Being Australian means that my default red wine is Shiraz. My preference is for the big, sugary, high in alcohol version of Shiraz that you usually find in North Eastern Victoria, particularly around Rutherglen.
I am not too finicky though, and I am fine with most dry reds – for instance, my best friend and I made a passable Merlot in my garage earlier this year.
I frequently will try other wines. There were two positives out of catching a mild dose of Covid two years ago – the first being that I used up a couple of extra days of sick leave that I otherwise would have left behind when I retired, and the other being that for the first time in over 25 years, I could actually enjoy the taste of white wine.
I regularly go out to lunch with various wine lovers. Recently, I started attending ‘Bottle Club’ at one of my two private Clubs, and I intend to attend Bottle Club at the other Club in the new year. The people I have met at Bottle Club know a lot more about wine than I, but I think they have had a 20 year head start on me. However, for well over 20 years, I have been attending lunches with some former colleagues who are a fair bit older than me and long retired.
We had one of those lunches today to mark the 75th birthday of my favourite former boss. My contribution was a bottle of the 2021 Baileys of Glenrowan 1920s Block Shiraz which arrived yesterday. Another wine, which the birthday boy contributed, was a Bleasdale Estate Frank Potts Cabernet blend (in the Bordeaux style – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec, although alas no Cabernet Franc to round out the blend).
One of our lunch companions decided to play up to his reputation of dubious wine choices. You see, about 40 years ago, he brought a bottle of Lambrusco to a lunch. He has never lived this down.
Today, he gleefully showed up with two bottles of Lambrusco red as gifts for the birthday boy. His glee was slightly tempered by his inability to find any Lambrusco white to bring along.
Which got me intrigued. So after getting home from Richmond (we lunched at 14 Bridge, if you are curious, and it was very good value), and having my afternoon nap, I decided to go for a walk around the two bottle shops in Avondale Heights to see if this is indeed a matter of scarcity.
There is indeed a box of Lambrusco red in the Bottlemart (Avondale Cellars), but no white.
I then popped into the Liquorland, which is the doyen of bogan drinking choices, with abundant cardboard casks in a corner, and did some idle browsing. There were no bottles of any Lambrusco, red or white, present. Nor were there any cardboard casks containing Lambrusco.
Like, WTF???? Is this another of our budget drinking choices disappearing?
For instance, the last time I saw a bottle of Brandivino was in January 2009 when I was on Christmas Island (I used it to cook a huge amount of Bolognaise sauce when I hosted a lot of colleagues for dinner). How will Gen Z kids understand Cold Chisel’s anthem ‘Breakfast at Sweethearts’ if Brandivino does not exist?
Then there’s Stock Gala Spumante with the plastic cork and the leopard foil jacket. I have not seen that on offer in many years.
Nor does Kaiser Stuhl exist as a brand anymore – I remember it mostly as a cardboard cask, but I remember in my youth that it offered a Rose in a frosted glass bottle.
And I recently mentioned in this blog my propensity, some 3 decades ago, to enjoy the truly awful Demestica red in Lonsdale Street over Greek food on Friday nights.
Which reminds me of Kokineli – a cheap and cheerful light Greek red wine, a bit closer to Rose or Lambrusco in style. I have not seen that in any bottle shop recently. (Not, mind you, that I would actively seek it out except on the drinks list in a Greek restaurant.)
And now Lambrusco seems to be going the same way, into oblivion?
For shame….
Lost For Words! 