Consider yourself an expert on Aussie wine? Able to identify the characteristics of a Rutherglen Fortified, an Eden Valley Riesling, or a Semillon from the Hunter? Think you know the difference between a Shiraz from the Barossa, McLaren Vale and the Grampians? Then you should be a star when you take Wine Australia’s Regional Heroes Tasting Challenge.

If taking the challenge is a little too daunting, or you don't know all that much about Aussie wine then click on the Taste Chart and drag and drop the different wine styles to learn about their characteristics.

UPDATE: I made one error for each of Barossa Valley GSM, Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc, Margaret River Chardonnay, Grampians Shiraz, Yarra Valley Pinot Noir, and Great Southern Riesling. Not bad but 14/20 correct ain't fantastic. I take some consolation in the fact that my errors are with wines that I have not seen a lot of, except what's with not knowing Margaret River Chardy?

Its unfair, but irrespective of its diversity Australian Shiraz very often gets tarred with the same brush. More often than not they are called big, oaky, fruity wines that have outrageous levels of alcohol and come in bottles invariably labeled with some animal. Those with this opinion almost always have very little knowledge or experience of the diversity of wines that the Shiraz grape can produce in Australia. It is also quite obvious that those who hold this truly naïve opinion do not live in the land down under. That gives them an excuse because only a few rays of the full spectrum of Aussie Shiraz ever leave the shores of the island continent.

Fortunately attempts are being made to change this narrow perception of Australian wine. You can navigate your way around Wine Australia’s discussion on the Regional Heroes of Australian wine. Its not specific to Shiraz but you are guaranteed to learn something about Australian wine, or you can listen to Australian wine writer Campbell Mattinson talk about the regional characters of four Shiraz wines from different regions. The best part is that all four are under $20AUD. Less exciting is the possibility that most are unlikely to be available outside Australia. It can’t be helped. Australia does not export all its best wines.

To be quite honest I have tasted few Mondavi wines and purchased even less and have none in my cellar. On my few trips to Napa we have driven by the Robert Mondavi Winery, admired its singular presence in the valley, but never ventured past the gate. But then I must also confess that I never had many wines from the Rothbury Estate, the Hunter Valley winery which once had the famed and much loved Len Evans as its Chairman. I was never fortunate enough to meet either of these giants of the wine world. Actually that should really be giants of New World wine because both, pretty much over the same time period, were intent on advancing the growth of wine and wine appreciation on either side of the Pacific Ocean. Mondavi built Robert Mondavi Winery in 1966 and in 1962 Evans had become Australia’s first wine columnist. As the Mondavi reputation grew in the 1970’s so did the Evans’ wine shop and restaurant Bulletin Place; where Jancis Robinson noted “the people who by now constituted the beginnings of the Australian wine mafia” would gather.

There are great similarities between these two men. Both labored against significant odds in their quests to have the wines of their country recognized as world class. Both had their wine endeavors disrupted by those searching for the quick buck rather than the accolades of wine drinkers. Both saw wine as a world wide enterprise. Most importantly, both had the foresight to realise that education was the way of the future for wine. Mondavi’s ventures in this sphere eclipse those of the more pragmatic Evans. Mondavi played a significant role in the establishment of Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, in the city of Napa, and was the major benefactor for the soon to open Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis. Evans was a major mover and shaker in the revamping of the Australian wine show circuit, leading to great improvements in Australian wine. But perhaps his most lasting contribution will be the Len Evans Tutorials at which carefully selected young Australian wine makers/tasters are expsosed, over a number of days, to some of the finest wines of the world so that they can appreciate not only the world of wine but Australia’s place in it.

Robert who? There will be those who ask that question. They won't be the same as those who asked Len who? None of us can know all that there is about wine or the individuals involved, but as the giants who carried much of the weight of bringing wine to the masses leave us, the question must be asked. Who will replace them?

When contemplating the question, what does good pinot noir smell and taste like, it is extraordinary how when you look through a couple of dozen reference sources, so few actually have anything substantive to say on the issue at all. Most immediately slide into the history and geography of Burgundy, the classification of the vineyards etc etc. Sometimes they mention in passing that burgundy/pinot noir is different from bordeaux/cabernet/merlot, but they do not try to put into words why. Few come to the point of characterising the wine. Geoff Kelly, Geoff Kelly Wine Reviews.

