Winefront's Red Album - SHOCK, HORROR!
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 1:18 pm
Oh. My. God. There it lies, quietly at the bottom of page 299. A ticking time-bomb of destruction, just waiting to explode the head of any self-respecting red bigot checking out this reknown Barossa producer’s offerings. A pale, wan excuse of a wine pokes its transparent head in where it’s not welcome. “Peter Lehmann Barossa Semillon 2005. “This made me do a double-take…†read the first words of the review. Me too!
I was thinking; you know, young Mattinson may indeed have picked up a few writing awards for his scribblings over the past few years. Not to my knowledge though, has he been rewarded with any kind of marketing gong. It occurred to me, as I was reading the Red Album on the bus this morning, that he’s managed the not inconsiderable feat of managing to sell me some of his reviews three times! Me – whose scrooge-like demeanour frequently prevents me from paying for anything at all! Between the newsletter, the Collected Reviews and the Red Album, I’m quite overflowing with duplicates. That was quite a trick - even when you know how it's done...
Kidding aside, I guess it does show some kind of movement towards the Holy Grail of Australian wine reference books – Broadbent’s Vintage Wine writ local. Everyone’s dancing around the subject, surely only for fear of it being a financial flop? Five years ago, Halliday had a CD that came closest. Of all the writers, he’s likely got the biggest library to work from. But now his guides give current release tasting notes only. Where’s the 4th edition of Great Australian Wines? Oliver does comprehensive notes on current releases in an excellent Annual, plus winery backgrounds, which are great, but there’s no compendium, and notes on older releases are few between, and on the website only.
But I’m thinking that by the time Campbell gets to Broadbent’s age, we just might have something…!
I was thinking; you know, young Mattinson may indeed have picked up a few writing awards for his scribblings over the past few years. Not to my knowledge though, has he been rewarded with any kind of marketing gong. It occurred to me, as I was reading the Red Album on the bus this morning, that he’s managed the not inconsiderable feat of managing to sell me some of his reviews three times! Me – whose scrooge-like demeanour frequently prevents me from paying for anything at all! Between the newsletter, the Collected Reviews and the Red Album, I’m quite overflowing with duplicates. That was quite a trick - even when you know how it's done...
Kidding aside, I guess it does show some kind of movement towards the Holy Grail of Australian wine reference books – Broadbent’s Vintage Wine writ local. Everyone’s dancing around the subject, surely only for fear of it being a financial flop? Five years ago, Halliday had a CD that came closest. Of all the writers, he’s likely got the biggest library to work from. But now his guides give current release tasting notes only. Where’s the 4th edition of Great Australian Wines? Oliver does comprehensive notes on current releases in an excellent Annual, plus winery backgrounds, which are great, but there’s no compendium, and notes on older releases are few between, and on the website only.
But I’m thinking that by the time Campbell gets to Broadbent’s age, we just might have something…!
) might be looking at this for me at crimbo.
