Tasmanian Wine Tasting

[ARRV]

I attended the tasmian wine tasting show in sydney on Tuesday including the bubbles tasting.

Ken I see that you are hosting the Qld event - let me know your thoughts on the sparklies afterwards - I was generally pretty impressed.

Also some of the pinots that were on general display were fantastic

[Ken Gargett]

I attended the tasmian wine tasting show in sydney on Tuesday including the bubbles tasting.

Ken I see that you are hosting the Qld event - let me know your thoughts on the sparklies afterwards - I was generally pretty impressed.

Also some of the pinots that were on general display were fantastic

i think big nick ryan was doing the fizz in sydney and i think that he was also stricken with flu.

would have loved to tasted through the stands but the flu has stuffed things so i could not have tasted anything even if i did.

i did moderate the sparkling tasting but we had such a good panel, i didn't have to do much. had tried almost all the wines before so okay from that aspect.

personally, i think that behind the very best from champagne, tassie makes the best fizz on the planet. it has not yet reached the level of the best of champers but at the lower levels, a lot of their wines are both better and better value. plenty of exceptions either way but if the champenois simply think that because it comes from their vineyards, it is automatically better, they are in for a shock. of course, tassie are not a serious threat to champagne - 35,000 hectares up against about 700 or so making fizz in tassie, though plenty of scope for expansion there.

the late disgorged wines from tassie are seriously brilliant and definitely worth trying, if you can find them. lubiana's 1995, the 'ed carr arras' from 1998, 01 jansz and the radenti from 2000, i think.

wonderful wines.

[Colt45]

personally, i think that behind the very best from champagne, tassie makes the best fizz on the planet.

Ahead of Italy and Spain?

[Ken Gargett]

Ahead of Italy and Spain?

streets ahead. daylight second.

not talking the entire aussie fizz industry, just the fruit from tasmania. spectacular stuff. the champenois themselves actually helped indentify it a while back when it was in its infancy. pol roger and louis Roederer were just two. tassie a very cool place and a myriad of different sites. a decade ago, i thought that marlborough might be best behind champers but they are far too concentrated on sauv blanc to bother much and their fruit perhaps a little too toasty in flavour.

both italy and spain have examples of superb fizz, though both come a mile behind champers for me as far too few. but i don't believe that either place gets the fruit quality they do in tassie. the best are wonderfully pristine, crisp, intense yet delicate and elegant.

[Colt45]

streets ahead. daylight second.

Very interesting. I don't know that I'll be able to find any here. but if I do I'll certainly give it a go. Question: where do the bottles you guys

have mentioned fit in price - wise? I guess in comparison to champagne......

[Ken Gargett]

Very interesting. I don't know that I'll be able to find any here. but if I do I'll certainly give it a go. Question: where do the bottles you guys

have mentioned fit in price - wise? I guess in comparison to champagne......

finding them for americans not very easy. indeed, for anyone outside aust. such a small area devoted to fizz means small numbers at this stage - and the other 'problem' is that many of the bigger fizz producers here, like domaine chandon (our version of the moet offshoot), source tassie fruit for their wines. sometimes this is mentioned on the label but some of the producers don't say where. they can get away with this as long as they just have a generic label and don't claim it is from somewhere else. but it means even less going into bottles labelled tassie.

i'm told norway is a good market, so if you are passing...

aside from norway (i can only assume a norweigan importer discovered them and created a demand), i believe the aim is to focus first on the UK. the USA is too big and too diverse with the need to deal with so many entities that for timy quantitis, very dificult.

price wise, most of the top tassie fizz fall in the A$30 to $50. a few a little more but when you get to the late disgorged styles, a few do exceed the A$100 - given that these are wines that in some cases have been kept on lees at the winery for up to 13 years, not excessive.