Falling in Champagne

I have been told by many a person that this winter is the coldest in Europe for 15 years, coming from sunny Sydney this has been quite a shock to the system especially when visiting Chablis and Champagne, where the temperature was minus nine. Brrrrrrr!

We stopped in at Dosnon and Lapage Champagne in the Cotes De Bar briefly on our way to Burgundy, to have a quick taste.

I was seriously impressed with the quality of the base wines that are currently sitting in barrel waiting to be made into the drink we all know and love.

The Pinot base had some really lovely aromatics going on and the Chardonnay had such a serious and balanced line of minerality to it, I am really looking forward to drinking the finished product. The Pinot Meunier was also good enough to drink on its own.

The texture of the wines coming from this small grower house was  seriously good.Fruit quality and precision really stood out within the whole range.

I will never forget my first visit to Dosnon and Lapage. The Champagne, the cold and the amazing chalk soil in the vineyard.

I also will not forget, anytime soon, the tumble I took on the icy driveway  at the front of the cave ,when trying to leave like the graceful person I hoped to be.

To put it nicely, I have fallen for Champagne. I have the bruises to prove it!

MOV x

All Content © 2012 Mistress of the Vine

Floodlight Dinner 31st January 2011

It has been a while since Mistress of the Vine has stepped into a fine dining restaurant and not been there to eat.. The world of the 2 hatter is far from how I roll at the moment, so as you can imagine it was a slight shock to the system when I arrived at Rockpool restaurant last night to help out  for the Floodlight dinner.

To give you a bit of background, last month Queensland was hit by the most  devastating floods Australia has seen since the seventies. Thirty people died  and at one stage over 500 people were missing. Most were found though, at the last count 9 people were still unaccounted for. Over 21, 000 homes had some form of flood damage, with 3, 600 homes evacuated. The damage bill for the QLD floods has been estimated at over 5.6 billion dollars which is devastating, when you think we have gone straight from a global financial crisis  into a natural disaster; brings a tear to your eye doesn’t it.

So last night the hospitality industry in Sydney rallied around to do our bit. The brainchild of Colin Fassnidge from the Four in Hand Restaurant and Phil Wood of Sydney’s Rockpool Restaurant, which from my understanding came about from an afternoon at the pub and twitter!! The evening was a who’s who of the Sydney restaurant scene. There was Alex Hubert from Bird Cow Fish who organized all the prizes and auction items, James Johnston from World Wine Estates who organised the wine for the event; chefs from Pendolino, Balzac and Lucios. Sommeliers from Cotton Duck, Quay,Bilsons and Love Tilly Devine and  Owners and Restaurant managers from Tabou, Buzo and the Four in Hand and of course little old me representing well… me and of course bloodwood.

The evening was Mced by Simon Thompson and Simon Marnie, who did a great job by spurring all that attended to spend a fortune; we ended up raising over $70, 000 dollars and as the evening was entirely sponsored –  Neil Perry donated Rockpool, all the food was donated and  as we all donated our time, every single cent of that $70,ooo heads straight up north to help our fellow countrymen and women in need.

A very enjoyable night for a  worthy cause and big well done and pat on the back for all who made it possible. I feel very proud to be a part of my industry today.

Kisses MOV xx

All Content © 2011 Mistress of the Vine

The Life and Times of Mistress of the Vine

Yeeehaaaa. Happy New Year to you all!! I hope everybody is feeling as refreshed as I am  and ready to do some serious drinking in 2011.

To give you all a quick insight into a Mistress Christmas… the family and I spent the day on the beach drinking Raventos  Cava with the traditional christmas fare such as turkey, ham and the odd prawn or 2.

I am seriously in love with  my christmas wine-the 2007 Raventos I Blanc ‘ L Herero Reserva Brut’ from the Penedes region in Spain. It fits everything i want to see in a sparkling wine. Nice  young green apple fruit on the nose, really crisp and very dry. Delicious!!

