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Bay leaf and ... bull ants? Tasting a $1000 wine · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday July twenty three, twenty twenty six. Taxpayers are
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  Speaker 1: being slugged for a huge blowout in the cost of
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  Speaker 1: home batteries subsidized by the federal government. It was budgeted
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  Speaker 1: for two point three billion, but now likely to cost
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  Speaker 1: eight and a half billion dollars. That's because homeowners are
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  Speaker 1: installing much bigger batteries than the bureaucrats expected. That's an
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  Speaker 1: exclusive life now at the Australian dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: Labour's national conference kicks off in Adelaide this morning and
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  Speaker 1: there'll be Barney's about Indigenous affairs, Palestine and pretty much
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  Speaker 1: everything else. Party Elder Wayne Swan will tell the faithful
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  Speaker 1: to stop fighting one another and even the Coalition and
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  Speaker 1: focus on one nation as the main threat. Penfold's Grange,
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  Speaker 1: the most highly sought after Australian wine, hits shelves today
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  Speaker 1: at just under one thousand dollars in a new release
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  Speaker 1: that has our senior wine writer seriously excited. Today, Nick
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  Speaker 1: Ryan on the most wonderful and the worst wines He's
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  Speaker 1: ever tasted.
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  Speaker 2: This wine effortlessly will last half a century in the cellar.
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  Speaker 2: After a trip to Europe in nineteen fifty he came
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  Speaker 2: back with the idea of making a red wine that
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  Speaker 2: would last for at least twenty years. Well, it was
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  Speaker 2: so different to anything that had been produced before that
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  Speaker 2: was simply quite a natural thing for the experts to say,
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  Speaker 2: my god, what's this.
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  Speaker 1: Nick Ryan is the Australian's senior wine writer and he's
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  Speaker 1: one of the very few people in the world who've
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  Speaker 1: been lucky enough to taste the latest release of Penfold's Grange,
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  Speaker 1: the much prized Australian chara as that has collectors rushing
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  Speaker 1: to the bottle shop this morning to snap up the
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  Speaker 1: latest vintage. Nick, tell me about what happens at a
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  Speaker 1: Grange tasting and how you got to taste the twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty two vintage that's out today.
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  Speaker 2: It is out today and it is the seventy fifth
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  Speaker 2: release of Australia's most famous and most significant red wine
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  Speaker 2: so ever since mat Schubert first released Grange and one
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  Speaker 2: fifty one to screens of middling confusion. Basically, the story
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  Speaker 2: of Graham starts with a wimpo rather than a baby,
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  Speaker 2: but if you look at it now over that time
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  Speaker 2: it has become the most anticipated release in Australian wine
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  Speaker 2: each year.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, I tasted it five weeks.
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  Speaker 2: Ago in Adelaide, where all of those of us still
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  Speaker 2: clinging onto a wine writing career are gathered in the
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  Speaker 2: one place. It's a bit like it's been like the
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  Speaker 2: budget lock up, the boozehounds clear beiges together, but it's
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  Speaker 2: all into the one round and we're told everything is
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  Speaker 2: under embargo until right now.
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  Speaker 3: But it's an amazing process.
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  Speaker 2: It's always a fascinating thing because you know, I'll taste
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  Speaker 2: a lot of wine in any given year, but something
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  Speaker 2: like Grange, over time, you know, has built a pretty
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  Speaker 2: good understanding of that wine. I've been lucky enough to
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  Speaker 2: taste every one of them ever made, so you can
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  Speaker 2: when you see the new release, you not only see
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  Speaker 2: what it is for an impressive wine in and of itself,
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  Speaker 2: but you see it as part of a continuum of
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  Speaker 2: a great Australian wine story. And that's important thing about
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  Speaker 2: Grains is no Grains exists in isolation and exists in
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  Speaker 2: relation to all those that came before it.
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  Speaker 1: You wrote, in fact last year about the Grange release
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  Speaker 1: that the thing that wine writers can bring in what
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  Speaker 1: seems like a really difficult job is translating a physical
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  Speaker 1: experience into the written word. That what you can bring
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  Speaker 1: is context. This year's Grange you've described as taught and muscular,
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  Speaker 1: surefooted and drenched with the kind of ferm tannons that
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  Speaker 1: look towards history. You've given it ninety eight out of
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  Speaker 1: one hundred, and real wine collectors rate these Granges according
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  Speaker 1: to the score out of one hundred. It means a
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  Speaker 1: lot when a writer like you gives it a high
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  Speaker 1: school like that. What does that mean? How do you
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  Speaker 1: rate it in terms of the really famous Grange vintages
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  Speaker 1: like nineteen fifty three and twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I will go back to how you started
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  Speaker 4: this question and talk about being a defficult job and
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  Speaker 4: apologies to all the emergency room nurses that may be watching,
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  Speaker 4: or the primary school teachers, or the paramedics or the.
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  Speaker 3: Deep sea divers.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are challenges to this job, but I'd never
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  Speaker 2: call it a difficult one, but occasionally a dangerous one.
