The Long Apron chef, Cameron Matthews. Photo: Spicer’s Clovelly Estate

Kalleske Wine Dinner

2012 Kalleske ‘florentine’ Chenin Blanc – arrival & amuse bouche

Entree

WAGYU TARTARE, cherry, chocolate, roses & tea

2012 Kalleske ‘clarrys’ GSM

2011 Kalleske ‘old vine‘ Grenache

Main Course

DAKOTA VALE DUCK, berry pot purri, liquorice, fennel & pear

2011 Kalleske ‘Moppa’ Shiraz

2009 Kalleske ‘Eduard’ Shiraz

Dessert

“fortified” HUNCHY PINEAPPLE, gorgonzola, hay cream, pine nuts, white chocolate oil

2010 Kalleske ‘JMK’ Fortified Shiraz

2010 Kalleske ‘Merchant’ Cabernet Sauvignon

The menu integrates antique tastes in exotic combinations tailored for contemporary palates. The dishes have been artfully designed to complement the qualities of the award-winning, newly-released Kalleske vintages.

Spicer’s Clovelly Estate’s two-hat restaurant The Long Apron was recognised as the Best Prestige Restaurant by the QHA in 2011. Head chef Cameron Matthews will put together a three-course menu to compliment the wines. Check out our interview with Cameron for insight into the craft of designing a meal paired to wines.

Spicer’s Clovelly Estate is offering a Stay and Dine Package. Single $299; Couple $397. For accommodation reservations, please phone (07) 5452 1111.

When: Thursday 30th May, 6pm for 6:30pm sitdown

Where: Spicer’s Clovelly Estate, 68 Balmoral Road, Montville

Cost: $99 per person includes bus transfers from Maleny

RSVP: Andrew 5494 2499, email maleny@purplepalate.com

To find out more about this goliath wine, we spoke with Langmeil Winery’s James Lindner. The Lindner family of Langmeil Winery has been immersed in the Barossa’s culture of farming, food, wine and community for six generations.

The Langmeil Winery The Freedom 1843 Shiraz, signed by winemaker Paul Lindner. It’s 27L and it’s heavy.

The first question that everyone asks: “Why?”

JL: We did this one off bottle for the Barossa Vintage Festival rare wine auction. It’s one of the great wine events of Australia and it only happens every two years. It is the rare and unique offerings at the Vintage Festival auctions that make this such a special event. All of the proceeds of this bottle’s sell price were donated back to the region, which makes it even more special.

And this bottle of wine isn’t actually 27L. It was sold with a promise from Langmeil Winery that should it ever be drunk, the bottle can be returned for a refill of the most recent vintage. So it’s actually 54L of distinguished old vine shiraz.

The next question tends to be: “How do you pour wine from a bottle this big?”

JL: When pouring wines from such large bottles we’d round up wheelbarrows, decanters, and lots of wine lovers. I see lots of friends around lunch or dinner tables with their decanters front and centre and once they drink their decanter they would then amble over to the wheel barrow where one mate will lift the handles and the other hold the decanter, slow and steady wines the race and saves every drop for the pleasure of the drinkers.

Wayne Stringer from Bar Barossa suggested using large pipettes to extract the top half of the bottle’s wine glass by glass. There’s about 180 glasses of wine in the bottle!

How many bottles of this size were produced? Is the 27L bottle something Langmeil Winery produces every year?
JL: This is the only one of its type in existence!

If somebody was to crack open this bottle, what kind of drop would they find inside? 

JL: For such a rare and unique bottle we decided to fill it with our most rare and unique wine – The Freedom 1843 Shiraz. This wine is sourced from what we believe is the oldest surviving shiraz vineyard in the world. From our records, this vineyard turns 170 years old this year.

Have you heard any stories of people opening a bottle this large?

I have not heard any stories about opening 27L bottles, but we have personally opened numerous 6L bottles. They age superbly and have been the highlight of some of the great lunches or dinners I have attended.

Thanks so much for your time and wines, James!

The Langmeil Winery The Freedom 1843 Shiraz is available in the Purple Palate online store now. Also check out our prestige Penfolds Grange, Wolf Blass Platinum, and Henschke Hill of Grace.

About Langmeil Winery

Langmeil Winery’s commitment to quality in all aspects is unwavering and any wine that bears the Langmeil name represents the Lindner family’s pursuit of excellence in wine and community. True to the region · True to the community · True to ourselves. As the custodians of these ancient ancestor vines the Lindner family feels privileged and the wine that these vines produce is concentrated pure Barossa.

