Look, look, look, lookin' out my back door.

I'm quite enjoying picking out my favourite songs to listen to while I write my blog posts and do other computer work. Tonight while I was thinking of this particular blog entry, I had a Creedence moment, so the song for this one is 'Who'll stop the rain?'

I'm listening to the song, and the rain, right now. Last weekend, Spring really was here with the glorious sunny Spring days that the Barossa does best but Winter has given us a reminder tonight that perhaps she is not quite ready to move on. The Barossa has had an amazing amount of rain over the past few weeks and our dam filled up, almost overnight. Our old, deep-rooted vines are loving it, and it will certainly hold them in good stead for a hot, dry summer, which will be here soon enough.

When the rain falls so steadily, and for so long, I am even more appreciative of the fact that I live in the Barossa Ranges, where flooding is not quite the issue as much as it is to those who live on the Valley floor. I witnessed the aftermath of the Barossa floods in the early eighties and will never forget the devastation that it caused. I can still remember the interior of the house I helped to clean. I was completely stunned at how almost nothing was able to be salvaged. It took months for people to recover from that.

The photos below were taken in the first week of September - the first is of our dam, which rarely fills to capacity, and the second is of the Bethany Creek. It was quite amazing driving through the Barossa and seeing so much water about in the first week of September!

On a completely different note but still Barossa orientated, last Thursday night I was privileged to be part of a core group asked to attend a meeting at the Tanunda Club to discuss my involvement in an innovative idea of the Barossa Wine and Grape Association to promote the Barossa. I won't elaborate at the moment other than to say that I feel very honoured, and am really looking forward to being a participant and spending more time doing what I love to do - writing. If you want to see a whole different perspective of the Barossa from some of the personalities in it, then keep an eye on this page, which should be officially launched sometime in October, if not before: Barossa Dirt. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'm already making notes to use over the coming weeks.

Speaking of notes, there was much note-taking on the weekend during a visit to the Barossa by Sydney wine-blogger, Andrew Graham. Whilst I took some notes regarding Andrew, he took lots of notes about the vineyards in our area and had a chance to speak with some of the fascinating personalities of our special ridge. We hosted the afternoon for our guests in our old red gum stable and though a small get-together, it was simply sensational to sit and listen as Bob McLean and Chris Ringland discussed soils, techniques and their opinions of pretty much anything and everything to do with vines and wines. James and I, and Colin Sheppard, sat entranced by the stories told by Bob in particular, and the table of wines was one to be proud of - 2000 Chris Ringland Shiraz, 2000 McLean's Farmgate Barr-Eden, 2010 Karra Yerta Eden Valley Riesling, 2010 Flaxman Wines Eden Valley Riesling just to name some. Wow, what an afternoon.

Later in the evening, James, Andrew and I met up with the other Collective Barossa guys, Steve Kurtz and Mark Mader (and Mark's lovely wife, Amanda), for a classic Barossa pub feast at the Angas Park Hotel in Nuriootpa. We had a fabulous night with much laughter, and yet more good wine and food.

An exhausting but exhilarating day, and a real insight for Andrew into some of the people of the Barossa. I will be writing more about Andrew's visit in another blog entry in the very near future, but first I have to write about the other happenings of last weekend. That involved a trip South to one of my all-time favourite places and will follow soon:)

There's no business like wine business.....

Wine Business Magazine's Top 100 regional focus this month was on the Barossa, or more specifically small wineries from the Barossa. A new group has been formed recently - the Barossa Small Winemakers Group - and we are one of about 70 wineries involved with the group. It is certainly an interesting mix from the sub-regional aspect. When you attend a BSWG meeting you have the opportunity to see and taste the fantastic standard of wines and quickly realise that our combined produce is something that we should all be very proud of.

We were most fortunate to be included in an editorial in the current edition (March 2009) of WBM's Top 100 - a magazine primarily for the trade sector of the wine industry.

