DELIGHT WITH THE BEST OF VINTAGES

IDEAL with grilled black-peppered T-bone

David Ellis

EVANS & Tate in the West’s Margaret River have long prided themselves on making their Redbrook label wines only from fruit from the best of Vintages.

2009 was one such vintage: from New Year’s Day the region flourished under 4 months of blue skies and temperatures in the high twenties, with fruit for the 2009 Redbrook Shiraz picked at the end of this period when at its optimal ripeness.

Winemaker Matt Byrne fermented individual parcels from different vineyard blocks separately, racking these to either new or older French oak barriques or hogsheads. “This provided a diversity of options for blending,” Matt said. “Perfect barrel maturation was achieved by matching barrel types to each parcel of fruit and removing the wine from the barrel when ideal structure, texture and integration had been achieved – whilst also ensuring fruit character was at the forefront of the wine.”

Pay $37.99 and enjoy this one with a grilled black-peppered T-bone.

NEW Zealand beauty to enjoy with spicy Thai seafood

ONE FOR LUNCH: Naysayers told Peter Yealands the land he’d bought in New Zealand’s Marlborough district was too rugged for viticulture, but defying their gloomy forecasts he turned it into some of the area’s first terraced vineyards.

And he’s not looked back, with his label now one of Marlborough’s most-respected. Search out his 2009 Yealands Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, another of those wines produced only in exceptional years, with fruit for this one being hand-harvested to get only the best extra-ripe bunches, and with 35% then going into a mix of new and used French oak for 12 months and the remainder into stainless steel tanks before blending.

The resultant wine has nice savoury flavours with a mineral finish, and at $30 is one that its maker, Tamara Washington recommends matching with spicy dishes such as Thai seafood.

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