I then grabbed the captain and my little sister and headed to Melbourne for New Years Eve – As we all were desperate to get out of Sydney for a break. I adore Melbourne. So many beautiful restaurants and bars I could get lost here!!

New Years Eve was spent on the 47th floor in a beautiful apartment drinking a Negroni, watching fireworks and talking each others ears off!! Very sophisticated and thoroughly enjoyable.

A big shout out to Ricardo Amare for hosting such a great New Years Eve!!!

Beautiful people, beautiful place, beautiful end to 2010

New years day was also a cracker spent on the water in St Kilda dancing away at the Riva party to Mr Ron Carroll. Awsome is all I have to say!!

Put your hands up in the air!!!!

Riva St Kilda is a great venue….Their website will tell you all about how amazing they are.

Put your hands up Sister.

Zoe Badwi finished the evening off and by this time we all had our hands in the air!!

The last weekend of my holiday was spent in Portsea.. at the Polo. Absolutely amazing. We were in the Stellar Artois Murdoch Marquee drinking Champagne all day.. Actually it was cheap sparkling wine but champagne just sounds better!!

the Captain, The Mistress and the Mexican

Thank you again Kyla for organizing such a top notch weekend, You are an amazing woman.

Cheers Captain and cheers to you all. Mistress of the Vine will be back with a vengeance as of tomorrow…. But for now seeing as its my last day of holidays and my last day in Melbourne I am going to go enjoy what this town does best and go out for lunch… I’ll let you know what I drink!!

Kisses xxx

Mistress of the Vine.

All Content © 2011 Mistress of the Vine

Vinous Imports Tasting

It’s spring! Finally the weather is starting to get warmer, the bees are doing their pollination thing, rabbits are starting to …. well do what rabbits do and it’s the beginning of the spring tasting season.

Mistress of the Vine today headed to the first tasting for the week . Held by Tim Stock’s Vinous Solutions the line up was certainly impressive. I have often supported Tim Stock in various restaurants where I have written the wine list. He has a great palate and his portfolio certainly reflects this.  I was impressed with nearly all the wines that were on show today, especially the Champagne Andre Jacquart, Domaine Bruno Sorg – the Sylvaner was awesome,  Domaine Jean-Paul et Benoit Droin ( 2008 Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru has to be the best example of Chablis I have looked at in a long time)  and Clotilde Davenne.

Tim always strives to source  producers who are doing something a little different. He focuses on wine makers making real  wines that represent where they come from, with sound techniques and from vineyards that use organic, bio-dynamic  and sustainable vineyard practices.

Well done Mr Stock on your latest round of imports. All were impressive.  I shall post my tasting notes and I look forward to working – and drinking them in the very near future!!!

Kisses.

MOV xx

All Content © 2010 Mistress of the Vine

Now this is a bottle of Champagne!

Hand me that wine list

Mistress of the Vine is not a feminist, by any stretch of the imagination – however at the moment I am all about liberating fellow women in the world of wine!!

One thing I have often noticed whilst working in restaurants is that women never order the wine ( I touched on this briefly in my last post). I often take this to mean  they are unsure of  how to navigate the wine list and/ or have no idea what the correct etiquette is, as generally it’s their husbands grabbing the list and ordering Sav Blanc for the ‘”girls” and a big chewy man red for the “boys”.

When faced with the daunting task of  ordering the wine there a few rules of thumb. Aperitif to start, champagne or sparkling wine is an excellent way to start a meal or an evening  for that matter. If you’re price conscious look for  a new word sparkling. There are some amazing Australian and New Zealand sparkling/s out  there. Try to remember cool climate is better for sparkling wine  so when faced with the wine list choose a sparkling from the coldest region.

If you enjoy a fruitier or sweeter wine , grab a  sparkling prosseco from Italy. Made from the prosseco grape,  I often find the aroma shows poached pears but it finishes dry and is really yummy. Start with  white for  entree and red with main course.Order lighter wines first  and heavy to follow.

If you like Sauvignon Blanc try an Italian Soave from Verona. This varietal shows lovely tropical fruit on the nose , more banana and paw paw than passionfruit or grab a Pinot Grigio. Pinot Grigio generally has some palate weight, so it will suit you lovers of a heavier style wine.

