The wine story

Since I leave the Barossa Valley in 10 days or so. I figured this would be a good time to reflect on my experience within the wine industry here in the Barossa. Thank you first to Alison, whom I live with, for the multitude of wine knowedge, dinners, bottles of wine, and you cats. I consider myself very lucky to have ended up living here, and getting to know her group of freinds, many of whom are involved in the wine industry one way or another, I learned a lot and more importantly had a very good time hanging out them/you (depending on who is reading).  Thank you to the amazing permanent staff at St. Hallett who made this vintage + experience a very enjoyable one. I have only praise to speak for that winery and team, and if all goes according to plan may be back working there next year. What I wanted to illustrate in this post is some of my thoughts on the wine industry, some of the real highlights in wines and tastings.
As far as wine is concered in australia. I expected everything to be big, overoaked, jammy, and alcoholic. Basically Stags Leap distract but with Shiraz. Not to be the case, the wines are flavorful, complex, and lucky enough that the shiraz can hold just about any oak treatment you can throw at it. They are known for big, complex wines, but have a finesse style about them that makes them very appraochable.  I also feel that novice wine drinkers would gravitate twords a wine like these as apposed something light like a Pinot Noir. What i'm saying is if you want to get into wine, as an austrailan, drink barossa shiraz of course. As an amerinca who wants to get into wine, look for wines from Paso Robles or Dry creek valley in Sonoma. Look for Zinfandels, Syrahs, and GSM style blends in the 20 dollar range. avoid some of the higher tannic italian style wines, or wines from other countries unless you know anything about them. markups are insane for wine across oceans, so even though its french, odds are its going to be much less quality than a similar priced wine from the states.

First off i'll start with my case of wine that is coming home with me. as pictured

The case contains
St Hallett 2001 Old Block Shiraz (Top wine from my winery and drink now)
St Hallett 2006 Old block Shiraz (Another top wine, let this age)
Lengmeil 2009 Freedom Shiraz (vines planted in 1846)
Lengmeil 2009 Orphan Bank Shiraz (awsome Shiraz)
Yalumba 2006 Octavius Shiraz (benchmark wine from oldest winery)
Yalumba 2006 Moppa Springs Granache (drink now)
Yelland and Papps 2009 Divine Shiraz (great wine from a great guy)
John Duval 2009 Entity (John Duval is another great winemaker)
Rusden 2007 Zinfandel (drink soon)
Radford 2008 Bush Vine Shiraz (only Eden Valley Shiraz, stands out)
Rockford 2009 Basket Press (Old School Shiraz from Old School winery)
Rockford 2009 Cab Sav (Great example of Barossa Cab)
Retail Price: more than your weekly paycheck
My Price: not nearly your weekly paycheck
Why take a case of wine home if I may end up back here. Because in 20 years time when I'm a real winemaker, i'll find a case underneath a lot of cases and it will contain one or more of these wines. This case is a drinkable momento from my time this vintage. Its a representation of the best 12 bottles I could aquire while being here. Also it is hard/impossible or very expensive to get some of these bottles in the states. Every time I get to open one of these bottles its a sensory overload of nostalgia for an awsome time in the Barossa Valley. Also important to note, that when 2012 St Hallett wine becomes availible for purchase (just as 2011 Elk Cove and 2010 Domaine Serene) i'll have to hunt down bottles that I helped make, and lucky for me, I have insider knowledge on which vineyards were the best in each of those years.  If your lucky enough you might get to try one of more of these bottles.

disclaimer: I am by no means an expert on the South Australia Wine industry, and really only know the Barossa Valley. I've tasted many but definitly not all of the wines produced in the valley. What I want to type out more for me are my favorite wineries for the wine, for the experience, for the view. I mean lets face it, most wine drinkers only care if they do or do not like the wine, its price, and their tasting experience.  If by chance any novice wine drinkers to the Barossa Valley were Traveling through the Barossa Valley, this could be used a rough guide as to where to taste for the day/how to spend your day. 
Notable Barossa Wineries for their wine.
-St. Hallett: Duh I have to shout out to St. Hallett, that being said, I think we produce some excellent wine in both the Old Block Shiraz and the unique Granache Shiraz Touriga blend.
-Lengmeil: There Freedom Shiraz contains maybe the oldest vines in the world, its awsome, and the cellar crew takes as good of care of their grapes/ferments/wines as possible.
-Hently Farm: impecable vineyards first with some lots going to their own product which is also kept in a unique style.
-Rockford: Old School winery that makes awsome wines
-Henshke's: Because they have a fasination with Pinot Noir, and the Hill of Grace vineyard under their production is the most beautiful vineyard you could ever see
-Yalumba: oldest winery in the Barossa, large production but have the time/funding/and vineyards to produce top wines
-Yelland and Papps (if open): Great small winemaking program, great tasting experience on the side of their house, ironically almost in the shadow of penfolds giant facility.
Elderton (top range)
Artisans
Taste of eden
The last two on that list are winemakers studios of sort, where many different labels are poured. I've elaborated before that those places are the best to gain a good feel for the area due to the many different styles poured in using similarly sourced fruit.

