On November 3rd and 4th 2012, I had the pleasure of attending the third Australian food blogging conference,?Eat Drink Blog,?which was held in my hometown of Adelaide. I was one of 80 lucky Australian food bloggers who were selected to attend the fun and food filled conference. Our second adventure on day one was a visit to the picturesque d'Arenberg Vineyard and Winery in McLaren Vale, less than an hour from the Adelaide CBD. Here we undertook the Blending Bench experience, blending our own red wines.
One great thing about Adelaide is the fact we have two wonderful wine regions on our doorstep; the McLaren Vale (45 minutes from the CBD) and the Barossa Valley (60-90 minutes from the CBD). If you have some more time up your sleeve, the Claire Valley is approximately two hours away from the city centre.
Upon our arrival we sat down at the tables in the restored 1880 stables. In front of us we found tasting glasses, paper for recording tasting notes, three bottles of Shiraz and equipment that I last saw in my grade 12 chemistry class.
D'Arry, the chief winemaker, welcomed us and gave us an overview of the vineyard and winery. He started to manage his father's winery full time in 1957. In 1959 he launched his own label named 'd'Arenberg' in honour of his mother. Wine fans and judges enjoyed the wine very much and it won many awards in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, d'Arenberg wines had established a name for itself, both nationally and internationally. In 2004, d'Arry was awarded with an Order of?Australia?for his contributions to the wine industry.
d'Arry
Next ?Jack (I think this was his name!!) spoke to us, about the Shiraz bottles on the tables and took some questions from the group in regards to how one properly tastes a wine.
From my notes, it goes a bit like this:
1. Colour - Look at the colour of the wine. If you are in a yellow lit room as we were, hold the wine over some white paper.
2. Swirl - This releases the compounds in the wine into the head of the glass.
3. Smell - Place your nose into the glass and smell. You can take three 'sniffs'; the first will pick up the fruit, the second will go deeper and pick up oak and herbal flavours and the third will pick up the alcohol.
This is Jack, he likes wine too!
The Shiraz in front of us, and with a little more wine?knowledge?than we had before, we set about tasting the wines. My tasting partner was the friendly Bryan from Let's Get Fat Together.
The Shiraz wines up for tasting were:
WINE A
2010 Blewitt Springs Shiraz, Penneys 3, 2003 French oak
My notes: smokey, savoury, spicy, long tenin, cherry, earthy, elegant
WINE B
2010 Beautiful View Shiraz, Big Sand, 1999 American oak
My notes: plum, caramalised, leather
WINE C
McLaren Flat Shiraz, White MS2, 2010 French oak
My notes: leafy, salami
We were then given the chance to blend our own bottle of wine, using the three Shiraz wines we had tasted. We were able to blend three combinations and pick our favourite to bottle. How exciting!
My blend was not too good. It was far too strong and just really bad. However, Bryan did very well and blended a nice combination of the three Shiraz wines. We bottled his combination, which was 60% wine A, 30% wine B and 10% wine C.
MAGICAL CHEMISTRY THINGS!
In order to keep our wine from?oxidizing?too much, it was mixed with some dry ice. It looked quite amazing! See above.
We named our blend, the 'No idea red' because were were quite unsure about what we were doing. But hey, it looks very professional doesn't it? We are now wine makers! Well, not really ;)
After a busy afternoon of blending wine it was then time for something to eat. Food bloggers may not be the best at blending wine, but they can sure eat and photograph it.
Olive things. I do not really know what they were, but they were mighty tasty
Coffin Bay oysters topped with seaweed. My first raw oyster experience! Reminded me of the ocean.
Little dumplings which were filled with pumpkin
Not so sure what this was. It was topped with pork crackling
This was some sort of rice cube topped with mysterious flavoursome food items:)
After re-fueling some of us went into the tasting room to taste other wines on offer. I can highly recommend a certain dessert wine. Yes, I like dessert wine:) The 2010 Noble Mud Pie Viognier Pinot Gris. Wow! So floral on the nose and when you taste it, you've got sensations of passionfruit, pineapple and other tropical fruits dancing on your tongue. Looking at the tasting list now, I should have bought a bottle as it was only $20!
If you would like to try your hand at blending your own wine, the Blending Bench experience costs $60 for a 90 minute session.?So my friends, that was the Blending Bench at d'Arenberg. Thank you to everyone at d'Arenberg for hosting us and the sponsors involved. We had a splendid time (even though?some of us were not so confident at blending our wines).
Where:?Osborn Road, McLaren Vale, South Australia 5171
When: Cellar Door--->Monday - Sunday 10:00 - 17:00
For more information on Eat Drink Blog 3, click?here.
For a full list of delegates, click?here.
I attended the conference event free of charge thanks to Eat Drink Blog and the sponsors.
More tasty posts : conference, d'Arenberg, Eat Drink Blog 3, finger food, McLaren Vale, oysters, seaweed, Shiraz, South Australia, travel, wine, winery
Source: http://fruitsaladmixedveg.blogspot.com/2012/11/eat-drink-blog-3-part-2-darenberg.html
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