The Wine Blokes

You are browsing the archives of 2008 April.

Shop Online 4 Books presents a new range of wine books with titles from Oz Clarke and Matt Skinner, this literary range hosts such helpful titles as “Wine for Dummies“, “The World Atlas of Wine” and “Oz and James’ Big Wine Adventure“. There are also a number of reference books for enthusiasts and academics.
For those […]

Species:
Vitis vinifera

Also called:
(more)

Origin:
Monferrato, Italy

Notable regions:
Montferrat (Italy), California, Australia and Argentina

Notable wines:
Barbera d’Asti, Barbera del Monferrato, Barbera d’Alba

Barbera is a red wine grape variety that is either the most- or second most-planted variety in Italy.  It gives good yields and can impart deep colour, low tannins and (unusually for a warm-climate red grape) high levels of […]

Almost all wine you buy at your local wine store, even those labelled organic or biodynamic, will have some additives. It ’s a common complaint by many a tippler, that they don’t drink wine as it gives them a head ache. Apart from the fact that a bottle or more for yourself will do that […]

Pedro Ximénez (also known as PX and many other variations) is the name of a white grape grown in certain regions of Spain, and also a varietal wine, an intensely sweet, dark, dessert sherry. Pedro Giménez (Pedro Jiménez) is a widely grown criolla variety in South America whose relationship to Pedro Ximénez is uncertain, as […]

Eden Valley (34°38′S, 139°05′E) is a small South Australian town in the Barossa Ranges. It was named by the surveyors of the area after they found the word “Eden” carved into a tree.  Eden Valley has an elevation of 460 metres and an average annual rainfall of 716.2mm.
Eden Valley gives its name to a wine […]

A Wine Bloke and the guys at Smithbrook take a look at some interesting Sauvignon Blanc from the Smithbrook Vineyard, just prior to harvesting.

A look inside one of the most important pieces of equipment during vintage. The Grape Press.

There are many machines and equipment that is used in the winery and most are full of gleaming stainless steel. One of the machines that captures peoples attention (people always stop and stare), is the Rotary Drum Vacuum Filter, or RDV. Please excuse the winemaker enthusiasm, as it seems only we get excited about […]

The Smithbrook Vineyard
Planted in the late 1980’s, the Smithbrook vineyard was set up for producing premium wine by WA wine identity Bill Pannell and is now one of Pemberton’s oldest vineyards. As different owners became involved, the emphasis switched towards fruit production for other wineries, but this changed back to the original quality vision […]

 
As all the whites have now come into the winery, we spent most of today tasting and grading all the Sauvignon Blanc juices.  All have been racked and and the bottoms filtered and kept at about 2 degrees C prior to seeding with yeast for fermentation.
The grading of the juices is one of the critical steps […]