Is Donburi

Date: Tue, Jan 8, 2013 Wine Tasting

A small sample of five plates. The pictured kara age, a mostly eaten beef tataki, grilled salmon sushi and out of the frame California and soft shell crab rolls. All enjoyable and modest in price, but each with some slight defect. The tataki was still frozen at the centre and the pieces of beef where too large (8-10cm circles), the salmon tasted of butane, the rolls especially the soft shell crab had the wrong texture and lacked finesse. The chicken was the pick of the dishes, but mostly because of the freshness and variety of the salad leaves. The pieces of meat where crisp and tasty and lovely as a fried and crumbed chicken, but they were not to my mind kara age. There was no discernible ginger or soy and again the texture was wrong.

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Cherubino Chardonnay 2011

Date: Thu, Jan 3, 2013 Wine Tasting

William street regulars will no doubt recognise this box of imported Chinese garlic. It has very little to do with the wine in question, the link (in my mind) is purely temporal.

More expensive than the Fraser Gallop ($55 rather than $30) and with a fuller, fleshier and arguably more seductive (though caricatured) figure. A post war hourglass instead of turn of the century cachexia. Melons, flint and pineapple. Perhaps a little too much sunshine and ripeness. Abundant and thick in the mouth, it's bold, lush and uncoiled. Padded and curved and just the right side of exaggeration; marzipan and almond meal and a redeeming bite of chalky acidity.

Related: The Riesling of the same name.

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Fraser Gallop Parterre Chardonnay 2011

Date: Tue, Jan 1, 2013 Wine Tasting

And so it begins. . . another year and yet again I find myself surrounded by yeast and the products of these wonderful unicellular organisms. Largely unintentional but hopefully the symbolism translates into something more concrete. . . I spent the afternoon making dough (pizza) and watching it rise and rise and rise. A warm day, though cooler than the preceding week, three punch downs and a final rest in the fridge before making two types of pizza, both tomato free. Roast pumpkin zucchini pine nut and gorgonzola, and secondly, a bacon and egg pizza with confit onions and buffalo mozzarella.

The year's first wine. Something fresh and bold and naturally curved. Peach and citrus blossom, flint, bacon and curiously bath salts. Sappy and electric, it's tight but with a pleasing and faint suggestion of wobble and flesh.

The winery also produces a cheaper though almost identically labeled Chardonnay (also Mendoza, but no new oak and no malo cf Chablis in style). The only thing different is the presence or absence of the word Parterre on the label. While I can understand and even applaud the decision to have two styles of chardonnay, I find the lack of greater label differentiation perplexing. I've been told by three seemingly well informed retail sources that the Parterre and the non Parterre chardonnay are one and the same.

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1.1.13

Date: Mon, Dec 31, 2012 Wine Tasting

Happy new year. Let's hope some of our adventures succeed. . .

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Dosukoi

Date: Tue, Dec 4, 2012 Wine Tasting

Within the Fremantle Markets, amongst the purveyors of soap and trinkets is a well known and already well frequented noodle shop. It's only open Friday to Sunday and the lines can be long if you plan on sitting and eating. Order, take a number and wait for a text message while you peruse the market or watch the street performers. My thirty minutes stretched to forty five, ultimately you will wait for longer than it takes to eat - but I'm not complaining. . . Nine dollars for a bowl of steaming ramen (I tried # 4 and 5, soft pork and fried dumplings) and $5 for a small tub of fried chicken. Simple but quite delicious.

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Michel Gassier Costières de Nîmes Nostre Païs 2011

Date: Tue, Dec 4, 2012 Wine Tasting

Blanc. Grenache blanc. . .

The label presumably tells a tale - from earth to vine to man. The liquid itself smells and tastes of summer. Warm peaches, citrus, musk and green sap. It's hedonistic, punchy and bold with a squirt of citrus and mineral to partially foil the flesh and fat. Large, languid and uncoiled, it's unapologeticallycurved and full.

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A weak spot

Date: Mon, Dec 3, 2012 Wine Tasting

I have many. . . but fried chicken is a particular and enduring favourite. This small pot of golden crunchy goodness cost five dollars. A guilty and affordable pleasure. It's curious that something so popular and appreciated is mostly confined to vendors of fast food. When was the last time you saw fried chicken offered with a tablecloth and cutlery? A small strip of skin as a garnish for a slow cooked egg perhaps, but certainly not a whole piece as a meal in and of itself.

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Jamsheed Garden Gully Riesling 2011

Date: Sun, Dec 2, 2012 Wine Tasting

Sulphur and flint, toffee apple and fabric softener;prolonged time on lees and in barrel. . . it sounds un Australian. The accent is Germanic. The sweetness too reminds me of elsewhere, a semi sweet Kabinett; though the body is bigger (11.8%) and tanned. It's electric and mineral, but with grip, skin and soft oak. Which is to say - that at times it feels like a mouthful of grape skins with that growing sense of dryness; the French oak too is palpable, giving the wine a lactone edge.

