Sparkling Weather, Sparkling Wine - Canberra District Wine Challenge Day 3

After the torrential rain of the Day Two of the Canberra District Wine Challenge, it was with some trepidation that the Merry Four ventured out for Day Three of the Challenge.  We needn't have worried, as the weather featured spectacular crisp blue skies and bright sun which matched perfectly the star of the day's tastings - Canberra District sparklings.

Now I must start off by stating that the sparkling white I purchased on Day Two of the Challenge from my favourite winery to date - Lark Hill - was pretty spectacular but, at $60 a bottle, more of a special occasion tipple with its taste of fresh pears and fine, crisp bubbles.  But on Day Three of the Challenge we switched to the other side of the Canberra District, heading to two vineyards in the Hall area (Surveyor's Hill and Pankhurst), stopping for lunch at Poacher's Pantry (and a cheeky Wily Trout sparkling) and then on to another three vineyards on the fringe of the Murrumbateman area (Gallagher, Granitevale and Jeir Creek).

At each of the cellar doors (other than Granitevale) the sparklings were the stand-out wines, whether of a white or red variety.  Interestingly, the Surveyor's Hill, Pankhurst and Gallagher sparklings were all made by Greg Gallagher of Gallagher Wines and the love and passion of this self-confessed "sparkling fanatic" shines through every drop.  Incidentally, his wife's cheese is also pretty spectacular.

But I have skipped ahead a little too far!  We started with a left turn off the highway towards the cluster of vineyards around the village of Hall, in sight of the Murrumbidgee River valley and fringing the NSW-ACT state border.  Surveyor's Hill, the first stop, had a fabulous view, a well-designed tasting area and cafe, and an owner who happily explained all her wines.  The consensus amongst the Merry Four was that the white sparkling was well worth the buying.  The interestingly savoury port (although I think we're not allowed to call it that now...) tasted like the port equivalent of dark and bitter chocolate.   We didn't stop to try the food at their restaurant but the menu looked good enough to justify a return trip and they had a nice combustion fire which would ensure a toasty warm lunch when the weather gets a little wilder.

I must admit a soft spot for the next cellar door on our trip, just a bit further down the dirt road - Pankhurst Wines with its slightly less "polished" labels but some terrific wines.  Visit for their punchy sparkling white (I bought the very last bottle from the 2006 vintage) and their wonderful reds - the best we've tried to date.  Thankfully, their new vintage is being released shortly.

Like Surveyor's Hill, Pankhurst also has a spectacular view of the Murrumbidgee and a wonderful wine-barrel seating area overlooking the river, in case you feel like stopping and polishing off a bottle before you move on.  While their cellar door was a little less "architectural" than a lot of the places we've visited, the wines are the focus at Pankhurst, and what a focus they are.  The Christobel 2006 sparkling white was well worth the trip down the dirt lane all on it's own, but add to that some truly top notch reds - yes, even I, the white wine-lover, picked up a bottle of sangiovese - and I want to encourage you all to make the trip out to Pankhurst.  At $23 a bottle for the sparkling and $30 for the sangiovese, pick up a few bottles while you are there too.  And the sparkling red was also pretty fab.

At this point our stomachs started to grumble, so we headed back down the highway for Poacher's Pantry.  Now, I have always thought Poacher's was a little overrated.  The staff can be a little on the frosty side and they like to rush you out pretty quickly to make room for bigger groups.  But on this occasion, I was the one who had the excellent meal - a slow-roasted pork belly juicy and then crispy in all the right places.  The platter of smoked meats and dips was also delicious, but the pot pies were on the runny, flavourless side and my friend's salmon was raw in the centre when it arrived, and then nuked in the microwave when he complained.  But, when we raised things with the floor manager, the salmon was thankfully removed from the bill.

While we were at Poacher's Pantry we also tasted some of the wines in their Wily Trout (the expensive line) and Fingerlings (the "budget" line) ranges.  Coming as the tasting did straight after our terrific experience at Pankhurst, the wines at Poacher's were a tad disappointing, especially considering they were priced about $5 more on average than the bottles at many of the better vineyards we stopped at.  Again, I enjoyed the Wily Trout white sparkling, which they refer to as "salmon" as it's got a lovely golden apricot colour... as it turned out this too was made by Greg Gallagher.

