Winestate Magazine

Me neither! In this awful Putin’s war that is going on it seems appropriate to give them a leg up revealing their wine history. Our European Editor, Sally Easton MW does that in her column in this issue. Sober reading! Other columns and features include Clive Hartley with wine education on clones and crosses, Elisabeth King tells us that Rheims is not just Champagne but also a great tourist destination. We also feature a four page overview on Austria’s southern wine regions of Lower Austria and Wagram (part 2 next issue). Meanwhile Winsor Dobbin continues his comprehensive roundups on his usual Briefs plus this time background information for our Wines of Victoria, Riverlands of SA, NSW and Victoria and Clare Valley regions. For our signature judging this issue we take on the king of…

DRINK AND DONATE FOR NEW TREES HOWARD PARK WINES has released a new exclusive collection, Arbor Novae, and a partnership with environmental charity Carbon Positive Australia. The new range is available exclusively to the West Australian winery’s Wine Club members. The Arbor Novae range is designed to highlight terroir through regional characters in the glass, but also through active reinvestment back into the land. For every bottle of Arbor Novae sold, $1.50 will be donated to Carbon Positive Australia. This initiative will help support local tree planting and landscape restoration for a carbon positive future. Founded in Western Australia, Carbon Positive has restored degraded lands Australia-wide through ecologically sensitive planting for over 20 years. Through its work, the charity has planted six million trees and captured 665,921 tonnes of carbon. The name Arbor Novae means “new…

VINTAGE 2022 IT’S true that no two days are the same, and even truer that no two vintages are. Covid rather than weather loomed over 2020’s harvest, 2021 had the dream combination of no covid and perfect weather, albeit with smaller yields, but 2022 brought with it covid and challenging weather (for most). February and March heralded New Zealand’s first serious community spread of coronavirus and the Omicron wave crashed into a harvest already running short on labour. Julz Brodgen, owner and winemaker at Collaboration Wines in Hawke’s Bay sums things up, commenting, “It was an interesting harvest. The combination of the challenging weather patterns coupled with staffing issues due to Covid posed a tricky season for all involved. Vineyard sites that were well-tended to and ripened at the ideal time to dodge…

IT’S impossible not to be caught up emotionally around the war in Ukraine, but this piece will attempt simply to offer an overview of the country’s wine industry, focusing on the historical and viticultural angle. Ukraine’s wine industry has recent-historically been rather closely connected to Russia, as a key style-driver and export market. Of the ex-Soviet republics Ukraine was the second biggest grape grower, after neighbouring Moldova, so production and trade have been connected for some time. In terms of natural geography, while much of Ukraine is too cold, and continental, to grow grapes successfully, it also has some good grape-growing territory, notably the lowlands around the Black Sea, which provides an important warming influence on the neighbouring lands. Odessa is on the same latitude as Burgundy; Crimea (annexed by Russia in…

FANCY a soupcon of Solaris, maybe a splash of Souvignier Gris, or how about a glass of Vodic? These might not be household names, and some might sound like brand names of drain cleaner, but if global warming continues unabated maybe we will see more of them. Together with Artaban and Floréal they are hybrid grapes that are being planted in Europe. A hybrid vine is formed where two different species of grapevines are combined to create a new species. Usually this was done with the European vitis vinifera and American vine species. A famous red hybrid in Australia is chambourcin which was bred in France in 1963. Vidal Blanc is another hybrid and is used in Canada to produce ice wine by famous producers like Inniskillin Niagara. They were breed…

WINE touring in Europe was on hold for Australians until late last year because of the global pandemic. This Northern Hemisphere summer offers the chance to get back to old haunts or visit iconic wine destinations for the first time. There’re few better options to kickstart an indulgent few days of food and wine appreciation than Reims, the capital of Champagne. The city at the centre of the world’s most famous bubbles is very walkable, so many choose to take the 45-minute train from Paris rather than book a rental car and limit the amount of glasses they can enjoy as they visit the large and small Champagne houses. The first place of homage should be the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Reims. The city was badly damaged during the First and Second World…