by Martin Field

Corked wines are disgusting to drink. Less annoying, but common enough, are wines with bits of cork floating in them. Admittedly, cork crumbs are more a cosmetic than a taste problem but they’re very irritating when you find them in your glass.

My certifiable genius friend Kim, cast his beady mathematical eyes over a number of crumby wines. He observed that cork flotsam and jetsam appear most frequently when he uses a waiters knife to extract corks from older wines.

In the E-vine tasting lab he demonstrated, using a deluxe waiters knife on a 15-year-old bottle of wine, that just before the cork fully emerges from a bottle the waiters knife actually pushes the cork away from the perpendicular.

This leverage bends the wet end of the cork, and if the cork is unsound, causes it to break and shed crumbs. Consequently, small pieces of cork tend to stick in the bottle neck and fragments fall inside the bottle. These then have to be fished or filtered out. Or, chewed and swallowed.

To put it more simply: the structural integrity of a decomposing cork will be compromised as the waiters knife’s vectoring forces simultaneously compress and expand the wet end of the cork in opposite directions. Having lost the springiness of youth, the stressed cork will self-destruct.

Kim’s solution is to use an old-fashioned butterfly corkscrew when opening older wines. This type of corkscrew will extract the cork in a strictly vertical direction, avoiding destructive stresses and strains caused by sideways movement. He’s convinced me.

If you have a strong arm, a simple T-shaped corkscrew will also do the trick.

by Martin Field

I enjoyed a bottle of Laroche Petit Chablis 2004 ($28) the other night. A Chablis of a lesser appellation admittedly, but a lovely aperitif for all that. Not a fruity style but clean, acidic, minerally, without apparent oak and showing lip-smacking persistence. As I poured another glass I wondered why Australian winemakers don’t or can’t make something similar.

Of course, I’m not suggesting we can copy the inimitable Chablis but it is made from chardonnay and we have more than enough of that in Australia to experiment with. But what do we do with chardonnay? We make big, blowsy, buttery, oak-saturated, oily, soft, sweet, alcoholic, over the top wines, is what we do.

In the unrefined circles I move in, these styles are rarely seen on the dining table any more. Many people are sick of them and are more likely to pour sauvignon blanc, riesling, pinot gris or even viognier.

And as for cellaring Oz chardonnay, in my experience it’s a waste of time and space and money. Just lately I’ve opened a selection of aged (six years and more) premium bottles. Mostly, they’ve been disappointing. They lack acid; they display premature brownish hues and oxidative bouquets and are fat and flabby on the palate. Yet rieslings and semillons of similar age are inevitably youthful in appearance and a delight to drink.

Thinks: if I’m going to drink chardonnay, I’ll stick to just-released, unwooded styles, and Chablis – when I can afford it.

by Martin Field

I’ve occasionally been criticised by a tiny minority of readers for not taking wine seriously enough. For, as it were, too much taking of ze peez. In a spirit of détente, ecumenicalism and with good will to all, I henceforth vows to treat all wine matters with a level of appropriate gravitas. Here goes…

‘Let us have wine and women,* mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after’
That well-known clairvoyant Lord Byron wrote the above way back when. Today his words might well apply to the debate concerning the after-effects of environmental degradation and the no doubt related drought that continues to devastate Australia.

A handy barometer of Yarra Valley climate change is the unirrigated shiraz vine in our garden, which has shown signs of stress from water deprivation for the first time in 17 years. The leaves are wilted and browning at the edges; the grape bunches, while plentiful, bear sparse berries and while some show a youthful purple, many are green and scrawny.

Similarly, our tomato plants are dying, the lawn is brown and parched and our sinks are cluttered with buckets, in a foolhardy attempt to recycle greasy washing-up water.

My tastebuds have a brainwave
To cope with the water shortage, I racked my brains for a water substitute. It had to be cheap, non-toxic and with similar qualities to H2O. That is, tasteless, odourless and colourless. Then, while I was absentmindedly sipping such a liquid, my tastebuds had a brainwave (sort of like an organoleptic epiphany – to put it more simply). I’d drawn the magic potion from a four-litre cask (bag in a box) of white wine that a poverty-stricken friend had left, inadvertently, in our kitchen.

It met all the above criteria, and I thought, if Cleopatra could bathe in asses’ milk why should I not shower in cask wine? A wise move. The acid and alcohol have done wonders for my complexion, there is evidence of hair regrowth amidst my monk’s tonsure and people in the street stop to ask me where they can buy the fragrant aftershave I waft onto the breeze as I stroll along the boulevard.

Try it yourself and see. A word of warning though. When I used a bucket of the stuff to wash the car it made the paint bubble.

Bruno of Balmoral sent in this little gem.

Smouldering red dawn
frantic waves quench ash grey sand
like sparkling shiraz

by Martin Field

Mango juice in Peshawar
In 1971, I travelled the hippie trail over land (and sea) from London to Melbourne and stayed a little while in Afghanistan, which was as peaceful as you’d like. We left Kabul late one afternoon in our clapped out bus, heading to Pakistan via the Khyber Pass. Somewhere in the Pass we stopped at a lawless village where fierce-looking Pathans wandered round with rifles and bandoliers. Most things banned in the rest of the world were on sale there. Cheap.

We headed onwards to Peshawar and stopped in the dark by the steamy roadside to camp. Out of the night came an armed local with whom we shared a smoke or two. He looked up suddenly and disappeared into the scrub. Next thing up drives a Pakistani army Jeep with a lieutenant and a couple of off-siders. They told us it was unsafe to camp there ‘Too many bandits.’

