The Grand Cafe

It’s our fault it had been too easy to export our wine straight to China. Years ago when I went to the UK and Europe there was always a lot of Aussie wine the last few visits I’d noticed there were hardly any. Think they just got lazy.

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As someone who spends too much money on wine and hence drinks too much of it too, good French wine is wonderful but is just too expensive except occasionally on high days and feast days.

Australian wine kind of doesn’t feature in my thinking at all any more. I drink twenty bottles of excellent and quite expensive South African wine and five bottles of really pricy New Zealand wine for every bottle of Australian bought. In fact I don’t even look in the Australian section of our wine store these days. It was certainly a lot different 20 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, where Australian wine was my go to choice.

Sorry about that, but there it is.

Best

David

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Why is Australian wine not your go to choice nowadays?

I don’t know. South African wine can seriously challenge the best French, and I am meaning classed growth Bordeauxs for example. And there are some stunning New Zealand wines to be had. The recent Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc is sensational. As are most Kevin Judd wines. For whatever reason I think of Australian as not for me any more. I think sort of oaky whites and plummy reds. So I don’t look at it these days.

Best

David

Like all countries different regions make different wines, I might be bias but I think Aussie reds are some of the best in the world. A view shared by a lot of wine experts, Penfolds wines are at or n at the top of the list. Also the cold climate whites and good, particularly the bubbles. Guess it’s all personal tastes but I do think that the export market has relied on a easy market in China.

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We’re swapped buy a lot of that Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc while I’m sure there’s good ones most imo taste like passion pop.

Fair enough!

The recent vintages are better and they just won a Decanter magazine award.

By the way I don’t drink pop. I like Sancerre and grand cru Chablis but Cloudy Bay at £23 a bottle in UK is more affordable. I have no idea whether there is an Australian challenger wine, although Clare Valley Riesling can make me pause and take another sip…

I don’t mean to be dismissive of Australian wine at all, and certainly not to be offensive to you Pete, but I don’t think it punches its weight in UK these days.

Best

David

No I didn’t think you were being dismissive at all so no harm. We’re all entitled to an opinion. :+1:

Things change and we change with them.

I used to drink French reds and German whites. Mainly because I used to visit France and Germany via work.

Then some tasty Australian wines appeared on the shelves and took over from the French and German and became a “habit”.

More recently, we found we liked wines from Argentina and Chile and again the “habit” changed.

Meanwhile, the Okanagan wines of BC gained favour (and flavour) over the past 20 years that we’ve spent off and on over there. But we never see those wines over here. Not sure why !

But occasionally, I still enjoy the odd Nuits St George - and it’s full circle so to speak.

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Even on the other side of Canada, BC wines are not well represented. I’m no connoisseur, but I endulge regularly in a few mid priced Argentinian reds that are my go to.

Last time we were in the UK/Europe we found it easy to get wines from South America than Australia. Which is no problem as I generally do not drink our stuff when I’m away for obvious reasons and had some great stuff from all over place.

This wasn’t meant to be discussion for or against Aus wine it was a response to a post by @Ardbeg10y about our unfair treatment my our biggest trading partner.

We found that the most recent Aussie wines were too much alcohol and not enough taste.

OTOH, even Bordeaux seems to be going the same way, and as for the Cotes du Rhône…

Current favourite is NZ’s Wairou Cove sauvignon.

I seem to drink quite a bit of Italian wine, which I enjoy.

Trying the sub on the SN2 whilst the girls are out:

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Much difference? I tried the Naim sub a years ago and wasn’t that impressed.

I’m not sure what the neighbours make of it all…

Yep spot on Pete

Think I’ll be staying indoors with the aircon on today.

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I had nsats with nsub in second system a number of years ago and was impressed. Our dealer says nsub now very sought after.

Indeed - on the dot in Balmain at 41 degrees - hopefully cooler for the AB’s vs Pumas game in Newcastle tonight