This week I ‘ave been mostly drinking...

Susan Ross, Logistics Manager – Last week saw us hosting a wine tasting in our retail shop for Grant Burge wines, presented by Mark O’Bryen, Master of Wine and representative of Grant Burge Barossa Valley Australia.

The wines were superb!  Australia has fallen short in favour over the last few years with the majority of people being put off by big powerful Chardonnay’s full of oak and red wines with alcohol percentages going through the roof!  I am delighted to say that this is not the case with Grant Burge wines.

The whites are lower in alcohol, around 11.5%, light to taste and pretty easy to drink – the perfect wine for lunch or for whiling away an afternoon.  My favourite between the two we tasted was the 5^th Generation Semillon Sauvignon 2011 – very light to taste, grassy but slightly tropical and lots of zingy acidity....perfect now that the sun is actually shining.

The stars of the show, I have to say, and I’m not a red wine drinker in the main and I tend to steer away from straight Shiraz, but Grant Burge is known as “Baron” of the Barossa and he is famed for his Shiraz...no wonder!  Starting off with Benchmark Shiraz 2011, this is real concentrated jammy, slightly spicy, well made and fantastic value Shiraz at £8.81 – the official tasting note says ‘it is a superbly drinkable and delicious wine’ – mmm, they’re not wrong then! I would’ve been happy to stop here for the rest of the evening, contemplating my impending purchases....but, we were “forced” to move onto 5th Generation Shiraz 2012......ah well, you see, with this one you get even more jam, more spice, more concentration – don’t get me wrong the Benchmark is superb. The 5th Generation simply takes the flavours and textures up another few notches (but only for around £1 more in price!).

Next up, Daly Road Shiraz Mourvedre 2010 – again, superb quality, this is single vineyard stuff and I would say that this one is more complex with rich chocolate, dark cherries and slightly herbal, again really concentrated and a “big” wine, but elegant and silky smooth.

It was great to taste all three of these Shiraz in ascending order.  The “problem” at the end of the evening was which to choose, so I plumped for the middle one, 5th Generation Shiraz.  I know I’ll now struggle to see past this wine and I’m pretty certain it will become one of my firm favourites.

Last but not least, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has to try Grant Burge’s 10 Year Old Tawny. It’s not called Port, because these Ozzies can’t, it’s against the (wine) rules...it, it would be fair to say, rounded off a very pleasant evening and having won (not surprisingly) numerous awards for his 10 Year Old Tawny, some ahead of good old Taylor’s and such like, Grant Burge is as much famed for his “port” (dare I say it) as he is for his Shiraz.  Yes, I will be adding a bottle of 10 Year Old Tawny to my wish list...it kind of reminded me of PX Sherry without the abundance of sweetness, very Christmas cake or toffee apple as someone else described it... but a definite for me (and not just for Christmas!).

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator – This week it was all about beer…Brewdog beer to be precise. And these guys really know their stuff when it comes to brewing a good craft beer.

A Scottish company established by two 24 year olds in 2007, Brewdog has gone from strength to strength – they now have a fancy new eco-brewery that was built in 2012. With seven or so beers in their core range and around nine limited releases there are plenty tempting beers to choose from. All are very different and distinctive, but there is certainly something to suit everyone.

So, starting with the Punk IPA. This is north-american in style with lovely vibrant tropical fruit flavours and a dry bitter finish…it truly is a taste sensation to be savoured! Then there was the 5am Saint Amber Ale. The description for this beer states, ‘A boisterous and uplifting ale, resonant with the Brewdog raison d'etre of uncompromising quality, full to bursting flavour and excessive use of hops. An indulgent beer of gooseberry and grapefruit flavoured flamboyance.’ We couldn’t agree more, this one is lip-smackingly good! Next up was Alice Porter. This beer is all about the flavour – full of rich, smooth hop flavours with a rounded character and just lovely. Finally, it was time to get serious with Barrel Aged 7.7. What Brewdog did with this lager was to take their 77 Lager, brew a batch which was 7.7% then put it into single grain scotch whisky casks to mature for 18 months. Wow, this is a lager, but not as you know it!

The challenge for me and one of my more than willing “helper” friends was to find a favourite, but in the end we decided this was far too hard a task to set ourselves! It was a case of, “Oh, try this one!” followed by, “Oh, this one is really good!” And so it went on…there was just no making up our minds – so at the end of our little experiment we concluded that they are all excellent beers and agreed that we should run the experiment again in a few weeks time in order to validate our findings…well, it’s all in the name of research you understand!

Kieran German, Shop Manager – This week: Clos du Gravillas Sous les Cailloux des Grillons. A blend of seven (organic) grape varieties, spontaneously fermented, no oak. It sounded weird and idiosyncratic, but not too expensive to take a risk, so I gave it a go. A good decision. Deep and dense in colour, with a brilliant violet hue which clings to the glass. It's a pungent wine to the nose, with earth and spice showing. It has enormous flavour with loads of purple fruit flavours, a dab of orange acidity with honey and marzipan on the finish, alongside dry tannin. Nevertheless, a modest 13% abv. Unassumingly awesome. I'll be giving this some focus in the shop.