Now remember, most wine drinkers care less about the product (as long as they like it) and more about the experience of tasting.  The tasting experience itself can make or break the wine. By far and away the most pleasent tasting experience in the Barossa Valley is at Two Hands winery. They sit you down, usually outside,  give you a few bits to eat, and present each wine over the course of 45 minutes or so.  Very well done. Another notable tasting experience is at a winery known as Tscharkeys, with their beautiful cellar door and outside patio.  Both of those must not miss on a beautiful day.

Oh, and dont miss fermentAsian for dinner in Tanunda. Get some sort of reisling from the menu, its extensive and fair priced.

I havn't spent a lot of time in the other winegrowing regions, but these are some of the highlights we/I came across in the other regions.

Claire Wineries
skillagolee
Knapstein
O'leary Walker
Crabtree
Adelaide hills:
Shaw and Smith
Petaluma
Ashton hills

MclarenVale:
Oliver Taranga
Chapel Hill
Samuels Gorge

And if you somehow make it out to Langhorn Creek, check out Bremerton, Rusticana, and the Winehouse

I take it most of the previous readers lost interest beyond this point, but if, you perservered through the litarary nightmare that is "the bottom of the bottle" you will now be rewarded with the beer insite South australia.  If your seeking out beer, number one by far and away is Beirhaus in Lobethal. the Brewer knows what he is doing, and to quote matt "the top five australian beers are at the Beirhaus" (his opinion of course)  Goodesons Brewery down in MclarenVale is nice. If you ever find yourself wondering through Radelaide, which is the the rad version of adelaide, and beer is what you seek, you must frequent the Wheatchief Hotel. Its a pub run by two beer loving lesbians, so you can only imagine the ecclectic mix of people that frequent. They have 10 or so beers on tap, ranging from Mikkeller to Local Beirhars beers. They also have a very extensive bottle list that contains.... wait for it... Bear Republic and Sierra Nevada. and they have a Hoppinator. I'm going to miss the Wheatchief.  Also gotta give good mention to Barossa Valley Brewery right here in Taunda. They make a nice beer, and are one the right track. However, they serve their beer in wine glass, and have more of a cellar door feel than a brewery. Be more of a brewery please, and cater to beer drinkers, not wine drinkers.
If you are traveling to south australia, there is a plethora of very yummy wine and beer to drink and consume. Good food to find if you know where your looking, and

There are no spirits worth talking about in South Australia, and its expensive. sorry
South Australia doesn't seem so far as it did 5 months ago.

Grad school, genetics, and tasting

I know. I know. its been a while. But while I could be writing blogs about all the fun things i'm out doing, I'm actually out doing them. Sorry. So first things first. I took a tour of the Masters in Oenology (winemkaing) program at University of Adelaide on monday. To explain why I took the visit and will be applying to the University of Adelaide masters in Oenology program I will rehash a conversation i've had with multiple winemkers.
me: "mr/mrs winemaker, do I need to get a winemaking degree"
winemaker: "you mean you dont have a winemaking degree, what is your base degree in"
me: "molecular, cell, and developmental biology."
w: " that should be more than good enough"
me: " well given my application and three applications with winemaking degrees and exactly the same experience, would you even consider me as a candidate."
w: "probably not"
me: "that is my answer, thank you very much"
hence why I am going to apply. Other reasons for applying other than the end all be all american dream "so I can get a good job" is that I think that to be the winemaker I want to be I need to go get some formal education in wine. Do I have some sensory skills, yes. are they getting better by the day, yes. but until I put all the peices together with a formal education, there will always be simple gaps in my education. Why might you ask am I not as interested in the two programs in California, I will explain. Uc Davis masters in enology is a very theory and research based program, and other than the fact that I cant get in there without taking lots of undergraduate classes in winemaking, I'm not sure that it would be the right program for me to be the best winemaker I can. The CSU fresno program, while getting much better, is very production based. yes the theory classes would help, but much as with most of the CSU system, it is very hands on learning. At this point I might as well make money while working in a winery than pay to work in a winery.  The program at Adelaide is a nice inbetween of the other two, being both production/lab based in the winery and theory reserch based in the lecture. Another perk is that one the same campus is the AWRI, or the Australian Wine Research Institute, arguable the best Wine research institute in the world, lots and lots of winemaking information at your fingertips. Oh.... and this is the fall sunset view from the campus looking over the City of Adelaide.  And what a pretty sunset  it was. 

