I've decided the further south and island is located, the more I like it. New Zealand has wormed its way deeply into my heart, Tasmania was a wonderful surprise for me and now Tierra del Fuego has worked it magic on me. I had always expected this southern most state of Argentina to be a cold windswept no-man's land, and there's a bit of that, but there is so much more. I flew into the port town of Ushuaia which is a naval base and jump off point for cruises to Antarctica and it was full of pleasant surprises. First was the fact that it's surrounded by beautiful glacier topped mountains. Every where you look there are magnificent views. The second big surprise was the quality of food. We ate dinner at a restaurant called Kaupe which had world class King Crab and Antarctic Scallop dishes.
From Ushuaia we drove north to the town of Rio Grande and the Estancia Maria Behety. This is the type of country I had in mind when I thought of Tierra del Fuego - wide open for hundreds of miles in every direction. What I wasn't expecting was the grandness of it all. It made Montana "Big Sky" country look small. The spaces and the skies are unbelievably vast. The steppes have their own rugged beauty, especially with the local Guanaco (close relatives of llamas) roaming the gently rolling hills. And the fishing - wow! Sea run brown trout here get up to 30 pounds and it wasn't unusual for us to catch 15 pounders. I don't know of anywhere else in the world where you can catch so many large trout.
I've fallen in love with Tierra del Fuego. I'll be back.
Yesterday I visited the Wolf Blass Winery here in the Barossa and was absolutely flabbergasted by the size of the operations. I've always thought of Wolf Blass as a medium to large producer of wine, but the winery was easily the largest I've ever seen. I found out later that the facility covers about 85 acres with about 14 acres under one roof just for their bottling center and warehouse and another 18 acres of barrel storage. The place is monstrous. During the tasting the very friendly staff member mentioned that a lot of the space was actually Foster's Group's main Barossa facility. I knew Foster's owned a bunch of beer and wine companies, but didn't think much about it.
Today I took the tour and Penfolds and I noticed that they had no white wine production facilities, so I asked why. I was told that starting this year all of their white wines are being made at Foster's Wolf Blass facility. Hmm.
Tonight at dinner I happened to be seated next to a senior IT professional from Foster's and overheard a discussion he had with a possible IT outsourcing provider. He happened to mention that they were considering consolidating all of the port production in the Foster's brands at one winery (I won't mention which one in this public forum).
All of this got me wondering just how big Foster's is, and what all this means. So I went to their website (www.fosters.com.au ) and discovered that they own 62 different wineries around the world, with 43 in Australia and several in the States including three of my favorites: Stag's Leap, Chateau St. Jean, and (gasp) Etude.
So my question is, if the seven wineries in the Barossa that are owned by Foster's stop making all of their own wines and instead rely on their corporate siblings to help produce part or all of their product line, is it really their wine? Is the Penfolds label on their white wines enough to make them Penfolds when the wine was actually made by Wolf Blass? Or is it all just Foster's wine, and different brands? Does it matter?
I think it does matter. Not just because somehow as a consumer I feel like I'm having a fast one pulled on me, but also because we will eventually end up with a smaller variety of wine. I believe that in this their first year Blass is probably using the same vineyard sources and techniques that Penfolds used in making their white wines. (Though obviously the equipment and probably the personnel are different.) But I also know that the business demands of reducing variation and gaining economies of scale will eventually do away with this. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in 5 years the Penfolds Eden Valley Riesling is exactly the same as the Wolf Blass Gold Label Reisling, just with a different label. If I worked for them and was being rewarded for reducing costs, I'd sure think about it. And someday in the future will the liquid in a bottle of Penfolds Grange be exactly the same as in the Wolf Blass Black Label with just a difference in price of $300?
Foster's is a business and is probably a very well run business. Their shareholders will demand continuous growth and return. I suspect that they will end up buying up even more Barossa and South Australian vineyards and will further reduce the great variety of styles and flavors we have available today. All the more reason why I'm going to support as many family owned wineries as I can.
I took a tour of Penfolds yesterday and was really struck by how industrial it was. When we visit Napa wineries there's almost always a customer-facing emphasis on the care and individual attention given to each grape, every barrel, and practically every bottle. I kept thinking about Opus One where they refuse to pump any grape product but rely instead 100% on gravity to gently move their wines through the production process. But Penfolds was the opposite - they are all about big production with huge crushers, mountainous fermenters, and acres of air conditioned barrel "sheds." During the tour I asked if Grange, their AU$500 a bottle wine, went through the same process. I expected them to say something along the lines of, "no, we have a small special winery just for Grange." Instead I was told that Grange went through the exact same sets of crushers, pipes, fermentation tanks, and new American oak barrels. The best grapes from Penfold's vast portfolio of vineyards are chosen for the Grange, and there are some differences in when and how long the juice used in Grange is on wood, but it pretty much goes through the exact same machinery.
So this led me to wonder just why this wine is worth so much. I agree, it's a really top class Shiraz/Cabernet blend, but is it really $500 great? It's now obvious to me that the cost of making the wine is only marginally greater than any of Penfolds' other "Bin" wines. In fact, I suspect the cost of making Grange is much less than that of making their "Magill Estate" which does come from a very small dedicated vineyard using small scale production equipment yet sells for less than $90.
I strongly suspect that Grange's price is purely market driven. Grange is probably the most widely collected wine in the world. Almost everyone I know who has even a moderately sized wine cellar has at least one Grange in their collection. People love to collect Grange verticals. This demand coupled with the Grange mythos continues to let Penfolds earn huge margins on this wine. And the sad thing is, I suspect a very large percentage of those $500 bottles never get drunk.
