Sydney, Australia
Great City with Great Wines
Tasting in March 2015
By Sean Overpeck
This review is twelve month too late, and the 2016 festivals of wine are already in full swing. Yet a favorite motto of mine is better late than never. After completing a four day tour of Melbourne and the Yarra Valley wine region, enjoying restaurants such as Vu de Monde and Attica, along with wonderful wineries like Yarra Yering, it was now time to explore the Sydney’s Wine Festivals and wonderful food, along with a two day tour of the city, Blue mountains, and even more wonderful restaurants.
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The best wines or wineries, based on the
Wine, Dine, and Play’s Favorites
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Stellenbosch, South Africa
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Napa, California, USA
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Willamette, Oregon
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Stellenbosch, South Africa
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Alexander Valley, California, USA
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You can also use these sites for reference on the top wine categories:
Wine Spectator top 100, Food & Wine worlds best wine tasting experience, the Best Wines of the World list, uncorked.com worlds best list, Wines of the World best list, Forbes top wine list, weekly wine buys by Robert Parker, the Tasting Panel’s best wines list, the Wine Enthusiast top 100 list, Kens Wine Guide top 100, best Chilean wines list, Matthew Jukes top 100 of Australia, Top French Wines list, top California wines list, top Oregon wines list, The Italian Wine Connections top list, Taylor and Norton best German wine, best Spanish wines list, best 10 wines from Argentina.
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Main review:
My flight landed in the mid morning from Melbourne, and the first stop on the list for this two day Sydney excursion was Tetsuya’s, a Japanese-Australian Fusion restaurant with many awards, and a fantastic meal, one of two wonderful restaurants I would dine at while touring the city. The other being Quay (pronounced key). I had dragged my luggage down the streets from the metro station to Tetsuya’s and of course the wheel broke, making my walk even more fun. So after the wonderful lunch, I jumped into a cab to the hotel instead of taking another metro train and having to deal with the suitcase. The driver went by Hyde Park, where the Anzac Memorial was located, an item on my list of places to see while I was here. Next to the memorial building were hundreds of little tents and tables, food trucks, concert stages, and thousands of people. This was one of the many Sydney and New South Wales wine tastings that were featured throughout the year. The cab stopped at my hotel which was less than a mile from the park, so after settling in, I took a stroll down to that park, to begin my quick afternoon tour of Sydney. The following day would be trip to the Blue Mountains, so if I wanted to taste this wine and visit the major sights like the opera house, I had six hours of daylight left to do it in.
The park was open to everyone, but to participate in the tasting activities, you needed to buy tokens. Then you were given a glass, and sent on your way. The food trucks and tents which sold a variety of snacks and BBQ were pay to order and did not take the tokens.
Besides wine tastings there were tastings of olive oils from the Pukara Estates, and other foods from the same regions the wines were from. All of New South Wales seemed to be represented from area like the Southern Highlands to Mudgee at this tasting event. These regions were all located south of the city. The Anzac Memorial at the southern end of Hyde Park was unfortunately closed, so I will have to return to Sydney on day to see it.
I spent a good hour walking around the area all separated and color coded from each region doing random tastings, as I had not heard of any of these wines. The same was true for my visit to the Yarra Valley with the 8 vineyards that I chose based on the Melbourne Wine reviews. Most of them were fantastic wines, but I had never seen them in stores or restaurants in the United States. Most of what we see on the higher end other than Yellow Tail was from Adelaide in South Australia where prominent names like Penfolds, Leeuwin, and d’Arenberg from the McLaren Vale. OF the wines I tasted, the same applied, all were very good, and some were extraordinary. Here were some of my favorite tastings of the day:
The Cherry Tree Hill Vineyard from the Southern Highlands featuring a wonderful 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, and a 2006 Cabernet-Merlot blend. Both of these wines had received awards and top marks from James Halliday who owned the Coldstream Hills Vineyard in the Yarra Valley, my first stop on the Yarra wine tour while in Melbourne. Both wines were reasonable priced between $20 and $35 Australian Dollars.
Next on the list of favorites came the Twisted River Wines, from the city of Manildra in NSW. This winery had 12 wines from their cellar to taste ranging from blended Cabernets and Shiraz to white Viognier. It must have been a really warm day, since I usually enjoy red wines, I was focusing mainly on the whites, and really enjoying them. Before flying to Australia, I had just completed an eight month tour at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, and thought he weather was a wonderful partly cloudy spring day, it was hot considering my body was still acclimated to freeing temperatures day in and day out. From the Twisted River my personnel favorite was their 2013 Chardonnay-Viognier blend with subtle tones of French Oak, melon, peach, and floral profiles. The blend consisted of 9% Viognier.
The next on the list was two gentleman who were having a great time, laughing and joking with everyone that came by, plus giving out free extra tastings once you gave them the initial tokens. They represented a winery named Saddler’s Creek with their boutique Bluegrass Cabernet produced from grapes that we source from a region known as Langhorne Creek which is in South Australia about one hour drive South East of Adelaide., where some of their grapes are sourced. "Saddler's Creek Wines" is a stand alone winery which is in the Hunter Valley in NSW (2hrs north of Sydney), but is located in a Sub-region of Mount View, where there is another boutique called Mount View Winery, confusing at first but understandable once explained. They also had a wonderful 2009 Semillon which won three trophies last year, including Best Wine of Show at the Hunter Valley Boutique Winemakers Show to taste as well. I told these guys I’d be writing about them in this review and send them the link. I guess they figured I died or something since it has been over one year, so sorry fellas, as I said at the beginning, better late than never. The following day, I ran into Brett at the Quay restaurant which is listed on Elite Travelers in the top one hundred restaurants of the world.