Cameron Matthews is head chef at The Long Apron. He is preparing a special menu to compliment the wines being showcased at Purple Palate’s upcoming dinner with winemaker Troy Kalleske.

The Kalleske dinner features six wines and a port. So I’ve got the notes, and now it takes a little while for it to come together. I’ve written down the flavours I’d like to match to each wine. It’s mostly reds that we’re working with for the dinner, so it suits my style. Our signature style is very wintery and earthy – stews, liquorice, truffle, hazelnut, really most nuts, and earthy kinds of vegetables – parsnips, celeriac, artichokes. We use a lot of different kinds of ingredients. At the moment we make a lot of ashes. We make a leek ash and a hay ash. We cook a lot of stuff with hay, which is really quite old and traditional.

We’re trying two wines with each dish at the Kalleske dinner, so I’ve got to be careful not to match one dish to just one wine. We’ve got to be a bit more broad spectrum. We’ve got to have components that match both wines while being complimentary on the plate.

What a lot of people do, the traditional way, is you have a dish and you match a wine to it. We can’t do that because we’ve got the six wines, so it’s a bit of reverse engineering. You’re pulling the wine apart, taking the flavours that you’d like to highlight in said wine, and reiterating that throughout the dish so that they work together.

I especially liked the Kalleske fortified shiraz. I might serve it with dessert, and also pair it with the cabernet sauvignon. By serving those at the end, we can do a cheese dessert. We might do something with blue cheese and chocolate. It sounds a bit out there, but it really works. It’s quite classic.

I take it as a real challenge to try and hit the flavour notes that are in the wine. And it’s different now with the range of chocolate we’ve got these days, for example. If 80 per cent chocolate is too strong, you can knock it back to 70 per cent or drop it back to a 54 per cent. Or maybe I won’t use a single origin from Equador, I’ll use a single origin from Madagascar. It’s a cool process. I really enjoy doing it. It makes you be more creative with your dish.

Have you seen the movie Ratatouille? That’s probably the best way to articulate it is when he eats the mushroom after he’s been electrocuted on the rooftop. And then he eats the strawberry and there’s a small burst of fireworks. And then he eats the two together and it’s like Sydney on New Year’s Eve. That’s what getting the perfect wine and matching it is like. The wine can be great and the food can be great, and when you put the two together it just explodes. They do amazing things together.

As chef at The Long Apron restaurant at Spicers Clovelly Estate, Cameron Matthews utilises local produce and Australian flavours to deliver a creative European menu that is second to none. The former head chef at Siggi’s in Brisbane and Restaurant Lurleen’s at Sirromet Winery, Cameron brings a unique passion to his work. “I put my heart and soul on every plate,” he promises.

Purple Palate, in conjunction with Spicer’s Clovelly Estate, will host one of Australia’s top winemakers, Troy Kalleske of Kalleske Wines (pictured). Barossa-based Kalleske Wines has won awards including Best International Organic/Biodynamic Wine of the Year at the International Wine Challenge; 5 stars from James Halliday; and Troy was inducted into the Barons of the Barossa in 2012.

Spicer’s Clovelly Estate’s two-hat restaurant The Long Apron was recognised as the Best Prestige Restaurant by the QHA in 2011. Head chef Cameron Matthews will put together a three-course menu to compliment the wines.

Spicer’s Clovelly Estate is offering a Stay and Dine Package. Single $299; Couple $397. For accommodation reservations, please phone (07) 5452 1111

Troy Kalleske. Photo: Barossadirt.com

Troy Kalleske is the craftsman behind Kalleske Wines, and is recognised as one of Australia’s best young winemakers. He was appointed a Baron of the Barossa in November last year. To many minds, Troy represents the future of Australian wine-making and the organic biodynamic wine movement.

His family has grown grapes in the Barossa for more than 150 years. Troy is the first Kalleske in seven generations to transition into wine-making. In 1998 – well ahead of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) – the Kalleske vineyard was certified as Australian Certified Organic – the first certified organic/biodynamic vineyard and winery in the Barossa.

Organic wine is not allowed to use any synthetic additives such as PVPP, and is restricted in the amount of sulphur dioxide that can be added.

Biodynamics is a holistic method of farming based on the work of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (best known to Australians for the schools and teaching methodology named after him). The health of the soil is of utmost importance. In addition to good organic practices, biodynamic farming relies on special plant, animal and mineral preparations, and the rhythmic influences of the sun, moon, planets and stars.