sunset from the AWRI

In other news, Kangaroo Tacos are not as good as they are novel, with the best taco meat still remaining black bear (thats going to be a tough one to beat) It was decided by the other amuricans and I that we would make Roo tacos and tequila for cinco de mayo. Some of the buzz words for cinco de mayo include: roo tacos, tequila, singing on the roof, party crashing, dance battle winning, new friends, tearing through the vineyards in a Gator (not driving). There are a few more buzzwords to describe cinco de mayo that are not internet worthy. dont worry parents, everything was in good taste and in a psudo responsible manner. It was up there as far as cinco de mayo's go. 
             Work has been fine, it consists of moving wine from tank to tank of different sizes. blending, breaking down, putting wine into oak, taking wine out of oak, cleaning tanks, cleaning more tanks, cleaning more tanks. "45% moving shit, 45% cleaning shit, and 10% drinking beer". I've been doing 90% of the work described. One of the cool things we have been doing are benchmark tastings. We (some of the employees) will taste 10-14 different wines from different wineries but in the same style and at roughly the same pricepoint. The goal of this is to see how our wine stacks up versus other wines in the same price bracket. This is one of the best things for me to do, because it gives me a chance to A. taste the wines, B.write down my thoughts on the wine (nose, taste, color, lenght, acid, finish) Anc C. get to explain my thoughts along with some of the other cellar staff and winemakers. I am pleased to say that I am for the most part inline with the winemakers on the tastes, aside from a few outliers of course. Again, something else that a little schooling will help me with. Something else that is cool about the masters program is that there is a chance to sit on the panel for wine judging competitions. that would be cool.   Last Friday I went to a Burgundy wine tasting at Whister Wines put on by a friend. Bring a Burgudny, get to taste the rest. I know very little about specific french wine regions, so a tasting like this is good experience to taste the differences between some of the burgundian regions.

burgundy tasting at Whistler Wines.

I do only have 8 days left of work here in australia, and only 12 days left in the barossa valley, Until next year most likely. Assuming that I get into the masters program I will most likely be coming back to work at St. Hallett for vintage (they already said yes)  If my tennative plan works out to be my actual plan I will be In australia from January 2013 till september/october 2015. That is crazy to think about. But again, all specualtive however I am motivated to make it my actual plan, and if you know me, it'll probably happen.
I have to give some acknowlegement and thanks to my parents in regards to my genetics. Due to recent diet experiments I have determied that I am somewhat Gluten intolerent. Not that I cant eat it, its just much more comfortable not to. Bummer because I like beer, and bread, and pasta, and gluten filled foods. looks like my homebrew career may be very limited, and potentially up for sale. Speaking quickly of beer, Heaps Good Beer is great, at least so I've herd scince trying to avoid drinking beer, but I do have access to some fun lab equipemnt, like this piece of lab equipemnt called an Alcolyzer, which determins the alcohol percentage of beverages. If you look in the small sample jar, you can see the color of the beer, if you look at the screen of the sweet peice of lab machinery, it says 8.17. That is the Alcohol of our beer, A little higher than we targeted, and not really any cooler accpet that it is fun to use lab equiment. I do owe a lab tech some food for use of the apparati though, I bet she will take beer.  Last things last. my travel plans.
June 4th: leave the Barossa Valley and fly to Hobart Tasmania.
June 5th: pick up our wicked camper van (the company is called wicked camper, check it out online)
June 5th-June 13th: travel tasmania, wine taste when the weather is bad, hike and sitesee when the weather is good.
June 13-16th: Brisbane to visit brisbane staying with Dads Friend Andy
June 16th-23rd: Byron Bay, for surfing and sunshine. any contacts there would be helpful
June 24th-30th: after taking the overnight train from byron bay to sydney, I will be hanging out in Sydney with the awsome Alanna Pentz in sydney, probably play tourist and do more beach going.
June 30th: Back Stateside for mexican food, bicycle riding to the beach, and family and friends.
If any of you have any recomendations of things to do in those places they will be appreciated. although i'm sure i'll find many things to do. That is all for now.
              

