After a hiatus from the Liquid Dining blog, we
have packed up house, car and dogs and moved south to McLaren Vale in mid 2010.
We brought with us a bit of wine, some of it with some age on it, and much of
it from Mclaren vale. So it seems we took wine away from its birth place, aged
it, and then brought it back home again. How’s that for a carbon footprint?
It is now 2013.
We have been here for three years and a bit! How time flies! The Liquid Dining business is finally taking
its first step, and I dug out my notes on the wines we’ve consumed over the
last three years.
So, let the journey start again.
Rewind to 2011, a Saturday night dinner in July. After a year, we started to settle down and
found ourselves some good friends (yes, it is that hard when you are over 40, working
hard in your new job and trying to make friends without the help of having
kids! The dogs didn’t make friends
either!). To celebrate our first year,
we decided to open one of the older McLaren Vale wines, as we would be
consuming it while being a couple of minutes from the vineyard it came from.
We dug and rummaged through our collection of
vino that had boomeranged between McLaren Vale and Sydney, and then back again.
All of a sudden I felt like Indiana Jones gazing at the Ark of the Covenant.
Behold a magnum of Joseph Moda Amarone Cabernet Merlot from the 1995 vintage. I
dusted it off with a stroke of my hand and then wondered whether the dust was
McLaren Vale’s or Sydney’s. Was it worth calling a CSI team to investigate? I
also wondered whether I had reduced its dining table allure by removing the said
dust. Then I wondered how long I had been wondering, and how long before our
dinner guests would arrive. After all you can’t open a magnum without dinner
guests…unless you’re really thirsty.
I stood it upright, and checked the clock.
Three hours before the guests arrived. I grabbed my duck decanter and a
corkscrew and cut off the wax seal. I checked the clock again. Two hours and
fifty eight minutes before the guests arrived, no time to dilly dally….then I
wondered about the origin of the expression dilly dally….oh no, only two hours
and fifty seven minutes before the guests arrive!
The wine sat, (well actually it stood), upon
the dining table freshly denuded of dust, and glistening like Indiana’s amulet used to locate the well of
souls in which resided the Ark of the Covenant. Woops, only two hours before
the guests arrive. I inserted the cork screw, hmmm, soft but feeling somewhat
intact. I began to remove the cork and wondered what Joe Grilli had been
thinking the day this wine was bottled. Did he wonder whether some boy from Sydney would carry his
wine far away only to return it like the prodigal son now fully aged and grown
into a man, (wine man)? Did Joe hope this would happen? Did he care? Arrgh only one hour and fifty
nine minutes before the guests arrive.
The cork smelt good, in fact it smelt sexy! I decanted
the wine and listened, just like Beethoven might have listed to the lingering
timbre of the last note played after completing his first symphony. No he
wouldn’t have, he was deaf! Only one hour and fifty two minutes before the
guests arrive!
The guests were late…..
When they arrived we all began to kneel around
the dining table like the altar to Joseph that it had now become. We poured the
wine and inhaled deeply the aroma of pure joy.
There were prunes and chocolate mixed with some
dusty oak characters and a funky depth that can only be described as the
passing of time. What was I doing in 1995, I wondered, what was I wearing? It didn’t matter. There was wine to drink. I put the glass to
my lips like Indiana’s
grail, and my tongue was kissed by angels.
An explosion of flavours abounded; chocolate,
prunes, vanilla, cedar, briar, rhubarb and nutmeg. The bottle development
offered a plethora of secondary flavours including tea leaf, coffee, camphor
and tobacco. There was a smokiness coming from the toasted oak and nuances of
flavour that would only emanate from the wood panelling in an old world
gentleman’s club. The kind of club Indiana Jones would have visited when not
seeking religious artefacts like the one we were drinking.
The fruit for this wine came from two regions.
The Cabernet Sauvignon, which is 90% of the blend, comes from McLaren Vale, and
the 10% Merlot is from Coonawarra.
Now the Amarone method is an Italian pioneered
method of air-drying grapes in racks or baskets. This method concentrates juice
through evaporation and in turn concentrates the flavours of stewed fruit. Very
yummy indeed, and very costly. Joe Grilli
reduces his grape yields so as to concentrate fruit flavour to begin with. To
then double concentrate it via the Amarone method is a very generous offering especially
for the price. The current release for this wine is a 2011 vintage. The 750 ml
bottle sells for $75, and the magnum $195. Bring some good friends to help
drink it.
We know this is not a casual Tuesday night
bottle of wine at this price, but then again aren’t Tuesday nights precious
too?
This wine will keep for 15-20 years from
vintage.
What to have it with? Stewed oxtail or venison
and someone you love. No dust required.
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