Wine

Order! Order! I would like to officially convene the first meeting of the first chapter of Sydney Wine Aficionados Living Life On Weekends (don't ask, Casey did the naming, and yes, it spells SWALLOW). Our charter is as follows:

• Meet weekly
• Drink of the wines of Australia and New Zealand
• Enjoy
• Learn something

Last Thursday was our first meeting. Ordinarily we will meet on Wednesday, but we had to wait for Anne to get back from Tasmania. We've decided to taste 1 varietal per week, in the hopes that I can finally begin to understand what a pinot noir tastes like versus, say, a shiraz. We're restricting ourselves to Australian and New Zealand wines because we're here. And Australia makes a hell of a lot of wine, so why not drink some of it?

The first meeting did not begin encouragingly. In class that day we learned that the average wine drinker can't tell the difference between white and red wine when blindfolded. And then the organizers (that includes me) showed up half an hour late.

But by the end of the night, after consuming the four bottles we had intended to taste, plus the extra I had brought for insurance, we were all very merry. Some of us too merry - it seems Antonio and Jose had their first brush with Australia's Reponsible Service of Alcohol legislation and got chucked out of a bar later that night. I just woke up with a headache, and really purple teeth.

Anyway, last week's we tasted Shiraz. We had:
Kirrihill Shiraz Clare Valley 2004
Ebenezer Shiraz Barossa Valley 2003
Elderton Shiraz Barossa Valley 2005
D'Arenberg "the Footbolt" Shiraz McLaren Vale 2005 (this wine was named after a horse, and smelled like feet)
The Elderton won. And it sure was yummy.

This week - Chardonnay! Any suggestions?