Australia Days

ANZAC Day is coming up this Sunday. Between that & the most excellent weather of late, I'm very much reminded of home and the big sun lavished vineyards we have. Earlier this year I spent a luxurious 3 weeks sunning it up at home in Australia. That place has a lot of vineyards and much less wine bars, which is a shame because the tyranny of distance makes it a real project to taste all of the exceptional boutique wines hidden across the country.

Australia really does has some outstanding wines, it’s a (another!) shame that so many of them just don’t make it over to our shores. I most enjoyed trying a large range of Semillon wines in the Hunter Valley (an easy 90 minutes from Sydney). We don’t often see Semillon as a single varietal wine here in the UK but if you get a chance, do give it a go – it’s a very powerful grape, strong citrus aromatics and a robust vegetal mouth. I’ll keep you posted on my hunt for a happy Semillon here in the UK.

An excellent resource you should check out if you love biodynamic wines and are headed to Australia is Max Allen’s comprehensive website: Red, White and Green. It provides an outstanding overview of biodynamic producers across Australia, which I came to depend upon while out there!

Image: me with dear ol’ Mum & Dad tasting wines at Macquariedale Vineyard, one of only two biodynamic vineyards in the Hunter Valley.