July News

Friday Night Special

The Friday Night Special

Back in 2001 we had a problem. We had a few barrels of Shiraz and Cabernet that we just didn''t think fitted into the style of our premium releases but being strapped for cash we didn''t want to simply leave them in barrels. At the same time we had a couple of hundred litres of our first Merlot - not enough to bottle but quite nice.
So what we did was to blend them all together and create a Cabernet, Shiraz, Merlot blend that we called "Humpers Dry Red." We released it for, as we recall, around $8.00 a bottle and it sold remarkably well and in fact it turned out to be a pretty nice wine; so nice that we did it again the next year, and the next.
Along the way a restaurant in Sydney discovered the wine and offered to take a pallet of it if we changed the name - "Humpers Dry Red just won''t sell to ladies who lunch," they said and so the Waterhole Blend Cabernet, Shiraz, Merlot was born.
Throughout all those evolutions the idea behind the wine has remained the same. It is always made out of the batches of Cabernet, Shiraz and Merlot that are softer and sweeter than our premium wines and it is always blended to be a soft, smooth, easy drinking red. We call it our Friday night special - the wine that you pour for yourself when you get home on a Friday after a true b. of a day and just want something to ease the pain; a wine that''s pleasant, fruity, undemanding, enjoyable.
We make no inflated claims for it. We don''t send it out to wine writers for review. We don''t enter it in shows. But it is our house wine, the one we drink ourselves and we go to great care to ensure that subject to unavoidable seasonal variations, each new blend is the same as the last. Of all the wines we blend, this is the one over which we take the most trouble.
This leads us to last week, because last week a bottle fell into the hands of the wine reviewer for the North Shore Times. Here is the conclusion to what he wrote:

"It won''t make the earth move for you, but at $13 a bottle you''ll be glad you discovered it."

We couldn''t agree more. As we said, it''s a Friday night special.
 To order on-line now click here.

Whites selling out

Whites selling out

Our 2008 Semillon is getting to be in short supply. Since the Hobart Mercury review demand has been strong and we are also keen to put aside twenty or so cases for ageing. Our best guess is that we will run out around the end of August so if you are interested in a really lovely wine that makes Sav Blanc look like the pretender it is and, what''s more, a wine that will continue to improve for at least the next five years you should order now.
So what happens when we run out? Hopefully we''ll be releasing our 2010 Semillon soon after. We''re not going to tell you too much about the 2010 Semillon now except to say that it''s very much in the same style as the 2005, 2006 and current release 2008 and that we are very excited about it.
Our 2008 Chardonnay is also running down. Chardonnay is a dirty little secret these days. People don''t like to admit that they drink it but it is still one of our best sellers. What''s more, the other secret is that our Chardonnay like our Semillon seems to improve with up to five years of bottle age.
The 2010 replacement is scheduled for release at the same time as the Semillon and like the Semillon we''re very excited about it. Just for fun a couple of months ago we entered the unfinished wine in the Cowra Regional Wine Show (they have a category for unfinished wines) and we were delighted when it was awarded the equivalent of a bronze medal - unfinished wines do not qualify for formal medal awards. However there''s one thing we have to confess. In the making of this wine we came to a point where we were stuck. We quite liked what we had but we could see that somewhere in the wine there was something better; we just couldn''t find it. So we sought help from another winemaker. He has asked us not to name him but he comes from a well known winery and we spent half a day in his laboratory running various taste trials. He came up with a very simple and fully organic process that brought out the full quality of the wine but it was a process we had never used and barely heard of before.
We are learning every day and it''s great that we can learn from fellow professionals and that they are willing to share their knowledge. It''s what keeps Australian winemaking great.

To order on-line click here.

Canowindra News.

Finalists have been announced for The Inland Tourism Awards,and both our businesses, Tomswaterhole Wines and Balloon Joy Flights are finalists.  We are very proud to be included in this prestigous event and from Canowindra''s point of view we have five local finalists out of 42 state wide so that''s a big achievement for the local area. The award presentation ceremony will be held at The Temora Aviation Museum on 24th July.

Graham and Jan have also secured Canowindra to host  the 2011 Australian National Balloon Championships. The announcement has been made by The Australian Balloon Federation with the dates being set as 11th to 20th April 2011, which is just during the school holidays and just before Easter. Canowindra can expect a huge economic benefit from this event with about 180 extra people needing to be accommodated and fed for ten days. Not to mention the spectators who will come to watch the amazing spectacle of 30 balloons in the air competing for the title of Australian Champion. To see details of the evolving programme watch this page.

The date has also been set for the Third 100 Mile Dinner in the main street of Canowindra on Monday 10th April the day before the Balloon Championships start.

Good Drinking

Graham, Graham and Jan