In practical terms, it means the vineyards are weeded mechanically instead of with herbicides; vines get their nutrients naturally instead of chemical fertilisers; and composts and natural fertilisers (eg. kelp and rock dust) are applied to the soil. Vines are protected from insects and disease through their naturally stronger immune systems or via natural sprays such as worm tea.

Kalleske vineyard. Photo: Kalleske Wines

The winery is self-sufficient with water (which aids the health of the River Murray), and solar panels generate enough energy to power the entire winery.

It tends to mean wines produced in an organic biodynamic environment are more naturally balanced and more authentic reflection of their appellation. It also means less residual chemical creeping into our bodies, and less sulphur dioxide additives to leave us with clingy hangovers.

Troy Kalleske is the guest of Purple Palate and Spicer’s Clovelly Estate at a special dinner. Cameron Matthews, head chef at Clovelly’s two-hat restaurant The Long Apron, will prepare a three-course menu to complement the Kalleske wines being previewed on the night.

Clovelly are offering a Stay and Dine Package. Single $299; Couple $397. For accommodation reservations, please phone (07) 5452 1111

When: Thursday 30th May, 6pm for 6:30pm sitdown
Where: Spicers Clovelly Estate, 68 Balmoral Road, Montville
Cost: $99 per person includes bus transfers from Maleny
RSVP: Andrew 07 5494 2499, email Maleny@purplepalate.com

When: Friday 31st May, 6pm arrival
Where: Bar Barossa, corner Adelaide Street and Macrossan Street, Brisbane
Cost: $120 per person
RSVP: 07 3832 3530, email Barbarossa@barbarossa.com.au 

Tasting

Vino Mobile Wine Tasting

This is easily one of the nicest wine-related apps around. It adds visual cues to the tasting process to help less-experienced tasters understand the complexities inherent in the presentation and flavour of a fine wine. The A-Z of aromas demystifies the encyclopaedia of wine review language. Like a fine wine, complicated multi-faceted substance is harmonised into a delightful product that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Available in the Apple App store for $4.99, and the Google Play store for $3.99

Reviews

Wine Secretary

An archive of more than a million wines from around the world, including 38,000 from the Barossa and greater South Australia. Many entries include winemaker notes and a handful of reviews from international tasters. Save your selections into a My Collection. A note of caution: some of the  wines are poorly categorised. Grant Burge, a South Australian winemaker, allegedly produces wines in Washington State, USA. Oops.

Available in the Google Play store only, $0.99

AG Wine

A comprehensive and well-written guide to the appellations (wine regions) and grapes of the world. It doesn’t list individual wines or vineyards; it’s all about the character and qualities of the region on a macro level. It also rates the vintage for regions by year – 2010 and 2009 were rated 5-star, 2008 was a 4-star vintage, and the shiraz grapes of the Barossa regions receive a glowing review. Purple Palate has Domain Barossa Black Tongue Shiraz 2010 available in our online store for $17.99.

Available in the iTunes App store for $2.99

James Halliday

The app is full of outstanding reviews and recommendations befitting Halliday’s reputation, but the actual app is poorly built.

Available in the iTunes App store, free but with a $14.99 in-app subscription

Tours

Wine Regions of Victoria

A beautifully produced travel guide to the wineries of Victoria. The entry for each winery includes opening hours, varieties, prices, events, food, and the names of the owners and the winemakers. The app’s features allow you to build and organise an itinerary, add notes, and check locations on the map. The app doesn’t go into details about the qualities or tastes of the wines produced in each vineyard. We were disappointed to find South Australia doesn’t have an equivalent tourism app yet.

Available in the Apple App store (for iPhone only) and in the Google Play store, both free

The Barossa is known as one of Australia’s premier wine-growing regions. Winters are cold and the summers can be bloody hot. But the 2011 summer growing season was wet. Very wet. As a result, the ripening process was longer than usual – it finished about three weeks later than usual. However, once vintage began in mid March, April was dry and warm with fantastic conditions to give the vintage a perfect finish.

Greenock Shiraz is a single vineyard wine produced from low yielding Shiraz vines on the Kalleske estate at Greenock, in the North-Western Barossa Valley. Cuttings for these vines originate from a vineyard planted on the property in the late 1800s.

Winemakers Troy and Tony Kalleske worked with the weather to produce a “delicate”, “fine-boned” Shiraz in the Greenock Single Vineyard 2011 Shiraz, as described by Campbell Mattinson of the Wine Front. The wine was cellared in a mix of new and American and French oak hogsheads and left for 18 months without fining or filtration.