I just finished four weeks touring around Tasmania and I've got to say I was impressed. Like most Americans I suspect, before I went to Tasmania I really had no idea what to expect. I didn't know if it was a desert or a rain forest, flat or mountainous, interesting or boring. Well trust me, it's not a desert, it's got all kinds of different terrains and it's anything but boring.
A quick geography lesson for those who might think Tasmania is in Eastern Europe or Africa. It is an island roughly the size of the state of Ohio a couple hundred miles south of Melbourne Australia. It is an Australian state and is very much Australian.
For years I've heard rumors about the fly fishing in Tasmania. Phrases like "trout fishing in lakes reminiscent of bonefishing the flats" kept popping up so I had knew I had to get myself down there. But when I asked fly fishing guides in New Zealand about the possibilities across the Tasman Sea, I got a lot of negative responses. "Totally fished out." "Nothing like it used to be." "Crowded as a street in Sydney." Those were the types of comments the Kiwis had for Tasmania. Even the employees at a fly shop in Melbourne discouraged me about the fishing, saying that because of the worst drought in history combined with a cold December the fishing was really bad and I'd probably be happier visiting wineries. Well let me say right now they were all wrong. Very wrong. But it took me a while to figure that out.
I took the 9 hour ferry from Melbourne over to Tasmania (be sure to take your Dramamine) and as soon as I got there I liked the place. You immediately discover as the ferry is coming into port that the island is surrounded by beautiful beaches. I spent my first night at Narawntapu National Park and had 2 wombats, 14 kangaroos and over 20 wallabies visit my campsite. The next day I visited the Jansz Winery and discovered they made world-class Pinot Noir and sparkling wines. A day or two later I ate at Maggie McGee's restaurant in Coles Bay and had some of the best seafood of my life. And that's how I spent the first 3 weeks of my time in Tasmania - I figured the fishing must be bad so I walked gorgeous white sand beaches, tasted some really good wines and discovered little fishing villages with fantastic mom & pop restaurants. And I loved it.
Eventually I worked my way south of Hobart (Extremely beautiful coast down there) and started seeing some streams and rivers that looked might fishy. But I really wanted to visit the AirWalk (600m long walk through an old growth forest 40m up in the air - cool) and some caves down there (also really nice) so I tried to ignore the fishy looking water.
Then when I was visiting more caves in the central part of the island I stumbled on a really nice looking small river where I could spot trout feeding from a bridge on a tiny country rode. I parked, rigged up, and headed to the water. What I thought from the bridge was a trout rising ended up being a platypus, but still in about 90 minutes I caught 9 brown trout 12-18 inches long. That got my attention and I immediately got on the phone and made reservations with some guides that I had heard about who sounded good.
Unfortunately I was getting short on time so I was only able to go out with the guides two days. The first day I went out with Daniel Hackett who runs the RiverFly Lodge and we fished a small stream in the north-eastern corner of the island. It was great fun and I got the impression that the water only saw a few rods a year. Daniel was a great guide and I'd be happy to go out with him again. The second day I lake fished with Christopher Bassano who guides with the Rainbow Lodge and was very impressed. Christopher taught me a trick or two on how to fish for trout in windy conditions, and a whole new way to rig flies. It was great day and I definitely want to fish with Christopher again in Tasmania's Western Lakes Region.
Unfortunately, at this point it was almost time for me to return to the mainland. I got another day of fishing in on my own and amazingly I spent it lake fishing. It truly was stalking for big browns in relatively shallow water and I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed it.
Tasmania's a great place - great beaches, great food, great wine, great fishing, and great people. I'll be back.
I had the most amazing meal today. I am in Christchurch, getting ready to head out of the country (anybody want to buy a campervan?) and decided to go up to Waipara and have lunch at one of my favorite wineries, Pegasus Bay. The restaurant at the cellar door has won all kinds of awards and I've always found their food interesting. And they didn't disappoint.
They were featuring a 3 course Christmas dinner which looked tempting. The meal started out with an amuse a bouche - a raspberry and cranberry granita with a touch of Riesling. A very nice combination which I'll be copying at home.
The first course was titled "Lime and Brown Sugar Cured Tuna with Organic Cucumbers, Lychee, Peanuts, and Sesame" and was one of the most unusual dishes I've had in a very long time. The combination of fresh lychee and tuna was inspired. And the lime in the cure was fantastic. The lime also beautifully brought out flavors in the glass of Wiapara Riesling I had with the course; flavors I've never tasted in that wine before, and I'm quite a fan of that particular drink.
The main course was "Smoked Duck with Poached Pears, and Almond Couscous." It was another stand-out dish with flavors I've never experienced before and beautiful textures. The skin on the duck was perfectly cooked: crisp, salty, and savory. The individual pasta in the couscous were large, almost the size of pearl tapioca. And the bits of crunchy toasted almonds in the couscous were great. I'm not sure if I would have added the pears, I'm not sure they added to the dish, though they worked very nicely with the almonds. I had the Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir with this dish and although it didn't clash, there wasn't any real magic in the pairing.
Dessert was "Bread and Butter Panottone Pudding with Stewed Cherries." It was much creamier and richer than traditional American bread pudding, but the serving size wasn't overwhelming and the tart cherries were a nice compliment.
This was easily the most intelligent cooking I've experienced in New Zealand. Each of the dishes had flavors and textures I've never experienced before. Top it all off with what I think are some of the best wines in the country and it was a fantastic way to say good bye. The cost for the meal was NZ $79 (US $55) which included two glasses of their best wines and tea. If you ever get to Christchurch, make the 45 minute drive up to Pegasus Bay and I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself.