Scotch College

A nice passion of reds

A nice passion for reds

A nice passion for reds One well-established feature of the OSC Wine and Food Society's calendar is the Winter Reds Night and nothing could have been more appropriate on August 21, after a week of cold and windy Melbourne weather.

Although it was a red wine night, the traditional welcome was provided in the form of Andrew Garrett's Sparkling Chardonnay. Made from premium fruit, this crisp, dry bubbly with its lively tropical and citrus flavours set the tone of the evening.

Tom Taranto of Chaucer Cellars in East Malvern was the guest presenter for the evening and soon revealed his passion for the products he sells, keeping the evening rollicking along with anecdotes from his thirteen years in the wine trade.

The first bracket of wines began with a 1999 Wolf Blass Brown Label Classic Shiraz sourced from three of the oldest, low-yielding Shiraz vineyards in South Australia. This full, complex wine, aged in American and French oak, will keep well. The second wine was a 1997 Mamre Brook Shiraz from the north of the Barossa Valley. Despite its intense berry nose and rich colour, it seemed bland by comparison with the other wines in the bracket. The third wine was a 1997 Pepperjack Shiraz, sourced from a collection of old Shiraz wines from across the Barossa. An intense red wine, it exhibited juicy berry and plum characters. In another three or four years it should be an excellent wine.

The second bracket began with a 1999 Metala Langhorne Creek Shiraz Cabernet from the original twelve hectare vineyard planted by Arthur Formby in 1891. Made by the current Barossa Winemaker of the Year, Nigel Dolan, this intense and complex wine will age well for a decade. Then followed a 1999 Mamre Brook Cabernet Sauvignon with a deep, rich purple colour and offering complex aromas of plum, dark berries and supporting oak; it spent twenty months in mostly French oak before bottling, producing a well-balanced wine of fine tannins and excellent length.

Stocking a seemingly endless variety of truly exotic cheeses, Richmond Hill Café and Larder supplied four splendid examples to accompany the Winter Reds. Le Peilloute is a French goat's milk white mould cheese made to a Brie recipe. It matched beautifully with the Mamre Brook Shiraz. A strange-looking cheese was the Morbier from the foot of the French Alps with its characteristic dark layer in the middle, now provided by a harmless vegetable product rather than the soot used in earlier times - for reasons that are not entirely clear. The third cheese was a Munster from Alsace, a traditional washed rind cheese with a rich, succulent flavour. Local producers were represented by the fourth cheese, a Strzelecki Blue made from goat's milk by Laurie Jensen in Gippsland. It has a dense, semi-soft texture balanced by a slightly sweet pine-nut flavour.

The final wine of the evening was worth the wait. It was a 1997 Saltram 'No 1' Shiraz, a triple gold medal winner, a wine of deep, dark plum colour with intense berry aroma, a wonderful texture, fine tannins and a long finish. It was a great way to end an enjoyable evening presented by one of the industry's passionate and entertaining ambassadors.

David Thomson