Our strategy is to provide you with high quality, boutique, "garagista" wines from Australia.  Wines you will not find on the supermarket shelves in the UK.
We have a lot to update you on, including our first overseas order, our visit to Australia, meetings with new winemakers, serving our wines at a secret supper club, yet more awards for our wines, and we have some new events coming-up.

A couple of weeks ago we took our first overseas order, all the way from Manly in New South Wales for 2 cases of Flametree Chardonnay!  Yes, amazing isn't it!  The power of the internet.

We have also been out to Australia to source new wines.  We were on a mission to source, in particlar, some Pinot Noir to add to our list.  We were not disappointed, and nor will you be, with the new wines we are bringing back.  

The brief summary is that we visited Australia for about 4 weeks (someone had to do it!).  2 weeks based in WA and 2 weeks in Melbourne.

Of course we visited our existing suppliers.  There is a lot of good news there. 

Flametree have sold all their stock, so don't hang about and buy the little stock we have secured from them, before it all goes.

Their wines have now reached the dizzy heights of the Qantas 1st and business class flights.

Perhaps not all that surprising really when you hear that they have followed their "Jimmy" win for the Cabernet Merlot '07 with a 3rd place in this year's Jimmy for their Cabernet Merlot '08-unheard of to achieve first and third in consecutive years.

In addition the Cabernet Merlot '08 has won:

2009 Perth Royal Wine Show- Top Gold - Dry Red Blends

2009 Winestate Special Edition New Release Tasting- 4 Stars, the top wine in its class

2009 Royal Melbourne Wine Show- Gold Medal Claret Style - Bordeaux Varieties and Blends 2008

Flametree's Sauvignon Blanc Semillon '09 has won the Margaret River Wine Show best white award.

The Frankland Shiraz '08, which incidentally General Manager, Cliff Royale prefers to the Cab Merlot, has also picked-up Gold at the Perth Show.  It has also been selected to compete in a Shiraz taste-off in Italy next month by the Australian Winestate magazine.  So it is all happening!

We have added some new wines from our recent Australian trip already, from Eldridge Estate, The Story, Ocean Eight and The Wanderer. We are delighted to be stocking all these wineries. We will also be bring in some exciting new wines from La Violetta soon.

Eldridge Estate is one we have had our eye on since last year.  We lunched at Le Petanque, a restaurant in Red Hill,Mornington Peninsula, where the owner Philippe recommended an Eldridge Estate Pinot.   It was so good we went straight to Eldridge after lunch to taste their full range of wines.

Eldridge Estate is a 3 ha site perched on the northern slope of  the ridge that runs east-west along theMornington Peninsula in the state of Victoria.   The Chardonnay and Pinot Noirs they make are hand crafted and of the highest quality.  Jancis Robinson rated their Pinot Noir highly in a tasting last year.  You can see a video of her comments on the "latest news".  

Wendy and David bought the vineyard in 1995 and have since transformed it with a continual programme of grafting, canopy management and replanting (500 vines).

In the 2010 James Halliday Wine Companion Eldridge Estate was listed as a Five Star Winery.

In the 27th edition of Australian Wine Vintages, Robert Geddes MW, the 2007 MV6 Pinot Noir is one of the top 100 wines and along with the Eldridge Estate Chardonnay is listed as a gold star wine. The Australian Wine Vintages gold stars are an accolade of the winemaker's ability to achieve consistently high standards of fruit, flavour ,complexity and freshness.

The vineyard is now predominantly a mix of Pinot Noir (6 clones) and Chardonnay (5 clones). It also has Gamay, Sauvignon Blanc and a little Semillon. Their first release was in late 1997, a Chardonnay from 1996 which received great reviews immediately.

Their second release was the Pinot Noir from 1997 which was produced in sufficient quantities to enter the Cowra wine show where it achieved a GOLD medal and equal top score.

Their first Trophy was in the Southern Victorian Wine Show where the Chardonnay from the 2000 vintage was awarded the best Chardonnay and Best White wine of the show.

In 2006 they were asked to represent Australian Pinot Noir at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon.

The Eldridge Estate Pinot Noir is also on the Qantas 1st Class List.

We are delighted to be able to include their Chardonnay '07 and the Pinot Noir '08.

 2008 La Ciornia, Shiraz, La Violetta, Denmark, WA £30

 Apparently the word ‘ciornia’ means dark or black in Russian.  In Piedmontese dialect, ciornia is a term for a very attractive woman. Winemaker Andrew Hoadley notes that it’s a pretty bad pun on Cornas, too.  Either way these are superb reasons for calling this wine this word.  When I first tasted La Violetta I was completely blindsided.  I didn’t expect the pepperiness and certainly had no idea that a Shiraz from Denmark could have Pinot Noir tenderness under its malevolent, vampiric exterior. 

There is bugger all stock in the UK – but if you have read this note, I would expect that the vast majority of you (if you know/follow my palate) will do anything you possibly can to find a bottle.

 2009 Ocean Eight, Verve Chardonnay, Mornington Peninsula, Vic £25

 Serious Chardonnay does not need to rely on overt power nor should it have to lean on posh oak staves to garner plaudits. Verve is an example of a wine which does what it says on the label - it injects vigour and dynamism into a class of wines which is often too serious and lacking in momentum.  Bright citrus fruit and punchy acidity make for very happy bedfellows, particularly when the results are as holistic and uplifting as this.  We will see more from this newcomer in due course, but for now turn up the Verve.

We continue to source high quality, small production run, boutique wines, which are hand crafted by winemakers using minimal intervention methods to make their wines.  La Ciornia and Verve are fine examples of this philosophy. 

We will keep them coming.

A SPRING EVENING AT THOROLD WINES

Daniel Thorold of Thorold Wines in Ritherdon Road, SW17, was certainly on a winner when he chose Wednesday 21 April to host a food and wine matching evening for his clients. It must have been one of the first truly Spring evenings that we have all been hoping for and perfect for an evening of “Italian Canapes and Chocolates with Australian wines”.

Valentina Harris, the local TV chef and author of many cookery books, chose Daniel’s evening to launch her new cookery holiday website www.cucinavalentina.co.uk. Valentina had chosen her selection of Italian canapés to match a range of fine, handcrafted Australian wines from Western Australia that Daniel is now stocking. Local people and adjoining shop owners joined with some of Valentina’s old clients from far afield in appreciating the wonderful Flametree wines, some of which have the accolade of appearing on Qantas airlines 1st class list. Another treat was also in store as Raffaella Baruzzo of Baruzzo the chocolatiers www.baruzzo.co.uk made a welcome appearance and treated everyone to a range of exquisite chocolates which had been matched not only with the canapés, but with the Flametree wines.

All in all, some very satisfied Thorold Wines’ clients, who had enjoyed the evening so much there's been lots of demand for another date for Daniel and the wine supplier www.auswineonline.co.uk to host another event.

If you would like to be invited to the next event at Thorold Wines then please email - sales@auswineonline.co.uk