WINE


homes overseas


wine expert advice from Toby Peirce.


Amateur enthusiast RUPERT BATES learns about wines around the world, with


This month: AUSTRALIA Getting married in a winery on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and it was love at first sight. My Aussie bride isn’t bad either. Until then my knowledge of Australian wines was


limited to the good, but clichéd, Jacob’s Creek, that flooded the UK market. The Hickinbotham winery in Dromana, an hour south of Melbourne, woke me up to Coffee Rock, a sensational 2004 Merlot - intense, velvet and yes definitely mocha. The 2006 Chardonnay Aligote is a favourite of my


wife Kelly’s and it has a marmalade nose Paddington Bear would die for. Try it with cheeses from the winemaker’s platter. The 15-acre vineyard is run by Andrew and Terryn


Hickinbotham and the Hickinbotham family has been in the Australian wine business since 1936, straddling three generations. There are family nuances everywhere with a 2009


Sauvignon Blanc label depicting former Geelong football captain (Aussie Rules to us Poms) David Hickinbotham, while winemaking scientist Alan Robb Hickinbotham, Andrew’s grandfather, has his name on a 2008 Pinot Noir. The artwork of Andrew and Terryn’s two sons Jake


and Cal inspired the label for the Jakcal’s Run Chardonnay. Andrew’s father Ian Hickinbotham was involved in the creation of two great Australian wines Penfolds Grange and Coonawarra Estate Claret (Shiraz). He tells his story in the book Australian Plonky.


England’s Ashes tour to Australia, even if you cannot


get to the cricket, is a great excuse to drink your way round the Test match venues and when Melbourne hosts the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, after England have won inside three days, head out to the vineyards of the Mornington Peninsula, or the Yarra Valley, still bearing the scorch marks of the terrible bushfires. The other wine and cricket parties are to be found


around the Sydney and Adelaide Tests and here is a selection of three wines to sample between innings, with the help of wine expert Toby Peirce of Quaff fine wine merchant (www.quaffit.com) who was himself a first- class cricketer, opening the batting for Sussex.


MARGAN BOTRYTIS SEMILLON 2007, HUNTER VALLEY, £13.99


Rupert Bates: An overdose of liquid honey and a hint of apricot. You want to pour this dessert wine over a pavlova and take it to bed. Amber nectar, but thankfully nothing like Foster’s - that lager for good reason Australians export, but would not dream of quaffing at home.


Toby Peirce: The Hunter Valley, a couple of hours’ drive north of Sydney, is justly famous for brilliant sweet wines made from Semillon, the variety used for Sauternes in Bordeaux. In truth its heat makes it hardly ideal for


24.Homes Overseas


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