Here is what the editorial said in regards to Karra Yerta:
Family Affair: "History and heritage surrounds the families in the Barossa, just as it does the vines.
James and Marie Linke of Karra Yerta Wines both originally hail from Angaston but have lived in Flaxman's Valley since 1985.
Their ancestors, the Linke and Pohlner families, arrived at Port Misery (Port Adelaide) in 1847. The Pohlners, early pioneers of Flaxman's Valley, were the third largest landholders in the area in the 1900's. In 1910 Charlie Pohlner still owned between 4,000 and 7,000 acres, but over time the land was broken up and sold off (or divided up due to marriages) to other now well-known families in the area: Argent, Randall, Zander and Thorn. The precious old, dry-grown Flaxman's Valley vineyard that produces their Eden Valley Riesling and Shiraz is situated on a high ridge in Randall-Town, neighbouring the vineyards of Chris Ringland and Greg Hobbs. All three vineyards were planted by the Randall families in the early 1900's. The restoration of the Karra Yerta vineyard is an ongoing venture, currently consisting of 50 year old Frontignac, 80 year old Riesling, 80 year old Semillon, 50+ year old Shiraz and 10 year old shiraz. This small family business grew from a ten-year hobby and annual production is just around 350 cases."

Click on the group photo below (I'm in the foreground at far right:) to have a closer look at which wineries were involved. To read the main articles on the Barossa, and for all of the small wineries contact details, buy a copy of the March edition of WBM. For information specific to the BSWG phone Jan Angas on 0414639088.

Flaxman's Valley Under the Stars

All this talk about a global financial crisis makes me feel like a glass or two of wine. I am sure that I am not alone, and to make us even more fragile, it has now been recommended that women only drink one alcoholic drink per day and men two. Whilst it may be good for us (I think it may be slight overkill but anyway..) at that rate I will need to live to about 250 years of age to get through my own favourites in our cellar and that is not including if I buy any new bottles in the meantime! So it was just as well that last night, on a global scale in its own way, I did my part in emptying the world of its excess wine whilst only going slightly, well maybe a little more than slightly, over my recommended daily intake of a single glass.

As I sat at the end of the large rustic table in our stable, my belly full of the most amazing pork that I had ever tasted (thanks Terence and Theodore!) and divine wines to match, I realised what a wonderful multi-cultural country Australia is. Around the table from my left were in actual order, Theodore, Chris, James, Dennis, Tibo, Fleur and Terence. If you were to put our guests in a list of country of origin, it would have been Singapore, New Zealand, Germany (well, six generations ago!), United States, France, France and Singapore. The very special thing is that all of our guests, although born and bred in other countries, had for one reason or another, ended up in Oz. To top it off we were drinking various exquisite Australian wines, another from Argentina and one from Italy.

I have mentioned our favourite Melbournian friend Terence (www.terencepang.com) on at least a few occasions in my wine blogs. We always have a great time when he comes to visit. This year he brought his brother Theodore, friend Dennis (New York, New York! ah, that's a bit of a private joke) and two other friends, Tibo and Fleur who are ex-Parisians. We had met Dennis before (read my blog entry of 15th September 2008 Melbournians and Mooncakes) and Theodore even earlier (13th April 2008 Toast and Honey on an Autumn afternoon) but it was the first time that Tibo and Fleur had visited the Barossa so we wanted to make sure that they enjoyed the evening, and from the photo of Tibo smiling on the drums at the end of the night/early morning, you can see that they did. What a lovely couple they are.

Then of course there is our great neighbour Chris Ringland. Chris pops down the hill to visit us sometimes for a few wines and a bbq and as we knew that Terence would like to meet Chris, we thought it would be a terrific surprise to introduce them. And so we did. I must mention that besides having exceptionally impressive wine skills (and being the very generous man that he is, he often brings us a taste of his fine wares), Chris is also a whiz on the food front and last night he amazed us all with an impromptu simple yet delicious dessert. I don't think any of us would have needed breakfast this morning after such a terrific dinner.

In fact, thinking about that, what exactly is it about some people in the wine world who have not only amazing skills with wine but also with food?? Philip White is another who springs to my mind - he too is simply a sensational cook! I guess that as I am the main cook in the house, it is always much appreciated to watch and taste someone else's creations, and not meaning to be sexist, I am always most impressed by the male genders efforts.