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  Speaker 2: You do look at it as a wine and it's obody.
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  Speaker 2: You also look at it as a grange, and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: you have the scoring slightly modified in that way as well.
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  Speaker 2: I think there may be some who might even go
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  Speaker 2: a little higher than my ninety eight points on this wine.
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  Speaker 3: Because it is a seriously great bottle of wine.
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  Speaker 2: I have spent the last year spent some time working
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  Speaker 2: a book with Pentils with the Rewards of Patients, where
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  Speaker 2: they've been an international tasting panel together and we look
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  Speaker 2: at all the wines they've made over the last fifty
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  Speaker 2: sixty seventy years and open them all and it's a
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  Speaker 2: health chair for collectors of these wines. And so I
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  Speaker 2: always think that Great Range is a wine that is
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  Speaker 2: going to be very impressive on release, but is really
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  Speaker 2: going to show its greatness and where it sits in
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  Speaker 2: the pantheon with fifteen twenty twenty five years in the bottle.
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  Speaker 2: So it's a good motivation to make sure I'm around
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  Speaker 2: her to have a book at this one in twenty
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  Speaker 2: five years.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the way people buy Grange too, not just collectors,
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  Speaker 1: but people buy it for on the birth of a
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  Speaker 1: babe to drink at the baby's twenty first birthday party,
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  Speaker 1: and they buy it for a wedding gift, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's very meaningful to Australians ordinary Australians and wine collectors too.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just going to read you some of the things
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  Speaker 1: you wrote about this wine. The taste that you identified,
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  Speaker 1: dark berry characters, coffee, crema, cocoa nibs, the dark bits
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  Speaker 1: in roasting pans, bay leaf and fennel seeds, blants crushed
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  Speaker 1: on split slate. When you're writing about wine, are you
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  Speaker 1: trying to conjure up the tastes that's in your mouth?
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  Speaker 1: Or are you are you trying to conjure up an
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  Speaker 1: overall kind of feeling and a kind of you know,
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  Speaker 1: the sense of romance or the sense of sort of
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  Speaker 1: sensory overload that you get from a wine.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it's both, I think, and trust me, I
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  Speaker 2: know from the good people who take the time to
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  Speaker 2: comment on my weekly column online that nothing raises eyebrows
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  Speaker 2: more than a particularly poetic tasting note and this idea
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  Speaker 2: that the people that don't necessarily do it for a living, who.
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  Speaker 3: Think, well, how can you find all that in a
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  Speaker 3: glass of wine?
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  Speaker 2: And I think you need to have at first an
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  Speaker 2: analytical approach and just to assess the wine on quality
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  Speaker 2: and to see that all the things that should be
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  Speaker 2: there are there and in the right ratios. But then
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  Speaker 2: I think you need to have the heart of a
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  Speaker 2: poet to try. Great wine should be an emotional experience.
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  Speaker 2: Great wines should be something that engages not just the paletate,
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  Speaker 2: but engages the mind and the heart, because it is
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  Speaker 2: capable of doing that. So I'll probably lean into that
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  Speaker 2: more than some others I know, for those who are
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  Speaker 2: long time readers of wine commentary in the Australian, and
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  Speaker 2: then who have spent a lot of time reading the
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  Speaker 2: work of James Halliday, as I did too. James is
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  Speaker 2: a beautiful writer, but an analytical taste there and was
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  Speaker 2: more direct in his assessments.
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  Speaker 3: I tend to think that if a really.
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  Speaker 2: Great wine can't inspire a little bit of poetry and
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  Speaker 2: flights of fancy, and maybe it's not doing its job properly.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think a good wine taster has an
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  Speaker 2: analytical process but also a little poetic heart.
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  Speaker 1: We're in an age now where, of course Penfallds Grange
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  Speaker 1: is flying high, but a lot of other parts of
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  Speaker 1: the Australian wine sector are struggling. We've seen vines being
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  Speaker 1: ripped out on the Australian. We've got a younger generation
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  Speaker 1: who are not drinking as much at all of anything
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  Speaker 1: as maybe we were at their age.
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  Speaker 3: That we were starting pretty high stating its back in
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  Speaker 3: a day.
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  Speaker 1: Clearly, I don't know. I wasn't drinking a lot of grange,
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  Speaker 1: I've got to say. But where are we at in
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  Speaker 1: terms of the Australian wine sector. Noting that you've been
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  Speaker 1: tasting for the Australian some very expensive and some very
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  Speaker 1: cheap wines lately, what's happening? What's the big picture?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I've been working in one for thirty odd
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  Speaker 2: years now and there's no question. Look the head win
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  Speaker 2: these Australian wine faces now a stronger than they've ever been.
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  Speaker 2: But wine is a cyclical business. It's a fashion fickle business.