The Reserve Range of the Saddler’s Creek Winery was named after the winemaker Phil Ryan, whom I met at the tasting, named Ryan’s Range.
As I walked the aisles of endless wines I came across a table tasting that just for the name alone had to be done, and tokens surrendered. Boy was that a good decision as well. The Gundog Estate listed as a five star winery by James Halliday with a wonderful tasting Semillon and Shiraz had me spending another token for seconds. Their label was a dog caring back the duck to his master after being shot. The winery is located north of Sydney and just west of Newcastle
Keeping within the animal logo’s on wines, next on the list with a limited release Pinot Gris, very fruit forward and satisfying to the palate was a Mudgee micro boutique winery called Short Sheep. Other tastings included Semillon which was at most of the other tasting booths as well, telling me that this was one of the major grapes in New South Wales, especially Mudgee. There wines average from $20 to $35 Australian dollars per bottle with that delightful Pinot Gris coming in at $30. To take advantage of their other wine deals, you can also join their Flock 999 club, but I’m not sure if they ship to the United States or not.
Saving the best for last, as the saying goes, and not referring to the Vanessa Williams song. Today this reference is used for the best of anything wether it is food, wine, whatever. In history it goes back to the original military term during the battles of the middle ages where archers kept a supply of arrows, some of these were the finest iron tipped shafts made by a real fletcher with real feathers to provide angular torque to keep them straight in flight (these were the best). Most of the arrows in an archers quiver however were the mass produced, low quality shafts, some just twigs broken off of near-by trees. When the archers started shooting they would use the low quality arrows first as the opposing army was still far away and the possibility of actually hitting anyone was low. As the opposing army got nearer however (as in a charge) the archers got a little more concerned about their own safety and began using the better arrows to ensure better accuracy and kill power. Therefore master archers were in the habit of instructing their students to ‘save the best for last’.
The Artemis Wines does not have an arrow on their bottle label, but they do have the symbol of the Nights Templar, who often also used the Greek Goddess Artemis, son of Zeus and sister to Apollo, known in the Roman gods as Diana as one of their symbols. Artemis was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows, going back to the analogy of saving the best for last. The winery symbol changed the color from the traditional Nights Templar red to a light gold. I have found from visiting wineries in Australia from the Yarra to these other New South Wales wines, that they use a lot of older symbolism to the British and its historical past. Yarra Yering was the perfect example of that with their wine blocks named after famous British battle victories like Agincourt.
Artemis has an entire range of wines that were just outstanding from their Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz-Viognier blend, and the first tasting of a nice and very light bodied Pinot Noir. What originally attracted me to walk over to this booth and bypassing the others around it was the name itself. When I first began drinking wines and slowly introducing myself to red wines, and working in restaurants selling these wines, I drank a block of wines from Stag’s leap Winery in Napa Valley, and they were nice quality. Then the manager opened a bottle of one of their reserve which is rare to find now, as they have changed the name and made a different blend called Cask 23 and S.L.V. This wine was also called Artemis, and back then it was the most expensive wine (and free since the restaurant paid for it) that I had ever had, and I remembered the name. Funny how something you don’t think about for decades has an automatic recall when you see something to remind you of it.
Overall, it was a wonderful tasting experience, considering that during lunch at Tetsuya’s I enjoyed the wine tasting with the eight course meal, so I was already buzzed. I staggered my way in the afternoon heat, buying lots of water to rehydrate myself, walking north through Hyde Park, passing wonderful landmarks like St. Mary’s Cathedral, Archibald Fountain, the Sydney Conservatorium, Government House, and finally ended up at the Circular Quay to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
Other wine tastings, festivals, and Australian wine tour favorites on Wine, Dine, and Play:
Key West Food and Wine Festival 2016, Florida
St. Petersburg Saturday Market, St. Pete, Florida
Pike Place Market Seattle, Washington
Review by:
Sean Overpeck (CFE)
The Picture below was taken in Sydney, Australia 2015
About Sean:
I am based out of St. Petersburg, Florida working in the food service industry for the past twenty years, and am currently with the American Embassy as the Executive Chef in Basra, Iraq. Formally I have worked with groups contracting in Afghanistan, Dubai, and Antarctica, also working in restaurants in and around Atlanta prior to the wars. I have also owned a catering company and served proudly in the United States Army food service program. The idea for the Wine, Dine, and Play Blog started in late 2012 after a trip to Jordan, when I was asked by others to write down the experiences from a few Jordanian restaurants, plus the wine from the region that I tasted, and locations of interest such as Petra, and the culture. Since that time, nearly 200 articles have been written on restaurants, including fifteen from the worlds top 100 lists of San Pellegrino and the Elite Travelers Guide; exotic world locations such as Dubai, Petra, and African Safari’s; food recipes & Grand Food Dictionaries; country cuisines such as Afghan and Peruvian; and of course wine from vineyards in California, Oregon, the Carolina’s, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.
TTFN
“I like cooking with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food.”