What came out of the barrels was deep, rich and full of dark berry and chocolate flavours, accompanied by the delightful peppery notes of a good shiraz. It’s like a velvety fruit cake and hits the spot in terms of taste and price. It’s the kind of wine that will develop further with careful cellaring.

Match it with a hearty beef or lamb dish with heapings of garlic mash and sprigs of rosemary. Delicious.

We’re all out of the 2011 vintage, but two other Kalleske Shiraz vintages are available in the Purple Palate store now for $19.99 and $39.99.

Bitters are what makes the Old Fashioned. The first known bitters were patented in London in 1712 as a cure-all tonic to help settle the stomach. These bitters would be combined with white wine or brandy, often taken as a hangover cure. Around 1750, a bit of sugar and water was added to make the mix more palatable. This combination spread to Colonial America as not just a healthy quaff, but a recreational delight.

The word “cocktail” was first used in print in a New York newspaper in 1806. The newspaper helpfully explained why it made such a great hangover cure: “A person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.”

All drinks using this template were called “cocktail” for years and years. It would’ve been “Rum Cocktail” or “Brandy Cocktail” or “Whiskey Cocktail”. As the 19th Century marched along and all kinds of new cocktails emerged with unique identifying names (Martinez, Manhattan, Martini), people came to ask for this original version as the “Old Fashioned” cocktail. The bar at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky eventually standardised the Old Fashioned – specifying bourbon as the preferred spirit.

As the century turned and Prohibition restricted access to “the good stuff,” people took to adding all kinds of adulterants to make the drink less awful: muddled oranges, cherries, lemons – even pineapple and mint on occasion. Long after the Prohibition era had ended, people got their hands on copies of old 19th Century recipe books that called for the original, simple style of spirit, sugar, water (as ice) and bitters – with just a little hit of orange oil that perfectly unifies the caramel and vanilla of the bourbon with the holiday spices of the bitters.

Recipe

• Spirits: Overproof bourbon whiskey, such as Wild Turkey
• Mixers: a simple sugar syrup
• Accents: Angostura bitters, a twist of orange rind

Holding the twist with the outside facing down over a short glass, pinch to express orange oil into the glass. Reserve the twist for a garnish.

Into the glass, add: 3 dashes Angostura bitters and 15mL sugar syrup.

Add two to three ice cubes then 2 shots of bourbon whiskey.

Stir briskly to blend and chill. Insert the orange twist as a garnish.

Tip o’ the hat to Dave Stolt’s incredible Home Bar Basics for the research and recipe.

Vodka is often considered as one of the few spirits that, depending on how it’s made, can essentially have a rather flavourless taste, making it easy to drink and perfect for mixing.

But what makes vodka this way? Why can it be both such a potent spirit but also have one of the most subtle flavours out there? In today’s blog, we explore vodka’s key components and how these lend to its famously tasteless nature.

What is vodka made from?

A common statement many people make is that vodka is made from potatoes. While this is certainly correct for certain makes, the ingredients – or key components – can differ depending on the individual makers’ choices. In fact, most vodkas these days are made from a different series of grains, including the likes of corn, wheat, sorghum or rye. However, other ingredients that can be used to make vodka include:

• The aforementioned potatoes
• molasses
• soybeans
• grapes
• rice
• sugar beets

However, while grains prove to be the more popular product for making vodka, the European Union, as well as countries that make up the Vodka Belt (much of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe) have considered the idea of making rules as to what ingredients should be used for the spirit to rightfully earn the attribution of being vodka. For this, they say the ingredients must comprise of either grains, potatoes or sugar beet molasses. However, these rules have so far not become law.

Overall, vodka is defined by a dual mix of water and ethanol, which lends to its typically tasteless quality. By design, it is supposed to act as a spirit that isn’t hard to enjoy as neat shots or to be mixed into other drinks (e.g. a cocktails such as a vodka martini).

The defining ingredients of vodka do differ from country to country. While European distilleries are much more puritanical in the sense of how they produce their vodka, other countries aren’t.

In the US, for example, a large majority of vodkas are made from 95% ethanol that are produced in mass quantities by large agricultural-industrial giants. From there, the same product is distributed to different companies who then filter and distill in their own ways and is then sold under these different bottlers. This means that a lot of the US’s vodka starts its life in the same place and is only defined by different filtering and distillation processes.

