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TOP WEEKEND AT CELLAR DOOR FEST 17

2/3/2017

The Clare Valley area buzzing on Saturday afternoon

- A Productive Exchange for Visitors and Exhibitors Alike!

From the Original Post on the Events Page on Feb 28th.

It was a great experience meeting everyone that came by our stand over this exciting weekend - both new and returning customers from last year. Those ordering wine will be notified as their order is despatched for delivery. If you have any queries feel free to call on 0415 971113. Some have scheduled in delivery for a later date and this has all been taken on board.

RIESLING FORTES AND MOSCATO
An extensive range was on offer for tasting so there was something there for everyone that came by. Each of the different wines found some fans somewhere along the line. The Riesling fortes generated a lot of interest and the Lime Fresco probably came out the most popular of the three on this occasion. The Nebbiolo wines including the sensational Moscato style continue to open a few eyes.

VIOGNIER AND REDS
The award winning Viognier is the quiet achiever immediately recognisable as a rare style for accompanying almost any food and generally appealing to Chardonnay and reds drinkers. The Wine #9 is always a winner for reds fans and people love the smoothness and complexity of this big wine. The price is still holding at $44 and so this is a great option for that special occasion or to introduce to a friend. The McLaren Vale Shiraz tends to get a bit overshadowed by the Wine #9 but is still a tasty and aromatic cafe style with good length of flavour, quality in it's own right and pretty easy on the hip pocket at $18.

BUDGET OFFERINGS
Some of the budget wines were rolled out this year including Puppeteer Semillon Sauvigon blanc, Charisma Sparkling, and Cock&Bull Chardonnay and Merlot. The latter are offered in mixed vertical vintage six-packs as are Shiraz and Shiraz Viognier. If you want to order any of these you may customise your own six-pack or dozen using the Order Form. There aren't too many of these back-vintages left now.

CELLAR DOOR
Cellar Door tasting options for individuals and tour groups have been developed and improved over the last year and of course at such a festival there were many enquiries about this. Ask about booking in your group for an exclusive private tasting at the Riverton Railway Station. For this unique experience advance booking must be made, and groups of 12-60 people may be hosted there. Please note however that the Riverton Railway Station is a private residence and not open to the public for casual visits.

For smaller parties of around 2-12 enquire about our regular Private Tastings in Adelaide, and keep in touch with Social Club events. Stay in touch via the TimsWines facebook page (icon at top) or join the mailing list if you haven't already, to get first hand news of developments, offerings and specials.

PRIZE DRAW
Entries were open for a prize draw for a couple of bottles (closed on Feb 28th) to be announced shortly on the TimsWines facebook page. For the months of January and February, anyone buying two bottles or an order over $40 was eligible for a draw. The prize being two bottles the equivalent status of the purchase to which they bought up to value $48. Those buying one bottle of Wine #9 will be eligible to win one bottle of Wine #9 or another two bottles of their choice.

WINE COCKTAILS
The Meet the Maker session on Sunday introduced the wine cocktails concept. Rare wine styles made from Nebbiolo and Viognier are utilised for some stunningly flavoured vibrant and refreshing aperitivo drinks. The three varieties of Riesling forte Mandarin, Lime and Lemon are used for a citrus twist. These drinks are great not just for summer but all year round. Our suggested recipes can be used as a basis to mix for your own and your guests' tastes.

At this Bar Drinks session some of the base components were introduced (Nebbiolo Moscato, Riesling forte) along with four pre-mixed cocktails called the Lemon Lime Splitter, Cinnamatiser, The Verve and Salisbury Sunrise. More details on all of these recipes and how they may be ordered as a Bar Drinks pack will be available shortly. However the recipe and pack for The Verve is already available. It's important to note that all of the drinks components are excellent in their own right and you may prefer to not always mix them and just enjoy them on their own.

Lots of information was gathered over the weekend and this will lead to some new product offerings and combinations. In particular one or two visits were made to 'The Distillery' looking for new possibilities with wine cocktails. This is a really interesting area for exploration, and keeping up with Black Stump Social Club events is a must for those interested in these sorts of drinks. The dedicated BSSC facebook page is one way to go here. You may also take a look at the Shopping Page to learn more about wine cocktails, or refer to a Previous Blog.

For next year's event March 2-4, 2018 it is anticipated to show three new red bottlings from January this year, as well as at least a couple more additions to the Bar Drinks range. Most importantly we look forward to catching up with a few regular customers and introducing ourselves to a few more. So put this date into your calendar now and we'll see you there!

Cheers,
TM

Riverton Station

Railway Carriage No 2 - Tasting Room

THE VERVE and Ingredients

Water Tower and Goods Shed

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Drink of the Month Dec/Jan: THE VERVE

14/12/2016

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In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are a few.
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Master

THE VERVE and Ingredients

It's taken awhile, but this is a pretty nice drink..

