Denis C. Bauer

Yesterday, we went to the conventioncenter here in brisbane to see the sport-exhibition. It was quite a dissapointment because it was tiny and the sporting-cloth-specials were the leftovers from at least 4 sales when you can be pretty damn sure that no one wants them. However, while searching for the main hall of the sport-exhibition (because we did not want to believe that we just paid $20 for virtually nothing) we stumbeled into the good food and wine-exhibition. And that was like disneyland for foodies. Two lare halls stuffed with happiness ! Every stand had something to taste and that icludes the wineries! They sold little glasses at the entrance and and one would just step to the desks of the stands hold out the glass and point to the wine(s) of ones choice – even the high end stuff like Taylors Cabernet Sauvignon ($55). We tried at least 20 different wines and that was only a fraction of the ones available. After the first round of wine tasting we moved on to the food are because we needed some solid base for the next round (hard work the tasting…you know) : chilli chicken stir-fry from lilydale.

Some outstanding wines we tasted:

Wise Wine – The bramley – Cabernet sauvignon (2003)
Sorby Adams – Cabernet Sauvignon
Richmond Grove – Weathervane – Cabernet Merlot
Taylors – Promised Land – Shiraz Cabernet

Some outstanding food we tasted:

Bondi Chai – Club Cinamon
Some outstanding people we met:

Amanda Kramer – Wise wines
Shawn Kalleske – laughing jack wines
Mutto

A wounderfull experience that was rounded off with a fortified wine tasting: Two wineries were commentating their fortified wine range. We tasted the starting material (2006) over the decent fortified wines which you can buy in the store to the high end range of wines which are picked in the 1960s. While the young wines are just sweet the 5-6 year olds have a wider taste range. However the step from the youngsters to the normal fortified wines is tiny when compared to the huge difference the 40 year old wines make. Eventhough they had the highest sugar content of all the tasted wines, the other aromas took over and created an amazing tasting experience. My favourite was Buller Calliope Rare Muscat.