"Beer, Barrels, Bottles"



Matt... acting as bottling line supervisor

Alright. new blog post time. sit back, relax, grab a drink and prepare to be entertained and informed all at the same time. First things first. Matt and I bottled "heaps good beer". I created a pretty sweet label with a kangaroo on it and a few interesting words, but my lazyness to find a place to print it is going to hinder that label ever being put onto a bottle. save's paper anyway. As stated before, we set out to create what we called a cascadian dark ale. Something with some nice darker/toastier malt caractaristics underneath a very lifted hop aroma us west coast beer drinkers like so much. But as with anything Matt and I seem to do, very brief discussion and planning followed by near perfect execution has long lead us wrong. (not to toot our own horns or anything) With all the makings of a nice dark beer we set out a soak/sparge/and fermentation plan designed more for a stout/porter than for a lighter ale. When you make beer, so much of the dictation in the final product is determined by the soaking of your grains. When you brew beer, there is an ideal temperature range for soaking your grains to extract the proper amount of sugar and what types of sugars you extract. The Range is from 145 degrees f till 158 degrees f. By soaking at the lower end of that range (for lets say an hour) you dont break down some of the larger more complex sugar starch compounds that are broken down at the upper end of that scale, thus netting a thicker Wort which in turn makes a thicker beer. So a thinner lighter ale is soaked twords the higher end of that range while a thick stout or porter is soaked at the lower end. Matt pretty much nailed it on the soak, keeping it at at 146 for a good hour. That lends itself to a thicker beer. we also had a long cool ferment with the fermenter almost submerged in cool water. This also aids in making a thicker beer. Matched with the slight amount of Wheat (also for body), the chocolate roasted dark grains, and a bit of extract to get our gravity up, this beer is thick, really thick. And to match it, we have added somewhere around 80ibu's worth of Simcoe and Cascade hops to create what truly is a big big beer drinkers beer. Matt and I both having experience in homebrewing ran through the bottling no problem netting 45 bottles of our hoppy porter we call "Heaps Good". What are we going to do with this beer you might ask. Well with my half of the bottles I plan on sharing them around my winery, and the small community which I am part of. Introduce some aussies to BEER and encouraging the local homebrewers to get away from the coopers kits. Its currently carbonating and maturning, probably the first taste will be on sunday, and oh what a taste it will be. 
I finished putting together my case of wine. It consists of 9 big ass barossa shiraz's, a cab, grenache, and zin. I could put together two more cases of great wine from varietals other than Shiraz, but damnit, I'm in the Barossa Valley. Not bringing home a plethora of big Shiraz would be like going to Oregon and not brining home Pinot and Ninkasi, or Texas and not bringing home a gun rack and Shiner, Or Rombaur and not bringing back a bottle of popcore butter, or chicago and not bringing home Ian Fowler. You see, Shiraz is just a must(thats a wine pun people). 


Thats a lot of Barrels.

Work has been going well since vintage ended and some of the other casuels have gone their seperate ways, not saying I dont miss them, but work has calmed down even a notch more. If I have learned anything in the last week, its that "wine is not made only durring vintage". yes we turn grapes into an alcoholic drink we call wine durring vintage, but there are so many other things that go into making a finished wine a finished wine. Working outside of harvest like I am now, you see those things in practice. I'm not going to elaborate on what I have learned, but trust that it has to do with wine. The one part about being out of vintage (more out of the busy workload of vintage) is the ability to taste so many of our wines. Many of them are finishing malolactic fermentation (if they are destined to do so) and are getting tasted and graded for final blends. I get to taste a lot of what the winemakers are tasting, which is very important for me to learn/practice as a wannabe winemaker. I got to participate in a comparative tasting of 12 or so wines all in the same style and same pricepoint but from different producers (including our own) to see how ours stacks up. these are done blind then at the end we compare notes on each wine and reveal which was which. Only through lots of practice will you develope a palate to be able to pick up on certain aspects of the wine. I'm trying to get lots and lots of practice. Over the next month i'll be able to taste many of the blends that the winemakers come up with and the why's and why nots of the blending peices. Thats pretty much all for now. The two things on my agenda are starting up graduate school research and applications to various winemaking schools and post Barossa travel plans. Matt and I are going to sit down tomorrow and book a few things. I know it will consist of Tasmania, Brisbane, Byron Bay, and Sydney. Again, we plan little but execute perfectly.