__For quite some time now a lot of work on the tasting bench has been carried out on the idea of wine cocktails. It might seem like a simple thing but pretty much like everything, it's only once you get started that you realise what you don't know. But gradually a few fundamentals of the concept have been settled upon and some good drinks are starting to evolve.

STYLE
The catalyst for this idea is the unique, intriguing, and supremely versatile Nebbiolo Moscato which has very many fans once they've been put onto it. To read more about this wine including a review from a couple of years ago you can go here. Many people tend to brush off Moscato as something of a throw away wine for those that don't know any better. And to be fair, many winemakers/accountants make these sweet styles with the same attitude, so perhaps the criticism can to some extent be justified.

Not so at the House of Stump where sweet styles are respected similarly as in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, where many different wine styles find a place in the course of the day or with the seasons. After all, a bottle of wine is just one glass each between four people (sacrilegiously not counting standard drinks), so we can allow ourselves the privilege of a quarter of an hour in a day for a good sweet and frizzante wine which provides a great opportunity to lighten up for a few moments!

In actual fact the Nebbiolo Moscato is possibly the most technical wine style in the Black Stump stable with exact levels of carbonation, a pressure tested bottle, and a certain amount of good judgement required to achieve the correct sugar/acid balance as with any sparkling wine. It is today's technology that opens up the possibilities to make these wine styles with confidence. Not a hit and miss affair as in Italy many years ago where these styles containing sugar had a limited shelf life and would have to be consumed probably within a year.

MIXOLOGY
Even though the Nebbiolo Moscato isn't as sweet as most Moscato or soft drinks, a lot of the effort in designing the drinks has been about how to make the wine cocktails taste drier. For this purpose the award winning Black Stump Viognier, and Nebbiolo have been used. The Viognier enhances softness and aromatics, whilst the Nebbiolo adds intensity and a little more tannin. They are both bone dry and so the sugar content of the base can generally be halved.

It's important that the wines harmonise easily with each other and these three seem to work very well together. Perhaps because they all came, for the most part from the same vineyard. Maybe it's because Viognier and Nebbiolo are supposedly genetically related at some level. Certainly it is a factor that the same person yours truly made all of them and something to do with the wine finishing, each wine complete and enjoyable in it's own right and more amenable to blending.

The flavour components over the base for this drink are Mandarinho and Campari in just small amounts. I prefer Mandarinho which is rounder to work against the Nebbiolo tannin but if you want to use lemon or lime then perhaps a greater proportion of Viognier relative to Nebbiolo would be recommended.

THE DRINK
This is a dry tasting drink although still with about 5.9 g/100 ml sugar by virtue of the Campari which is very sweet and bitter. Just a splash of Campari (5mls instead of 15mls) will dry it our considerably in sugar terms. But a little is essential it helps pull the drink together and gives it an appetising colour. The alcohol level is 14%v/v. The beauty of these wine cocktails is that flavour is not sacrificed with the typically lower alcohols than have many spirits based cocktails. The drinks are longer and more refreshing without the need for dilution with soda water or whatnot.

So this is a drink that might not find favour with a typical moscato drinker who may not like bitter, but in fact with those that favour drier drinks. This is one of my favorites although I still like to drink the Nebbiolo Moscato on it's own some nights after work instead of a beer. For those that don't particularly like the bitter taste at all, then just don't add it - the drink still works.

Finally it's quite intense layering of flavours means that it can handle plenty of ice, and big ice blocks not crushed ice are recommended - the goal is to keep the drink cold not dilute it too quickly. This is not a concentrated spirit where dilution is sometimes looked for by using crushed ice.

Personally, nor do I want to adulterate the blend with fruit or soda water or other cheap mixers. Each of these individual wine components has been filtered for the benefit of the texture and taste, and so my winemaker's somewhat purist mentality is not to want to make the drink turbid again by using unrefined elements - to my mind this would be a step backwards in the process.

RECIPE FOR THE VERVE
For a 150ml Drink on big block ice mix in this order (yes, the correct order is important) ;
Nebbiolo Moscato                 60mls
Nebbiolo Off-Dry                   30mls
Viognier                                 30mls
RF Mandarinho                 15mls
Campari                                15mls max

OR;
Nebbiolo Moscato                  60mls
Nebbiolo Off-Dry            15mls
Viognier                            45mls
RF Lemon or Lime Fresco     15mls
Campari                   15mls max

The components can be bought in a mixed pack for your home bar or entertainment area.
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TOP WEEKEND AT CELLAR DOOR FEST 17

- A Productive Exchange for Visitors and Exhibitors Alike!

Drink of the Month Dec/Jan: THE VERVE

It's taken awhile, but this is a pretty nice drink..

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