However, while this may seem odd, one of the common attributes of most vodkas around the world is that they are comprised of 40% pure ethanol and 60% pure water. When combined, it means that most vodka products the world over sit at around 40% in terms of alcoholic content. While discrepancies do exist between different vodka products, these discrepancies have actually perplexed scientists who note that, by rights, most straight up higher-end vodkas should be almost impossible to discern from one another.

Are there any other important points about vodka you feel deserve a mention here? Be sure to share them with us in the comments below.

As Purple Palate is a proud supporter and seller of a wealth of wines from the Barossa Valley region, we thought it was only appropriate to write up a quick history of how the Barossa Valley came into being.

The region’s name is derived from the Barossa Ranges, which was named by Colonel William Light in 1837. Light had fought for Britain in the Battle of Barrosa back in 1811, and named the range in memory of Britain’s victory of France. However, the “Barrosa” name changed to Barossa due to a clerical error.

Unlike other wine regions in Australia, Barossa Valley is unique for having a strong German influence. Back in 1841, three ships were chartered to Silesia (Poland) and offered refuge for anyone who would help colonise Barossa Valley. In total, around 500 families – in particular German refugees – went.

It was in the valley that farmers discovered the land was ideal for viticulture (winemaking). The early years saw a lot of trial and error as farmers tried to make wine. During these early years, they mainly focused on the production of a German wine known as Riesling.

As the years progressed, fortified wines became big in the Barossa Valley, with Shiraz ultimately becoming their true key focus while Riesling reduced in production. Shiraz proved very popular and maintained its hold as the chief produced wine for numerous decades.

Barossa Valley’s popularity took a hit during the mid-20th century when other wines grew in popularity and Shiraz consequently became considered commonplace. The likes of Cabernet Sauvignon emerged as a rival favourite. As a result, less wine was produced in the valley at this time.

However, in the 1980s, a number of boutique wine varieties began being produced. Of particular note was Barossa Shiraz, an award winning full bodied red wine that also contained rich chocolate and spice notes. It received international recognition and is, to this day, the defining wine of the Barossa Valley.

Nowadays, notable commercial wineries such as Wolf Blass and Yalumba produce a significant amount of their wine in the Barossa Valley. Along with that, Shiraz is not the only focus, with these other grape varieties also being produced:

• Grenache
• Mourvedre
• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Chardonnay
• Semillon
• Riesling

With such a rich history, we can’t wait to see what the future holds for our much loved Barossa Valley. If their current wines are anything to go by, it’s going to be a very bright future indeed.

What’s your favourite wine? Does it come from the Barossa Valley? Let us know in the comments below.

* Image source: GOC53

At Purple Palate, we love selling products from some of Australia’s most unique and ambitious wineries and breweries.

In today’s blog, we take a look at Fog City Sangria, an inspired adaption of the classic wine punch that is sure to offer you a unique taste and experience.

Fog City Sangria

Fog City Sangria is the creation of Victorian-based brewing company East 9th Brewery, and is the first of their range to delve into the world of wines. Their other products include a pale lager, alcoholic ginger beer and cider.

However, while many bottled forms of sangria can often times can be considered a cheap alcoholic beverage intended for those who like sweet drinks, such as alcopops, Fog City Sangria does not fit into this category. It is a well fleshed-out sangria through and through, with just the right amount of sweetness to give it a defined taste without it ever running the risk of becoming sickeningly sweet.

Just like many of the East 9th Brewery’s other products, their sangria deviates from the norm, but is also inspired by a point of American history. As their sangria is another one of their Fog City products (the other is their cider), Fog City Sangria is inspired by the free movements in San Francisco where communes would move through people’s backyards, collecting fruits as they went.

Here is an excerpt of the story told for Fog City Sangria:

 …Guerilla Theatre and the Death of Money Parade were spreading their knowledge of Che Guevara throughout Fog City and beyond the Red House, we were forming communes. We hunted, not just in search of food, but for anything we could reform… riding bikes made from old pipes…. skill-sharing for transport, food and medical. We borrowed from the city’s fruit trees and picked from the valley’s grape vines to create a red sangria that we drank all year round while we worked on exposing the Invisible Government’s…

Since its beginnings, the East 9th Brewery has set out to create beverages that trigger a sense of nostalgia within those who drink them. You don’t need to understand points in America’s history to enjoy the memories the brewery is trying to inspire. Their Fog City Sangria is no different.

Here at Purple Palate, we sell Fog City Sangria because we simply believe it’s too unique in design, taste and inspiration not to support.

If you would like to purchase a bottle (or few) of Fog City Sangria, be sure to visit your nearest Purple Palate or purchase it through our online store.