Next weekend may well be the famous "Barossa Under the Stars" but last night a great time was had by all under the stars of Flaxmans Valley. And we do have a spectacular view of the night sky in this pristine non-polluted area. Perfect place, perfect wines and food, and perfect company. Global financial crisis - what was that about again..?

New reviews from Philip White

The weather is a scorching forty one degrees celcius outside and I am not in a hurry to leave the computer, nor the air-conditoned room, for any reason. So it appears that the best way to spend my afternoon is to update my blogs, answer emails and print off any new reviews. So, in that respect, even though neither wines are officially released (both wines will be released after vintage ie March or April 2009) here are the latest reviews. It is our first review for our 2006 Shiraz and the second for our 2008 Riesling. Both reviews have been written by Philip White. You can read his wine blogs here: Drankster and Drinkster.

Karra Yerta Flaxman's Gully Eden Valley Barossa Riesling 2008

$20(?); unlabelled pre-release bottle; 12.5% alcohol; screw cap; 93++ points

Alsace. Germany. Tasmania. High Barossa. Who cares? Honey and nuts; gewurztraminer and roses; spicebox and creme caramel: you'll find all these sorts of delicioso swimming round this bowl. It's not the austere crisp rapier some earlier Karra Yertas have been, but it's rich and wholesome, like some of the more Germanic rieslings made in the Barossa in the sixties and seventies, and what I imagine Petaluma tried to do sometimes during the eighties. The flavour has lovely honey as much as lemon and lime: not exactly sweet, but with an illusion of sweetness as much as your actual unfermented sugary juice. The aftertaste is a tantalising tumble of spiced mead, citrus pith, dried apple, lemon blossom and dry stones. It's like a serious spatlese riesling fermented dry. It'd be perfect with a creme caramel flavoured with a tiny squirt of lemon and garnished with citrus rind; or King George whiting fillets wrapped around a little squirt of prawn mousseline in beurre blanc. Savvy?

Karra Yerta Flaxman’s Gully Barossa Shiraz 2006

pre-release unlabelled sample; ??% alcohol; screw cap; 94+++ points

The stony, barren ridge at the top of Flaxman’s, where the ancient rocks poke through high above the Barossa, is the home of some of the world’s most expensive and elusive shiraz wines. (Think Ringland, next door. McLean’s Farm at the northern end; Mountadam at the southern.) This vineyard is windswept and wild, freezing in the winter, and even cool at night in the midst of the most vicious heatwaves. So this rare tincture has quite a lot to live up to. It has the most intense and complex bouquet, riddled with twists of beauty that seem so blacksmithed into compression they unwind in a dreadfully gradual and teasing manner. Musk, lavendar, violets, licorice, mint, cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, blackcurrant, blackberry, beetroot, morel, porcini, ancient soy, salt, schist, podsol, guano, gunpowder, swarf, burlap ... I dunno. I could go on, and I’ve only had my hooter in the glass for thirty minutes. I know now that this wine is gonna be a king hell striptease viper with a voice like Barry White and Grace Jones for a Mum. The palate’s disarming and confronting from the first sip: just mildly viscous, especially compared to the intensity of its flavours, with, yep, the lithe form of the black whipsnake slithering around your mouth like some professional girls apparently dance on poles. It’s strangely compact and intense, as I’ve said too many times, but still seems ethereal in its saucy habit of letting little shots of its myriad components just go: they’re there for a flash as they evaporate, and suddenly they’re replaced by something else. And on and on it goes. The dance of the hundred and summit veils. Sometime a long way off all these bits and pieces will assimilate and homogenise and the damned thing will be mature and formal and very, very famous, and those astonishing components will let go at the same time in equal proportions and really, really gradually, but shit, that’ll kill people, and by Bacchus I love it now. I doubt that I can stay alive long enough to drink it at its peak, and if I did, it’d kill me anyway. Karra Yerta has never hit the top ten in the glambam gobstopper any price you like stakes, but it will, and it will outshine most of those wannabeez and cooderbeenz. This is a stunning, secret wine. Gimme! JAN 09