Cutting our losses, we headed off to the next cluster of vineyards down the road.  Gallagher Wines was the most entertaining of the day's cellar doors.  As well as making a great sparkling, Greg is also a bit of showman.  For example, when tasting the sparkling shiraz, Greg gets you to nibble at a piece of bitter dark chocolate to show off the potential for matching the wine with dessert.  I walked away with his more expensive Blanc de Blanc 2007 sparkling, having tasted the sparkling chardonnay/pinot noir "Duet".  At $30 and $25 respectively, I would have loved to buy a case - but budgets being what they are, took home a respectable single bottle of Blanc de Blanc.  What restraint!

Next it was on to Granitevale, down an endless dirt road to a rather respectable graded driveway of epic proportions.  As a white lover it was disappointing to turn up to a cellar door to discover that not a single white was available to taste or buy.  The general impression of the red drinkers was disappointment.  Not bad, not great.  Personally, I fell in love with their dogs and occupied myself with dishing out pats and tummy scratches.  Apparently they're famous for their ice wine, but again there was only a pink ice wine to taste and, while it was a perfectly reasonable dessert wine, at $25 a bottle, I didn't feel the need to splash out.

We finished the day off at one of my favourite Canberra wineries - Jeir Creek.  This one is well worth the visit for all its wines.  Yes, I mean all of them.  The whites, particularly the 2011 sauvignon blanc which smells to me of passionfruit, and the new voignier with its fruity pear flavours, were the reason I walked out with a box under my arm.  And for my free seventh bottle?  Well, the sparkling white, "Les Trois Filles" of course.  At $20 a bottle it is both the cheapest and the best of the day, fruity and full-bodied while still being dry enough for my taste, and it's only the third vintage they have yet produced.  To me it smells of saffron and the foods of Morocco... but maybe that's just me?

At any rate, Jeir Creek is the one cellar door where I routinely buy a half dozen on every trip. Mr & Mrs Ducky, red sparkling fans, were also pleased by the quality of the sparkling wine across the board and I will shortly be reporting on a sparkling tasting night featuring bottles of both varieties from all the vineyards we visited on Day Three.  Ten cellar doors down, twenty-five to go!

Three Vineyards and a Lunch

After kicking off the Canberra Wine District Challenge at Mount Majura Vineyard, Jess and I roped two more wine fanciers into the second stage of the Challenge.  Together, the four of us took in a day of excellent wine, a magical fairytale forest of red deathcap mushrooms (left well enough alone by us) and an incredible lunch that we stretched out as long as possible as the light mist turned to heavy rain outside.

There were three very different wineries on the list for the day, all near the pretty village of Bungendore, just over the New South Wales border from Canberra. The wineries around Bungendore sit at a much higher altitude than those around Murrumbateman, which we will visit during future stages of the Wine Challenge. This is reputed to make the wines from this are a little different to the majority of the wineries in the region. The standouts for me were the whites (riesling and gruner veltliner, particularly) from Lark Hill, but we will go into that a little later.

 After the four of us crammed into my tiny hatchback (which had just enough room left for a couple of cases of wine in the teeny-weeny boot), we headed straight for Lambert Vineyards.  Arriving as we did as the mist turned to spitting rain, the warm and inviting tasting room and cafe with it's fire and sunny staff was a welcome sight indeed.

Although all agreed the Lambert labels were a little average, we learned a little lesson about not judging a wine by its label.  Lambert has a broad range of whites and reds, including a sparkling of each colour, and staff that were knowledgable about the range, but also very generous with time and pours.  The general consensus was that the Lambert reds were the standouts and Matt described their excellent shiraz (especially their Reserve Shiraz) as "a punch in the face, rather than a polite slap" - just the way he likes it, apparently!

As a white lover, I enjoyed their 2008 pinot gris and 2008 riesling, which was dry and citrusy (just the way I like it).  Jess and I have hatched a plan to buy their 2008 riesling - already very drinkable - and taste it against their 2004 and 2005 vintages, which are also available and can be delivered to our door. At $25-30 a bottle, this is a well-priced range for a tasty, dry riesling to enjoy with friends.  I was less enamoured with their 2006 riesling, which was sweet and spritzy - not at all to my taste, but we were assured it went down a treat with a nice curry.

As we tasted our way through their range, I carefully watched the food coming out of their kitchen and woodfired pizza oven.  Let's just say that a second visit to sit and eat some of Lambert's food in front of the fire will definitely be on the cards, especially if this atrocious weather continues.

