Out Of The Bottle
With David Ellis Jim Wolfensohn WinesWe’ve
long subscribed to the view that the Australian wine industry is made
up of some of the world’s more interesting characters who display a
diversity of interests, pastimes and lifestyles not found in the Old
World – where wine-making is more-largely simply handed down from
father to son or daughter.
Jim Wolfensohn is one such of our
more unusual winemaking characters: Aussie born and raised, he spends
most of his life in New York’s heady world of finance, including
Presidency of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005.
Hardly the sort
of guy you’d find getting down and dirty in a vineyard on visits home
to one of our smaller winemaking areas, Hilltops. But Jim does just
that at his Yabtree West grazing property near Gundagai when not in the
Big Apple, and where he’s mastering a few hectares of exceptional
Shiraz vines.
With the help of Simon Robertson whose family
pioneered the Hilltops region with their Barwang vineyard, Jim
Wolfensohn draws on the local rolling hills to provide reflected
sunlight that harnesses the power of photosynthesis, helping grapes
ripen earlier and reach full fruit maturity at a lower-than-usual sugar
level – much like in Germany, France and Italy.
And he called on
another local, Italian-trained Joel Pizzini to make his 2007 Yabtree
Shiraz that’s a wonderfully European-style wine, rich with deep ruby
colours and mouth-filling flavours of blackberries, black pepper and
aniseed.
Great $25 value with saltbush lamb, roast pheasant or wild mushroom risotto.
One For Lunch
If
you’ve a favourite Indian or Thai restaurant that’s BYO, next time you
visit take along a bottle of Logan’s Orange (NSW) 2009 Weemala
Gewurztraminer. This is a curry-lover’s wine whose spice mirrors that
of the food, while the floral lychee and passionfruit flavours
complement the heat and kick of the curry, much like a fruit chutney
does.
At $18 this is a lovely cool-climate wine for curries and other spicy dishes.
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