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  Speaker 2: And we had been through boom and bus cycles before,
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  Speaker 2: but this one, I think is structural. The Australian industry
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  Speaker 2: expanded further and wider than maybe it needed to and
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  Speaker 2: got a little bit excited about becoming this perpetual supplier
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  Speaker 2: of oceans of wine to the rest of the world,
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  Speaker 2: and that's not panning out as people back in maybe
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  Speaker 2: the early nineties and the successful days of the early
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  Speaker 2: nineties thoughts. So there's a contraction coming for sure, and
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  Speaker 2: there's going to be some pain over the next few years,
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  Speaker 2: but we are going to emerge from this with a
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  Speaker 2: smaller Australian wine industry, but I think a more sustainable
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  Speaker 2: and more capable Australian wine in this street, because bottom
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  Speaker 2: line is we're making the best ones we've.
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  Speaker 3: Ever made, and that is undeniable.
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  Speaker 2: If you taste as much wine as I do, you
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  Speaker 2: see what is happening out there in our wine regions.
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  Speaker 2: The wines we're making that are better than they have
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  Speaker 2: been any time that I've been working with wine. And
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  Speaker 2: we have some of the oldest vineyards on the planet,
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  Speaker 2: and this continent is the oldest dirt on Earth where
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  Speaker 2: grapevines take route.
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  Speaker 3: So if you think that the.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting thing about wine is how wine translates where it's grown,
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  Speaker 2: then the story of this amazing country and it's amazing
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  Speaker 2: vineyards is a story that people are going to want
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  Speaker 2: to hear it and keep wanting to hear it, and
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  Speaker 2: we've just got to keep telling it.
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  Speaker 1: Coming out how cheap plank cheats us all. I had
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  Speaker 1: great fun reading you tasting some of the cheapest wines
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  Speaker 1: you can get your hands on. It was very, very entertaining.
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  Speaker 1: What was that like for you as someone who does
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  Speaker 1: take this seriously and it is your vocation.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Look, and it was kind of penance because the week
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  Speaker 2: before I'd written about the wines of the Bandela rominiq Conci,
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  Speaker 2: the most prized wines on the planet, you know, thirty
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  Speaker 2: three thousand dollars a bottle.
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  Speaker 3: That kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: So how do I show that I haven't completely disappeared
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  Speaker 2: up my own backside? And I went to the local
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  Speaker 2: bottle shop in the country town in South Australia where
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  Speaker 2: I lived, and I bought the three cheapest wines on
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  Speaker 2: the shelf. And it's kind of depressing, really, and it
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  Speaker 2: goes back to just what we were saying that. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the cheapest wine I bought was four dollars and thirty
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  Speaker 2: cents and I kept the receipt. I haven't put it
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  Speaker 2: into expenses yet. I thought I'd just wear that one myself.
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  Speaker 2: But I think there's more than four dollars worth of
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  Speaker 2: wine soaked into the cork of a bottle of grains
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  Speaker 2: it's been lying on its side for a year or two.
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  Speaker 3: Then there is in that entire bottle.
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  Speaker 2: And this country should not be making four dollars bottles
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  Speaker 2: of red wine.
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  Speaker 3: We can't.
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  Speaker 2: No one's making any money out of that. The shareholders
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  Speaker 2: are a big company that's producing it occurrency, how they're making money.
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  Speaker 2: The growers of those grapes certainly aren't making any money.
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  Speaker 2: And this country is, you know, look too fragile.
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  Speaker 3: And it takes a.
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  Speaker 2: Lot of water to make good wine, and it takes
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  Speaker 2: just as much water, in some cases more water to
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  Speaker 2: make bad wine. So you know, there's more than four
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  Speaker 2: dollars worth of water and a four dollar bottle of wine,
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  Speaker 2: and that just doesn't make sense to anyone. So I
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  Speaker 2: think we've got to be more considerate of, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the fragility of this country that we find and I
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  Speaker 2: think wine great four dollar bottle of wine, that's just
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  Speaker 2: a problem. That's a bit of a death spiral for
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  Speaker 2: everyone concerned. So and it tastes like us is there
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  Speaker 2: is the other thing, Clare, It just really does. I
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  Speaker 2: don't deny anyone the chance they had.
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  Speaker 1: To drink better off having a hard solo.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Look, you know what, we can probably get something from
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  Speaker 2: Chili or southern Italy or something around roughly the same price,
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  Speaker 2: and then you look at it, you go to Europe,
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  Speaker 2: and you go to the supermarkets in Europe and you
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  Speaker 2: can buy decent two three euro bottles of wine in
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  Speaker 2: the supermarket. And I think that's part of a European
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  Speaker 2: tradition where bottle of wine on the table is almost
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  Speaker 2: like human right, whereas in this country it's always been
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  Speaker 2: more of a middle class indulgence. But yeah, I think
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  Speaker 2: we can still have affordable bottles of wine available for
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  Speaker 2: those people that need them, but I don't think they're
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  Speaker 2: going to be made in this country, and we need
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  Speaker 2: to lift our sites.
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  Speaker 3: A little higher.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Nick, good to see it. Clan
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  Speaker 1: Nick Ryan is the Australian's senior wine writer. You can
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: read his work every Saturday day in The Australians Weekend
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: magazine and all the time at the Australian dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot a u