Next stop was Lark Hill Winery where, in addition to tasting their excellent biodynamic wines, we also had a lingering three-course lunch in their airy restaurant.  While we didn't try it, given the weather, they had a lovely deck overlooking the vines which looked like it would be a great place to spend a summer afternoon. The owners try to source as much of their produce as close as possible to the restaurant (including from the nearby farm owned by their 90-year old dad).  Despite the presence of two big group tables around us, the terrific staff provided us with excellent service and the presentation and taste of the dishes was well worth the journey out from Canberra.

We kicked off our lunch with a rabbit terrine and a glass of their sparkling rose, which is on the house if you check-in to their restaurant on Facebook while you are there. I then switched to their incredible 2011 gruner veltliner, which was the standout wine of the day for me.  Rush out there and buy this $40 a bottle drop while there are still a couple of cases left.  I have bought a few and intend on cellaring one of the bottles for the five years recommended at the cellar door.  Bring on 2017!

The others went the steak and red wine route for mains, buying a bottle of Lark Hill's sangiovese which was described across the dinner table as "eminently drinkable".  We finished the gluttony off with pears poached in the house's Auslese riesling and drizzled with caramel sauce and creme anglaise.  The only disappointing part of the meal was when we realised that the rain hadn't stopped while we ate, so we had to venture into the wet to get to the cellar door!

The final stop of the day was Affleck Vineyard and the magical fairytale driveway, arched with pine tree boughs and studded with red deathcap mushrooms.  A small wallaby even greeted us as we turned into the drive and the friendly owners made it well worth the detour off the main road.

Affleck has a neat range of whites and reds at about the $20-25 range, but I really enjoyed their white port, described very accurately by the owner as "christmas cake in a bottle".  Matt and Tanya walked away with a bottle and I have regretted not purchasing one of my own since.

As we drove back down the drive and headed out to the highway for the quick trip home, we all agreed that we could think of no better way to spend a rainy Saturday. The three cellar doors we chose all had distinct atmospheres and generous, friendly hosts.   And what more can you ask for, really? Four Canberra District wineries down, 31 more to go.

Canberra District Wine Region Challenge

I got to know Jess on a very (very) long road trip from Canberra to Echuca.  We were heading to a mutual friend's wedding and the hours flew by as we talked-non-stop the entire journey.  We established a number of key facts.  One - Jess was from Adelaide and had grown up with three incredible wine growing areas at her doorstop.  Two - we both enjoy wine (although Jess knows a great deal more about it than I do).  Three - Jess was a bit concerned about her first winter in Canberra.

As a Canberra local, the answer seemed clear.   What better way to spend the next six months than by introducing Jess to the Canberra Wine District.  When I got home I unearthed my copy of the Canberra District Wine Region Map (you can download it here) - there were 35 wineries on the map.

The Canberra District Wine Region Challenge was born.  35 wineries, six months, two women.  What's not to love?

We embarked on the challenge last weekend and headed out on Majura Road to kick off at the Mount Majura Vineyard.  It's quite a beautiful spot, set in a valley with the vines arcing out up the undulations of the hills behind its cafe/tasting room.  It also looks out on Canberra's truffle farm, which I visited last year.

Unlike the vast majority of Canberra's owner-operated cellar doors, Mount Majura takes a slightly different approach to its wine tastings.  You arrive to a pre-set table with a clipboard providing you tasting notes on their range of wines and a table mat with circles telling you where to pop your glass to indicate which of the whites (and then the reds) that you you wish to taste.  The friendly staff are quite happy to let you taste the full range if you wish - and we did.

The structure of the tasting makes it a relatively formal affair and left us wishing the owner might wander over, pull out a seat and tell us just a little bit more about the place and the wines.  But the upside was that we were left to our own devices to take our time and talk openly about the wines we were tasting.

They also offer some lovely tasting plates.  The one we ordered offered samples of local produce and worked terrifically with the wines we were sipping along the way.  They also have a cheese platter available - and all very reasonable at $15 a platter.

Jess and I found that, despite showing us a very interesting range of whites and reds, we both bought the very reasonable priced white blend at $16 a bottle.  It was easy to drink and at that price, perfect for a wind-down glass of vino when you struggle home and settle on the couch.  I enjoyed the sparkling white but I like my sparkling very dry with fine bubbles.  Jess was less enamoured and, to be honest, when I cracked it open for Sunday night dinner with Mum, it was less spectacular than I remembered.  Still eminently drinkable and it held it's bubbles very well over the next couple of days as I enjoyed the leftovers.

All in all, a lovely way to spend an afternoon with your friends.  Especially when it's raining and miserable outside!