No. 52 - March 2006

Winetime 52

Well, what a busy weekend! Had the goodwill AFL match Friday night, and what electric atmosphere of football out at Red Cliffs that was. Followed by celebrations with the Irish for St Patrick's Day with Guinness aplenty at O'Malley's, celebrating Essendon's fine win over Richmond .

Also attended the Mildura Harvest Marde Gras on Saturday evening for a look. And there were some very interesting floats and just as interestingly dressed people present, a very humorous evening.

Ok, back to the wine news at hand. Got some interesting tastings this week, we have a couple from the BRL stable Stepping Stone and Hardys Voyage series. Hmmm should be a good one.

WINE TASTINGS

This week we are going to have a couple of ranges from the BRL Hardy Group. We thought the new additions to the Voyage Series looked interesting for a taste, and both ranges are in the very affordable price ranges.

Remember 4pm to 7pm, Friday night at the Deakin Ave stores tasting area.

Hardys Voyage Series

In 1850, at the age of 20, Thomas Hardy came to the new colony of South Australia from Devon , England . He established a winery on the banks of Adelaide 's River Torrens in 1853. His Bankside winery was the start of an outstanding family wine business that grew to become one of the world's great wine companies.

Tintara was to become the centre of Hardy's enterprise and by the late 1800's was one of the best-equipped and managed wineries in Australia . This success was substantially due to Hardy's initiatives in planting higher quality, lower yielding varieties rather than the coarser, heavier-yielding types more common at the time. His willingness to experiment with and use novel equipment, much of which he designed and built himself, also contributed to this success.

By the mid 1970's five generations of the Hardy family had guided and shaped Thomas Hardy & Sons, overseeing expansion into new Australian viticultural regions and the introduction of technological advances. The great Thomas Hardy legacy lives on today at the Hardy Wine Company. Quality, flavour and character remain the cornerstones of its contemporary wines while respect for Hardy family history ensures the wines benefit from the lessons of long tradition.

OUR PRICE IS $5.97ea

Stonehaven's Stepping Stone Series 

Stonehaven takes its name from one of its vineyards, which originally formed part of the pioneering Hynam Station, established by one of the region's first settlers Adam Smith in 1846.

Since opening, the winery and its wines have won numerous awards, including a number of gold medals at major national and international wine shows and an engineering excellence award. In 2000 Stonehaven was honoured to be named 'International Winery of the Year' at the prestigious San Francisco International Wine Competition.

Though Stonehaven can process 10,000 tonnes of fruit every vintage, each vineyard block can receive individual treatment. Fruit can be soft pressed in very small batches to fully capture regional characteristics.

Through a specially designed computer program, every stage of the winemaker's craft can be managed with a precision previously unknown. Fermentation can be controlled to maximise varietal flavours. Reds are tasted twice a day and whites once a day to monitor their progress.

The result is superbly crafted wines. Perfectly matched to contemporary tastes. Singular expressions of the winemaker's art.

OUR PRICE IS $12.99ea

HIGH RATING WINES

MARKO VERMOUTH BIANCO SWEET WHITE

A clean, well balanced vermouth with pleasant, spicy herbal aromas and a perfumed lift. Good freshness, flavour and length on the plate. (WINESTATE ANNUAL 2006)

Rating 4 stars. Our price $10.47

MARKO VERMOUTH ROSSO SWEET RED

An excellent spicy fruit nose that has a delicate herbal lift. A nice sweetness to the long, soft, clean palate.
(Winestate Magazine 2006 Annual).

Rated 4 stars. Our price $10.47

SPECIALS

Again with the bargains, can't miss these ones……

My apologies for the last couple of weeks, I was away looking after another Fishers Liquor department, in case you were wondering why you stopped getting the Winetime newsletter. I still tried to get to all the tastings, had some good ones again over the last couple of weeks. I hope to see you there this Friday night.

Be safe everybody and I will see you in the near future.

And just a quick shout-out to the Angry Koalas indoor cricket team, congrats on there win last Thursday.

From the team here at Fishers Liquor.

Enjoy the rest of the week everybody and see you shortly.

Fishers IGA Liquor team