The many and varied perfumes of flowers are used frequently in descriptions of the aroma and bouquet of wines. The words used range from the somewhat generic descriptor floral to specific types of flowers like Violet or Géranium. Tom Stevenson lists 15 different flower aromas in his mind-jogging list of aromas and flavors, and that list is by no means complete because it seems that each wine critic has his/her own terminology. One very famous critic uses the term “white flowers” for Australian Shiraz, White Burgundy, and even French Riesling. Doesn’t seem very specific does it? Having spent part of last weekend helping Miranda trim and weed our, sorry her, garden I can state that white flowers, as an aroma, is almost as generic as floral. I smelt white flowers on arugula that needed to be trimmed so it would not go to seed, on several of our citrus trees and even some of the flowering weeds that I was told to remove from a neighbor's yard; with permission, of course. Not a Shiraz among them!

Why the seemingly sudden interest in floral descriptors? Well it is all the fault of the latest article on Geoff Kelly’s Wine Reviews web site. Geoff is, to my mind, the most analytical of all wine critics/writers. He goes after the minutiae of wine especially the smell; for me this is an excellent quality in a wine drinker. And to him “the key factor in fine pinot noir is the quality of bouquet, and in particular the precise floral qualities”. The problem is that Geoff has his own descriptors for Pinot Noir like buddleia in the lighter styles to boronia in wine from riper grapes. I’m no gardener, just the gardener’s helper, so I asked Miranda what was the smell of buddleia and boronia. She said she had heard of them but did not know the smell. I was nosing a 2005 Russian Hill Meredith Vineyard Pinot Noir * at the time and it really would have been helpful to know if the aromas were anywhere near what Geoff seeks in perfect Pinot because this wine was overflowing with what I call the typical aromas of this variety. But I’m like Michael Broadbent when it comes to describing the aroma of Pinot, I find it impossible and I usually resort to something like “spicy Pinot Noir”, and then go looking for forest floor or mushrooms because I’m pretty sure I know those smells. OK, reasonably sure! At least I think………

Now I don’t know whether Geoff is correct in his floral descriptions of Pinot but I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s not likely to be too far wrong. He’s also not wrong in another comment that he made regarding Pinot – “what does good pinot noir smell and taste like, it is extraordinary how when you look through a couple of dozen reference sources, so few actually have anything substantive to say on the issue at all.” I don’t disagree at all. In fact you could replace Pinot Noir by Merlot or Syrah or Tempranillo or Malbec, or just about any grape variety and the conclusion holds true. Most grape varieties don’t have distinctive aromas especially if you look at them across broad geographical regions. For example, the aromas of Syrah/Shiraz from the Rhone and the Barossa can be astonishing different, and even within those two regions, the wines can show an amazing spectrum of aromatic characters.

Is it really necessary, in the appreciation of wine, to correctly identify the smell of a particular variety such as Pinot Noir? Well if charming or ethereal or even feminine fit with how you see Pinot Noir, then I guess not. Me? I’m going to take Geoff Kelly’s advice and spend more time in gardens. Not only will that please Miranda but I might just learn quite a bit about the smell of wine.

* Disclaimer: My wife Miranda has a long standing friendship with the wife of the winemaker for Russian Hill Estate winery, and we consider both personal friends. For me to review their wines may be perceived as a conflict of interest by some which is why I try not to mention the wines on my blogs. I make an exception in this case because the wine mentioned above was the wine that stimulated, in part, this post.

There is considerable evidence that consumption of alcohol can have beneficial health effects, however as we have seen the recommended consumption differs between countries. Here in the USA it is two standard drinks for men with a standard drink being 13.7 grams of alcohol; this is often rounded out to 14. But not all wines have the same alcohol content, usually expressed as percent alcohol by volume (ABV). How much does alcohol content affect the volume of wine that I can drink to get my two standard drinks, or 28 grams of alcohol?

