and opted largely to ignore them. For some of the Caucasians on the other side, especially those from our own socialisation cohort (older folks born in the early fifties), they were a treat. First we watched “Across the universe”, a film set to music from the Beatles of the 1960s which is fabulously made, with great soundtracks and a good sense of the era. The film has some surreal parts which make it the more lovely. Many parts reminded us of our youth, which is always nice. Later we watched “September” a story about the friendship of a white and a black Australian boy on an outback farm. Beautiful empty landscapes were shown. One felt taken back to the 1970s in rural Australia were people were even more quiet than today, were they say only the necessary but are observant and show empathy with their fellow citizen.

The wine selection was also not so bad. At least we could drink a nice 2004 Cabernet blend from Sticks Vineyard in the Yarra Valley (www.sticks.com.au) which is located just across the road from our friend Steve Sadlier of Nenagh Park in Yarra Glen. It took some considerable persuasion to have the flight attendents part with their wine. But as experienced travelers we finally found a willing accomplice and were able to sample a couple of bottles. So after all we had somehow a homely feeling and the wine lifted our otherwise doused spirits. It’s no fun to fly economy these days.