I headed off to Sydney hoping for 25 degrees and clear skies, what I landed to was
humidity, drizzle and nothing remotely resembling nice weather. Our dinner was
being held at the Bonython Café in Paddington and it’s big drawcard is the
retractable roof, well that didn’t happen.
40 guests were about to embark on a chardonnay showcase looking at 12 of the
best chardonnay’s from Australia. One thing is for sure that’s way too many people
for me to handle on my own, I love talking and spending time with each person, but
without some help pouring the wines I really wasn’t able to be myself. Future events
with larger numbers will have people employed to pour and help me with set up and
pack down etc.
We settled in to the first bracket and I started to hear the conversations change to be
all about the wines, people’s personal faves and the nuances of each glass that they
loved. As the brackets went on I put it to a vote if the room wanted to know what the
first 6 were before heading to the last 6, something I normally don’t do, but this was
fun and something different for me. It meant the last 6 were in theory a touch easier
to pick. The thing for me was the level of quality across each wine, proving once
again to me that Chardonnay is our greatest varietal.
As we finished the 12 wines and I began to tally the scores (I have moved to a
google sheet so that helps a lot) I began to see such similar scores, and once I had
compiled them I can tell you all there was like 50 points between 1 st and 12 th and
when you consider 38 people voted out of 20 that’s not a lot of votes between the
wines.
The top 6 heading to Melbourne’s event are;
- Giaconda 2022 (where it belongs)
- Singlefile The Vivienne 2021 (what a wine)
- Xanadu Reserve 2020 (could Glenn do the double, Cabernet and Chardonnay..?)
- Savaterre 2022 (The beast from the north east)
- Cullen Kevin John (can’t keep Margaret River royalty down for long)
- Oakridge 864 (The Yarra strikes again)
These events for me are designed to showcase how incredible our country is at
producing the varietal on show, more so than declaring a winner etc, after all, what I
love will differ from what you love. Next up is Melbourne then 60 people in Perth
where hopefully their Margaret River bias will be put to bed and the mighty
Beechworth takes its mantle at the top of the perch!
Thanks to you all for reading, following and chatting to me, never be afraid to reach
out or call, I love talking, trust me on that one.
Wine Animal Out.