Image: Fallen Jacaranda pod.

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A Codd neck bottle

Date: Sat, Dec 1, 2012 Wine Tasting

is hard to find. . . being an antipodean I had no idea they still made them. . . until today. As a school child I heard stories and as an adult I've seen them in museums, tired and dirty, crusted in history. Most of the older bottles were smashed so children could retrieve the marble from the neck.

Ramune (a brand of lemonade from Japan) smells confected and bubblegum like, it also contains high fructose corn syrup and only 200ml of drink. . . it's the neck which makes it irresistible; the nod to yesterday, the plop and rattle of the marble and the measured sips as the ball bobbles up and down blocking the mouth if you try to drink too fast.

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Panfried silverbeet and ricotta gnocchi

Date: Fri, Nov 30, 2012 Wine Tasting

I followed this recipe, though I steamedthe silverbeet (squeezing out excess water after) andI found I needed more flour (almost 200g) to make it come together. Rather than rolling out a log and then cutting off pieces, I pinched and shaped and dusted with flour. The dumplings were parboiled as instructed, but I left them to dry in the fridge before panfrying to give them for more crunch. Burnt butter sauce and dots of pesto to finish.

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Penfolds Bin 28 1998

Date: Thu, Nov 29, 2012 Wine Tasting

It's been four years between bottles. I remembered this, incorrectly, thinking it slim and tight. It's neither. . . Warmth and diffusion. . . it's untangled, languid, softened and starting to show it's wrinkles. . . a prune with ginger and vanilla, a suggestion of port and a blast of heat, saw dust and crushed ants.

It's disarming and recognisable but fractionally warm.

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Natural selection theory cider

Date: Wed, Nov 28, 2012 Wine Tasting

Confronting and not immediately likeable. It starts off smelling like a zoo. . . the only question is which enclosure. Skunk and monkey perhaps. . . Presumably it's all that time under lees and then in a hermetic rubber sealed bottle. Thankfully air and time lets this blossom and expand and once the distraction of the mercaptan and fizz is gone there's ginger spice and pleasingly modest acidity and grip. Yes, though not emphatically so.

An alternate opinion.

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Chicken flavoured dog biscuits

Date: Tue, Nov 27, 2012 Wine Tasting

shaped like poo. . .

Another tour of Dogistan, perhaps my fourth or fifth this year. The little mutt is obviously growing on me in unpredictable ways. I spent the afternoon making chicken flavoured biscuits in anticipation of his arrival. . .

It's fairly easy. I was making chicken stock and so used the left overs. 200g of cooked chicken meat, 20g of butter blitzed in a food processor till paste like. Add 75g of unsalted stock, 100g of flour and 40g of corn starch. Kneed together into a sloppy dough. Roll out between two sheets of baking paper so you have a flat disc of dough, then form the desired shapes. Bake at 180 degrees C for 20-25 minutes.

I had planned to make little dog bones, but not having the dexterity or ability or cookie cutter; I made three forms of poop. Those familiar with these things will be able to identify stool type 1, 3 and 4. . .

As you might expect from something salt free, they do taste rather bland. Thankfully the dog approves.

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The Trustee

Date: Tue, Nov 27, 2012 Wine Tasting

The subterranean Trustee Bar and Bistro is on the whole far more convincing than the neighbouring Heritage Restaurant. It's also darker and noisier and populated with more attentive staff. Beef eaters and lovers of Burgundy are particularly well catered for. The menu makes a point of emphasising a tail to nose approach (there's a diagram of a cow in the menu), but all I could see listed were cuts of skeletal muscle. No tails or ears or tongue or intestine. . .

I'll confine myself to the wine list. 37 pages long and very strong on Chardonnay and Pinot noir. A good selection of halves and a page of magnums. The 750ml examples range from $45 (if you exempt the house blend) to the 1996 La Tache for $4900.

Forty five dollars gives you a few options including the 2011 Tahbilk Marsanne which usually retails for around the $13-15 dollar mark. So a factor of 3 mark up.

If value is your yard stick, or at least limiting the amount of mark up you pay, then the bargain, and likely error on the list can be found in the Chardonnay section. The 2010 Bindi Quartz is available for $95 (at least on the pdf of the wine list). In comparison the usually cheaper Bindi Composition is listed at $98. The Quartz usually retails from anywhere between $90 - 110.

The 2012 Polish Hill by Grosset is superb and $77 (factor of 1.7). As good as it is, it is readily available and generally I'd pick something more esoteric and harder to come by. Other curious pricing decisions include the Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay at $135 while the usually cheaper and slightly less acclaimed Pierro is $160.

There are several hard to resist wines on the list. . . Price being the main inhibitor. The Foillard Morgon Cote du Py ($109. approx x2) and the Raveneau Les Vaillons Chablis ($180. approx x2) would be my picks.

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