Calculating the volume of alcohol in milliliters (mls) in your wine is quite simple. If a wine is 12.5% ABV that means that 100 mls of wine contains 12.5 mls of alcohol. If its a 14% wine then it will contain 14 mls of alcohol/100mls of wine. However the volume and weight of alcohol are not equivalent; alcohol is less dense than water. So to get grams of alcohol you need to multiply the volume by the density of ethanol (0.789 grams/ml). So 100 ml of a 12.5% wine contains 9.86 grams and for a 14% wine it will be 11.05. The table below shows how much you can drink in standard drinks (5 ounces or 150 ml) or in volume (in mls) to reach that magic number of 28 grams of alcohol for wines between 12.5 to 16% alcohol by volume.

Alcohol by volume*	Alcohol by Weight**	Standard Drinks to reach 28 grms	Volume (mls) to reach 28 grms
12.5	9.86	2.8	420
13.0	10.26	2.7	405
13.5	10.65	2.6	390
14.0	11.05	2.5	374
14.5	11.44	2.4	360
15.0	11.84	2.35	352
15.5	12.23	2.3	345
16.0	12.62	2.2	330

*mls/100mls; **grams/100mls

But what if you want to exceed 28 grams? How much can you consume before your blood alcohol content (BAC) exceeds the legal limit. There is absolutely no doubt that equivalent consumption of higher alcohol wines will increase your blood alcohol content but what are the limits with wines of different alcohol content? For these calculations I have used the BAC from Celtic Kane simply because it allows input of a number of variables including alcohol level of the wine, number of drinks, time elapsed during drinking,etc.

Warning: BAC calculators are an estimate only and no one should assume that they are absolutely correct as they do not consider all factors involved.

As a 750 ml bottle contains 25.4 fluid ounces let’s say that a half bottle is 12.7 and if we pour a 5 ounce glass (150 mls) then we would consume 2.54 glasses; these numbers are all for convenience, anyone can add their own numbers to work out their BAC under different situations. I’ll use my weight (170lbs), a metabolic rate of Frequent Drinker, and an elapsed time of 2.5 hours; roughly a glass an hour which is about the speed I drink while having dinner or watching an hour or two of TV or doing some reading.

If I’m drinking a 13% alcohol wine my BAC would be 0.019. For a 14.5 %er it would be 0.027, and if I’m sipping on a monster Zinfandel or a high octane Shiraz of 16% my BAC would be 0.035. The difference between the 13 and 14.5 % wines is not that large; for example the time to achieve complete sobriety differs by less than 30 minutes. As expected the 16% alcohol wine will raise my BAC more but I’m still not legally drunk and in less than 2 hours I should be completely sober; with the 13% wine I’ll be completely sober in just under an hour, and in less than 1.5 hours for the 14.5%er.

If I drink 4 glasses at 5 ounces a glass then the 16% will make me just legally impaired at a BAC of 0.084, while the 13 and 14.5 % wines will not. But we are talking about daily wine drinking that uses commonsense rather than consumption for its own sake.

Of course all this assumes that the wine level on the bottle label is even close to being correct. A wine labeled below 14% can have a 1.5% variation over or under, while a 14% wine can have a 1% variation. So a 13.9% wine could be a 15.4%er, and a 14.5% wine could be a 15.5% wine.

Considering my own experience I don’t suffer any ill effects from consumption of between 2-3 glasses of (dry) wine per day; I’m sure everyone’s mileage varies on this point. However I would not drink three 5 oz glasses of some of my favorite Australian fortified wines that can be 18% alcohol, even though my BAC would only be 0.063. The reason? As much as I love them, sometimes too much of a good thing does dull the appreciation.

Alder Yarrow, of Vinography, seems quite convinced that it is. On one level I’m sort of surprised that Alder didn’t receive a flood of criticism about this stance; the majority of comments actually support his view. Now to be fair to Alder I have to note that he is not totally against wine and food pairing. He is more concerned with the idea that one individual’s wine/food pairing is not necessarily going to be universally acceptable. Its not an easy task to convince folks that differences in sensory perception between individuals is a significant argument against finding universally appealing wine and/or food. Pairing the two only compounds the problem. It all comes back to that basic tenet of wine appreciation - drink what YOU like. Or in the case of food eat what you like with whatever wine YOU feel is appropriate.

On a lighter note. As is always the situation in discussions on wine and food, the food friendliness of wines with higher alcohol was raised in several of the comments to Alder’s post. I liked his response

I’ll be interested to see what he writes on this.