Wine And Food Books Feature

With Paul Ippolito

James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion 2007 – Harper Collins – RRP $32.95.

Well folks it's out now. Yes, this is Australia’s premier wine guide to its wines and wineries, all written by the best and most respected wine writer in Australia – James Halliday. This is yet another epic effort by a man who has contributed so much to the state of the Australian wine industry. Author, winemaker and show judge – whatever role Halliday has taken on he has always excelled be it through the written word, creating wine or else assessing and writing about it.

This is the most up to date, comprehensive and extensive book about the state of Australian wine today – all 784 pages of it. It has no equivalent of its type and provides winery details, ratings for each winery and a total of 5200 wines with tasting notes along with price information, website details etc for some 2176 wineries across Australia. It is an amazing achievement in itself and one that has previously earnt Halliday the honour of being the winner of the 2005 Australian Wine Communicator Award.

As you read, passionate wine buffs will have been loitering outside bookstores to get their copy first so as to see what’s hot and what’s no longer not; winemakers will be frantically flicking pages to see how their wines scored, knowing what a good rating will do for their reputations; the marketing and PR types will be shooting off press releases to all and sundry spruiking the good news and wine retailers will be quoting his scores to customers knowing fully that nothing like a high rating wine by Halliday moves product as well. There is no doubt that James Halliday is very influential in all aspects of the world of Australian wine.

In reality only James Halliday could write this type of wine reference book today in Australia and keep writing it the way he has for so long now. Only he has stamina and discipline of a former lawyer, the boundless energy of a winemaker, the limitless industry knowledge of a wine writer and the tasting experience of a wine judge to put this tome together year in year out. The reality is you probably won’t need any other wine book once you have this volume in your hands. It is and will be the reference on Australian wine in 2006/2007. Go on – what are waiting for!

Balance – Matching Food And Wine – By Lyndey Milan and Colin Corney – Lothian Books – RRP $34.95.

This review is the culmination of a discussion I had with the effervescent food guru Lyndey Milan at lunch one day where I lamented the difficulties that Australian modern dining cuisine posed for me with regard to matching it with the ever increasing range of Australian wine varietals on the market. Indeed for me this is probably one of the trickiest, mysterious yet in the same breath rewarding and fulfilling topics there is when it comes to the topic of food and wine. For folks, there are just as many disappointments as there are success stories when it comes to matching food and wine. Which goes with has perplexed me long and hard for many a time. Indeed the potentially endless combination of one with the other is just mind boggling and the old adage of white meat with white wine and red meat with red wine is just a starting point and doesn’t really take into account the diversity of modern Australian cuisine and Australian winemaking today.

Well in come Lyndey Milan and wine educator Colin Corney who have crafted this interesting and beautifully presented volume that really does put things well in perspective. Together they have combined to deliver the goods in regard to how to achieve balance when matching food with wine. More importantly this is one of those food and wine books that actually goes into real detail that explains why these matches work so well rather than just telling you they should! Not only that but Lyndey and Colin tell us all about how we actually taste wine and food, whilst also giving us a range of delightful recipes to try out and then presenting us with a raft of valuable information on a variety of wine styles, all accompanied with beautiful photography and superb presentation. Flicking through a few pages will have you salivating!

Jamie’s Dinners – The Essential Family Cookbook - Jamie Oliver – Penguin - RRP $39.95.

Jamie Oliver is one of our favourite TV chefs here in Australia. This is not bad considering he is actually a Pom! But there are no surprises really as to why he has been embraced so positively and warmly by Australian audiences based on how well he communicates his cooking talents to us. This cookbook is his compilation of a heap of family dinner recipes that even if you don’t know how to cook, you can just pick it up and have a go at re-creating some of those favourite dishes you were brought up with and make them yourself confidently for your family!

What follows is simple wholesome comfort food aimed at the heart and soul of all of us taken straight from the family dinner table and adapted in the Jamie Oliver way. But Oliver’s not silly, he knows the family dinner table is one nowadays that is no longer a traditional one – one that doesn’t necessarily meet on a certain day at a certain time. Instead he focuses on creating food dishes for us that are inexpensive, realistic, easy to put together and can be created quickly at anytime – all relevant for the modern day family. In doing so, he challenges our fast disposable food mentality and focuses our attention on how quality food can be made with passion, ease and at a reasonable cost. So it’s not surprising you get chapters like Five Minute Wonders along with The Top Ten Dinners as well as Jamie’s words of  kitchen cooking wisdom.

Beautifully presented with easy to follow recipes, all written in the usual Jamie Oliver lovable and unpretentious style. This book is eminently readable with the only distraction being how you will want to put it down frequently to go off and try a recipe. So go on pick up a copy, start reading and soon the Jamie Oliver charm will be working its magic on you as you reminisce about your favourite family dinner.    

Sundown Crossing – Lynne Wilding – Harper Collins – RRP $19.95.

I normally don't review fiction books but this one had the picture of a vineyard on the front so it caught my eye. Further, the cover says it is about the story of a winemaking dynasty, family secrets and revenge (all which further intrigued me). Anyway after flicking a few pages, I also noticed this story was set in the Barossa Valley of South Australia so it was enough for me to take the rare plunge that I do into fiction. And I’m glad I did as this was a really charming and captivating story that starts and finishes in the Barossa Valley and involves a woman’s (Carla Hunter) search for her family’s heritage amongst a tale of disinheritance and in the shadow of the disgrace of her father's former life coupled with her grandfather’s disinterest in her and her son. Amongst all this, Carla Hunter sets out to reinvigorate her father’s old vineyard site as author Lynne Wilding beautifully captures the exquisite details of the changing seasons of wine growing and the trials and tribulations faced daily by our wine growers and wine makers. The plot has lots of turns and twists and is a good easy read for those interested in the genres of wine, rural life and romance.

Good Wine Bad Language Great Vineyards – Esmeralda Wood – Drink Australia – RRP $24.95.

The Australian wine industry is full of great characters. I converse and interact with them every day and each time they amaze me with their humour, stoicness, creativity and tenacity, all focused in bringing together the very best drop of wine they can come up with. Really good hard working human beings who are generous, passionate and love to have a bit of fun. Esmeralda Wood who is a renowned and brilliantly talented photographer has worked the vineyards and wineries across the country recently to put together this gorgeous coffee table tome that typifies some of most well known and interesting wine characters in Australia in a charming innovative new light.

Page after page, we get wonderfully innovative and colourful photography along with interesting interviews with some of our finest. In the process you will find out which one’s most prized possession is a 1953 FJ Holden, who plays bung cricket at their winery, who once shared a glass of wine with Princes Charles, which two have matching shiraz and cabsav number plates on their cars, which winery takes grapes from 56 different wine regions across Australia and which winemaker would like to swap jobs with Princess Mary for a week! At the same time you will see our wine friends rollerblading in their wineries, surfing in their dams and swimming pools, drinking from gigantic wine glasses, playing the tin whistle and using a wine bottle as a golf tee. If you want a great fun loving book that shows us some of our finest winemakers at their creative best both photographically and through the written word, you could do a lot worst than buying this! Go on spoil yourself and have some fun reading it.

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Paul can be contacted by email at Paul_Ippolito@hotmail.com where you can also request to be placed on his mailing list for his wine newsletter.

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