Too tired to move on we insisted on staying so they went off and came back later with six more soldiers (and a welcome jerry can of drinking water) and spent the night with us. In the morning, they accompanied us to the next village and took us to the well where they’d got our water. It was full of scum and algal bloom…

I didn’t fancy another glass of sludge so from one of the many stalls along the road I bought what I thought was a bottle of soft drink – it was icy cold mango juice – the quintessence of fresh mango to my dry and bacterially laden tongue. This heavenly mango juice sustained me on my trip through Pakistan. After all these years, I can almost taste it now.

PS I met one of my fellow travellers in Melbourne years later. He too had drunk the scummy water that night and still had an immovable colony of dysenteric amoeba residing in his guts to prove it.

by Martin Field

The Crossings Sauvignon Blanc 2006 – $19 \_/\_/
Marlborough, New Zealand. Nose of lychees and fruit salad. Clean lime juice palate with tangy, citric acidity to finish. Ideal aperitif style.

d’Arenberg The Stump Jump Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Roussanne, Marsanne 2006 – $13 \_/\_/
McLaren Vale, South Australia. Nose of sweet melons and dried pears. Softish, generous white with plenty of fruit sweetness and mild acid. Would suit entrée pasta dishes.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling 2006 – up to $15 \_/\_/\_/$
South Australia. Green-tinged, very pale. Lime blossoms and lemon sherbet on the nose. The palate shows more of the citrus and finishes crisp and dry. Will age gracefully to 2013.

Haselgrove Reserve Viognier 2006 – $25 \_/\_/\_/
Adelaide Hills, South Australia. Bouquet of dried apricots and faint vanillin oak. More stone fruits on the palate are supported by oak toastiness. Finishes firm enough to suit well-seasoned entrées.

Roundstone Gamay 2006 – $20 \_/\_/
Yarra Valley, Victoria. Gamay is the grape of Beaujolais and this wine has obviously been made after that style. Redcurrant jelly hues. Fruity juicy nose. Pleasing medium-weighted palate of ripe raspberries with an off-dry finish. Lovely lunch wine, serve cool.

Allinda Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2004 – $24 \_/\_/\_/
Strawberry conserve dominates the savoury nose. A biggish (14% alcohol) pinot of mouth-filling cool climate berries over a mild tannic structure. Firm, dry and persistent on the finish.

Frog Rock Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 – $25 \_/\_/\_/
Mudgee, New South Wales. Plummy nose with a hint of liquorice and oak. This is a generous red showing more plumminess in the mouth along with pleasant savoury aspects. Assertive tannins, upfront acidity and a long finish augur well for the dinner table.

Wolf Blass Grey Label Shiraz 2005 – up to $40 \_/\_/\_/\_/
McLaren Vale, South Australia. Deep crimson coloured. Attractive spicy peppery nose. The palate is thick and chewy with intense blackberry fruit and mocha to follow. In a word, scrumptious.

Spitbucket rating system
Five gold spitbuckets \_/\_/\_/\_/\_/ – brilliant
\_/\_/\_/\_/ – classy
\_/\_/\_/ – first-rate
\_/\_/ – good stuff
\_/ – spit it!
An added $ or two denotes excellent value for money.

by Martin Field

Down the road apiece, just over an hour’s drive southeast of Melbourne, lurks West Gippsland, a relatively unsung region producing fine Victorian wine. On a day trip there in late October, I learned that the area is not only the source of fine cheese and asparagus (85% of the Australian crop), but that it also hosts some 20 and more up-and-coming wineries.

However, according to the geographically challenged boffins who created the Australia Geographic Indications appellation, some of the wineries at the Melbourne end of West Gippsland are in the Port Phillip zone. What would they know?

Gippsland, I was already aware, produces some great pinot noir and chardonnay but on tasting a cross-section of current reds and whites I was surprised to find examples of sauvignon blanc that could eventually challenge the classics of New Zealand and the sauvignon blancs of other, better-known Australian regions.

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Puffed sangers in the electric samosa maker
by Martin Field

Our resident genius R&D chef, Beery Mag, has created yet another culinary mistresspiece. She calls it ‘Electric sandwichmaker leftover puff pastries’. (No surprise that Beery dropped out of her copy-writing course early.)

This is one of her variations on the theme. Defrost some sheets of frozen puff pastry. Heat up the non-stick sandwichmaker – one of those with two square compartments, each divided into two triangular sections. Rifle through the fridge for some non-toxic leftovers.

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Muttonfish at Apollo Bay
by Martin Field

One summer, when I was about twelve years old, I went camping with friends and we set up our tents by a creek near the surf, down Apollo Bay way. Rob and I spent the days getting sunburnt, trying to bodysurf, fishing, chasing elusive crayfish and generally mucking about. To quote Noel Coward, ‘I couldn’t have liked it more.’ While snorkelling below the turbulent water line we scraped from the rocks a number of strange-looking, ear-shaped shells. I thought they were a sort of large sea slug but Rob’s dad Art told me they were muttonfish, which, he said, the locals used for fishing bait.

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China correspondent Ken White reports from Dalian.

‘Hi Martin, My favourite tipple here is Dragon seal 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s about $AU9 but in my opinion is above the rest for everyday quaffing. That said there is a great Cabernet Franc I drink every time I’m in Beijing, the name of which escapes me. [Possibly Changyu? Ed.]

I have only found it in Morels, a European restaurant in the San Litun district where the Embassies are situated. Sells for about 40 bucks in the restaurant. Yantai, which is just across the bay (three hours by fast ferry), is a fast growing wine area and the above wines stem from there.

Forget the whites. Long way to go before they become drinkable.

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