When faced with red wines do try to take what everyone is eating into account. Protein and tannin structure is a classic food and wine match so if you’re eating steak, an Australian or American Cabernet would be lovely, if your eating fish then a Pinot  Noir will do nicely (some fish go beautifully with red wine but it generally has to be a lighter style  wine for this to work). Old world wines have a habit of being lighter in their structure than our new world counterparts. Chianti made from Sangiovese  is incredibly light, even an Italian Shiraz is often softer and lighter in its structure than a Shiraz coming out of say Australia or South Africa, whereas a Nebbiolo from Barolo will appear to be a lighter wine but it often shows some sneaky and cheeky tannin structure, which can be fun but could also be a little full on for a lighter main course.

Once you hit dessert it gets pretty easy, anything with the word botrytis attached to it will be made  from the delicious nobel rot and will have a syrupy sweet texture and often apricots on the palate. Botrytis suits a richer style dessert or is rather nice with a cheese board. If you’re having a chocolate based dessert, impress your waiter  and ask if they have any PX, which is a spanish sweet sherry called Pedro Ximenez, it’s fairly common, most places will have it in stock and it tastes a little like a sweet  muscat and goes beautifully with chocolate.

However ladies the best advice that I can give you when you’re out for dinner and the chore of wine choosing has been placed upon you. Get the Sommelier, use the Sommelier, ask a lot of questions, that is what they have been employed to do. Trust me, any self-respecting sommelier will love to spend as much time as possible talking with you about what is the correct wine for you to enjoy with your meal.

MOV x

All Content © 2010 Mistress of the Vine

World Wide Women of Wine

Women and wine. The two just seem to go together, don’t they?

We love to drink wine, we talk about wine and cook with wine, but how many of us actually work with wine? There are some amazing female wine makers out there who are true visionaries in the industry. Look at the work of Diana Cullen who whilst looking after 6 children, a vineyard and a family farm moved into winemaking in the early 1980’s and  is leading  the  biodynamic movement in Australia. Look at the brilliant Jansis Robinson who is the  authority when it comes to writing about wine and to top it off there is the innovator in Champagne production Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin who wit,h the help of  her cellar hand in the early 19^th century invented the riddling rack which made the mass production of champagne possible.

So if woman are leading the world in the ‘world of wine’ why is still seen as a male dominated industry? Why when we are out for dinner does the Sommelier instantly hand the wine list to the male on the table ( I have myself been guilty of this on many occasions.)  Why do restaurant guests not refer to the female wine waiters  as Sommeliers but as the “wine girl” invoking images of a Lara Croft like character with a booze bra on and corkscrews attached to her side?

This is a question for the ages I suppose, however I am trying to change this. I am a woman. I work with wine – it’s what I love. Now hand me that wine list.

MOV x

All Content © 2010 Mistress of the Vine

Champagne Salon 1997

The Mistress of the Vine ventured out for her first official outing yesterday. Attending Sydney’s premier wine tasting Walk on the Wine Side.

To cut to the chase by far the winner of the day wasn’t even wine at all! It had to be the 1997 Salon champagne. What an extraordinary vintage this was. If you thought the 1996 was good then their 97 will blow your socks off. “Absolutely delicious” was the header to my tasting note. This vintage truly shows the elegance of chardonnay grown in Gran Cru vineyards in what has to be the best sub region within Champagne.

For those of you who do not know champagne Salon belongs to the Le Mesnil- Sur – Oger sub region within the Champagne. Founded in the early 20^th century by Eugene aime Salon, Salon is a Blanc de Blanc and it is only produced in exceptional years. Since it’s founding in 1921 it has only produced 37 vintages. One cheeky bit of info on this delicious house is that a few bottles of the famed 1959 vintage was kept on lees for 38 years and can fetch prices that I can’t even bring myself to type… one day, little mistress one day!!

All Content © 2010 Mistress of the Vine