Today on Movies & Booze in honour of Australia Day, celebrated annually on 26 January, we are going to start the show with a lovely cool climate Australian white wine, exclusive to Lidl.
Australia day celebrates the anniversary of the arrival in 1788, of the first fleet at Port Jackson, New South Wales. Closer to home, we’re sampling a brand new gin from Glendalough Distillery, created using foraged, wild botanicals. Glendalough Distillery invited TV chief, Clodagh McKenna to joint their search in the Wicklow Mountains for wild botanicals to create her brand new gin.
2017 Lidl Premium Clare Valley Riesling €9.99
Stockists: Lidl Supermarkets, Nationwide
Built on the pioneering spirit of Australia's early vignerons, Australia now has thousands of wineries, dotted throughout 65 wine regions across the country. Their unique climate and vast landscape enables them to produce an incredibly diverse range of wine. Vines were originally brought to Australia by the first fleet in 1788.
The home of Riesling is Germany, young Riesling has aromas of honey and lemon backed by a crisp acidity. As Riesling ages it will take on diesel aromas, but the crisp style of citrus fruit will remain on the palate. New World Riesling offers an up-front style of wine with pronounced aromas and good weight of fruit.
Riesling is a wonder of a vine, like Cabernet Sauvignon it preserves its identity wherever it is grown.
Australian wine producers prefer cooler spots for the production of their fine, elegant Rieslings. While being responsible for a dry Riesling style which is highly successful and indisputably their own, the Australians have probably come closest to making wines with the same sort of finesse as a top quality Germany Riesling.
1 ½ hour north of Adelaide is the Clare Valley one of Australia's most picturesque wine districts. Good quality Rieslings are found here. The Clare Valley has a patchwork of cool climate meso-climates which means it is ideal for growing cool climate grapes such as Riesling.
Riesling is a marvellously versatile grape, producing wines from very dry to lusciously sweet. All have the wonderful balance of fruit and acidity and an elegant and racy style. As they are often low in alcohol so they are the perfect wine for anyone watching their alcohol intake. This Lidl Riesling has an ABV of 11.0% IT has lovely floral aromas and flavours of ripe pineapple and passion fruit.
Wine Australia will be holding a consumer tasting at The Mansion House on Wed 30th January, 2019 from 18:00 – 20:00. The event will give those attending a chance to discover wines from some of their most renowned regions, as well as the lesser known. This is also your chance to meet the people behind the wines; a number of winemakers and winery owners will be flying over from Australia to pour their wines and share their stories with the Irish wine enthusiast. The event has partnered with Sheridans Cheesemongers to offer a selection of Irish farmhouse cheeses during the tasting. Tickets are now on sale price €16.87 and can be purchased at this link:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/australian-wine-tasting-dublin-2019-tickets-53853863355
Glendalough Gin by Clodagh McKenna €38.00
10 Years ago at a big consumer food and wine event in Dublin a fellow selling spirits remarked to me “Gin is the new white wine” and we both laughed. Little did I know how true that throw away remark would prove to be. A decade later Gin IS the new white wine and the consumer’s love affair with this aromatic spirit, shows no sign of abating.
The Gin boom is global, in the UK the increasing popularity of gin has seen the number of distilleries in England at 166 nudge past Scotland with 160 for the first time. Here in Ireland the story is much the same since 2014, the number of operational Irish distilleries has risen from four to 18, with a further 16 in the pipeline.
While overall alcohol consumption continues to fall in Ireland, gin has become increasingly popular. According to Nielsen, 2017 saw a 44.3 per cent increase in total gin sales in Ireland (Irish gin and international gin). There was a 40.5 per cent increase in on-trade gin sales and a 47.2 per cent increase in off-trade gin sales.
So what exacty is Gin? Gin, Genever, or Juniper takes its name from the berry with a distinctive aromas which is the core element in the spirit of the same name. Gin is a highly rectified grain spirit infused with Juniper, Coriander seed an other “botanicals” which are distilled for the final time in a small, long necked pot still. Geneve, the traditional Gin from Holland was made using malt rather than grain spirit.
Juniper is a pine scented purple berry, found growing on the hillsides of Southern Europe, mostly in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Sweden. Other botanicals used in the distillation process to create Gin include Coriander seed, Angelica (a root herb from Norway), Calamus, Orris, Lemon Peel, Liquorice Root and Orange Peel.
For the Clodagh McKenna bespoke Gin the botanicals used to create its unique flavour, are all found in County Wicklow. Clodagh choose a selection of wild plants, including Alexander leaf and seed, Douglas Fir, Wood Sorrel and Sea Buckthorn. The flavours from these plants mean the gin has citrus flavours, with a touch of apple and grapefruit.
The Glendalough Distillery was set up by a group of friends from Wicklow and Dublin with a passion for reviving the heritage of craft distilling in Ireland. To make their gins, they forage wild plants from the mountains around the distillery. What's picked goes fresh into the still within hours. All the plants are sustainably foraged by one person, every day they distil. (In fact, they might be the only distillery in the world to employs a full time forager).
They are then slow-distilled in small batches of less than 250 litre to tease out delicate flavours.
Clodagh McKenna is a chef, cookbook author and broadcaster.
For details of a range of wine events check the wine diary on https://jeansmullen.com/
Looking for fine wines, ports & champagnes go to www.celticwhiskeyauction.com
