A Wine to Blow Gismondi's Tits Off

As Vancouver gears up for the annual International Wine Festival, we full-blooded Aussie-philes are are in for some even bigger treats than usual. The featured region at this year's festival is Australia and one of the side benefits is that the Australia Wine Appreciation Society is calling on an old friend and dragging her out for an AWAS winery dinner.

Jane Ferrari is about as iconic a figure as you can find in the world of Australian wine and she has likely done as much as anyone I can think of when it comes to promoting Australian wine in Vancouver. The first real recollection I have of Jane was a seminar she led for the Wine Festival. She was talking about Yalumba's reintroduction of Viognier to the world and the seminar was called "The Viognier Monologues" - after the hot play of the time ("The Vagina Monologues" if you're not a theatre buff).

As you might guess, this is one witty lady. At tonight's AWAS dinner, she not only gave us the goods on Yalumba (in specific) and the Barossa and Australia in general, but she often had the assembled gang in full out laughter - and example being her history lesson on how the Aussies would likely be speaking Dutch now if the English hadn't been kicked out of the States around the same time the colonization of Oz was taking place.

Equally charming were her descriptions of politicians as "the same bum in a different pair of pants" and the early days of Australian cuisine as "boil, bake and ruin."

I can't recall the question or topic that prompted her bons mots that "they all feel like George Clooney in the dark" but that will be a phrase I'm sure to make use of in the days to come.

The girl knows her stuff though and we were treated to nine wines and four courses. I heard a number of people (myself and Boo included) who commented that this might have been the best meal to be served up at Tramonto restaurant (a frequent location for AWAS dinners). I know that the Smoked Pork Belly Confit with Tomato Spaetzle, Salsa Verde and Chili Chicharron was to die for! They could have continued to bring plate after plate of that dish - along with the two vintages of The Menzies Cab Sauv - and I wouldn't have complained one bit.

The wine I'm going to add to The List, however, was one of the last of the evening and I'm choosing it because you can't currently find it or buy it in Canada. Indeed, Jane announced that the previous night was the first time that the Paradox Shiraz had been in Canada. Naturally, she added that it "blew Gismondi's tits off." ("Gismondi" being local wine scribe Anthony Gismondi.)

1869. 2010 Yalumba - Paradox North Barossa Shiraz (Barossa Valley - Australia)

This is the first vintage of Paradox and it was so named because, like a paradox, this is a Barossa Shiraz that is contrary to what you might normally expect from the region. Not from the school of high octane and heavily oaked wines with huge fruit, this is a "softer, gentler" Shiraz. Paradox is one of the "Distinguished Sites" series that the Yalumba website describes as "wines from venerable and elite vineyards whose provenance have been identified for individuality, consistency and a unique expression of Barossa terroir."

Paradox is "fermented using the natural yeasts from the vineyard and aged with minimal winemaker influence." The website further advises that, while the 2010 growing season started off with some problematic winds while the fruit was setting, in the end many at Yalumba feel that wine lovers will look back on 2010 as being one of the great Barossa Shiraz vintages. Bottled in early 2012, the wine could age for another twenty or more years. Not that I could wait that long.

The dinner was my unofficial start to this year's Wine Festival and I can only hope that the rest of festival can match our dinner. It's quite an effort to corral fifty-plus wineries from Down Under. Here's hoping the Aussies who make the journey to our shores enjoy themselves as much as I hope to enjoy their wines.

As Jane pointed out, "it's a long way from Alice Springs to Vancouver." I, for one, am a happy Bob every time she does.