So now I do Wine Dinners, too

I’ve been hosting Beer Dinners in various restaurants for about ten years now. Back when I began we were really just putting together four or five courses and ‘matching’ them with roughly the same number of ‘special’ beers. All lagers, all local and all ‘foreign’ to the punters present.

I’ve also done plenty of wine dinners.

That’s to say that I have arranged for a winemaker/wine rep to supply some wines and assisted with a menu to match. Pinot & Duck, dessert wines and special limited release oak-aged oddities with all manner of food pairings – I’ve seen them all.

But I tend to just host the evening, welcome the diners and introduce the guests. Then I sit back and leave the hard work to the experts. I don’t mind wine, but I don’t love it. Not a passion for me like beer is. I’m happy to deliver meals and pour the juice and leave the details to those who know.

So when I got a phone call on Friday night – fifteen minutes before a $75 a head Wine Dinner was due to commence – saying that ‘we have a small problem’, I got a little antsy.

The guy who was to run the wine dinner was explaining that he had just written off the wine and he wouldn’t be able to make it. “Sorry mate, the wine’s all gone”, he lamented. “How’s Michael (the winemaker)?” I asked. “Oh, he’s pretty badly hurt – the ambulance is on the way.”

Gotta admire the passion for his craft that he was considerably more worried about the wine than his mate but it didn’t help me. I now had a double problem. I had to re-think the wine matchings and provide something special from our own cellar and I had to make sure I had enough of each to water the thirty expectant guests.

But more scary than that, I had to host and run the dinner. That meant talking about the wine, extolling the virtues of the wine and food matches, running a trivia portion and putting each of five wines into an historical context. And what do I know about wine? Well, without down-playing my skills at all – very little. I mean, I can visually identify a white from a red but how far was that going to take me?

Beer to the rescue! Two of the guests were Beer Dinner regulars and I immediately set them a task. “Gillian. iPhone. I need two paragraphs on sangiovese! Andrew, something on alborino and pinot grigio! Get on to it!! And get me some stuff I can turn into trivia questions!!”

I introduced the evening and explained to the guests the changes to the printed program. Fortunately one of the diners had stopped at the accident to assist and most of the others had driven past or seen the flashing lights on their way in so I had them warmed up, so to speak. When Guy had told me they had pranged the car ‘just up the road’, I didn’t realise he meant 100 metres from the restaurant. And, yes, I had walked up to see that they were both OK. But NOT to see if any of the wine was salvageable. I could see it wasn’t, so I didn’t ask.

I won’t bore you with the details but let’s just say that it really is amazing what you can achieve with just a few simple tools. 1) a couple of friends with iPhones and the ability to break into the restaurant’s wi-fi signal, 2) some staff who are able to stay focussed and calm under pressure and 3) an extra generous pour of the first two wines. That, and a couple of gags and funny lines I remembered and a few well-chosen car crash jokes and all went well.

Allowing the staff to finish off the wine as they went made things a bit easier as well.

So, if you need someone to host your Wine Dinner, I now count that skill among my many others. And the beer at the end of the night tasted all the more sweet.

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

Another one of those nights

Two in a week! Last night we were fortunate to have a booking of ten consisting of some local Fine Wine Department managers from one of Australia’s large liquor retailers. Fortunate for them because they got to experience the charm and atmosphere of the area’s most beautifully appointed restaurant and fortunate for us because they were each bringing along a special bottle from their own private cellars.

How is that fortunate for us when it means we lose out on drink sales? Because the trade-off was that we would get to share each wine with them in return for us selecting several small courses to match to each ‘mystery bottle’. How was that fortunate for me when I am very much a Beer Bloke and not a Wine Wanker?

Well, while I do enjoy the odd lager, ale or assorted other, I can also appreciate other forms of imbibing fluid when it is a good representation of the style or when it’s matched to food or even when it’s just something special. That’s the kind of guy I am.

But last night gave me a new insight into something I might have been taking for granted. These guys and girls were really passionate, not just about how old or rare or special the wine was but also about sharing an interest, getting together and having an experience. And, as an ‘outsider’ I really enjoyed watching the interaction, the camaraderie and the slow but inevitable effect of a table of people and ten bottles of wine!

I guess that my passion for beer is seen by others in the same way that I saw theirs. At Beer Dinners and Ale Stars meetings and Spectapulars and Microbrewery Showcases and just at a simple table at home with a mate or two, sharing a beer and a bit of bullshit is what life is really all about the other stuff can either wait, or get stuffed!

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

Wine and Beer

It has been said, more than once, by beer writers and winemakers alike that many winemakers are frustrated brewers. It is also said, by some that it’s the other way round. It is certainly true that a winemaker must be envious of the brewer as he sits patiently waiting to see if last years grape vintage has become a good profitable stock of desirable wine while the brewer and his customers are already finishing off the last of the most recent brew batch.

Being able to devise and write a recipe for a beer, procure the ingredients and brew and bottle a thousand odd litres of beer while the vines are still being pruned is a definite advantage to taking up beer brewing rather than winemaking. The brewer also has access to his malt, hops and yeast all year round, from home and abroad, while the winemaker’s ingredients are sitting out in his vineyard at the mercy of the Gods and subject to the vagaries of soil, weather and time. And maybe that’s the reason for the emergence of today’s’ topic.

The last two or three years have seen a new trend in Australian craft brewing led by none other than the ‘Wine Guys’. Perhaps due to the fact that the wine market here has seen devastating drought followed by a bulging glut of wine and subsequent fluctuations in sales and profits, and then more drought, the ‘Wineys’ are beginning to take a slice of the beer pie.

Whatever the reason, we have seen some really good beers being made by some really good winemakers at wineries as well as at breweries and even at breweries inside wineries. And whatever the reason, the beer drinker is undoubtedly the winner.

Brad Rogers from Matilda Bay Brewing Company via a couple of other reputable brewing endeavours is a qualified winemaker, as is Ben Kraus from Bridge Road Brewers in Beechworth. These guys can brew some seriously fine beers and beer drinkers around the country should give thanks that we have them and not the wine people. Brad has recently given us Crema, a coffee infused beer, Barking Duck, a Belgian Saison and Ben’s superbly ‘wine inspired’ Chevalier range which sells alongside the Beechworth standards has taken up residence in my fridge in past weeks in the form of the Bier De Garde.

In 2006 Lion Nathan released Knappstein Reserve Lager, a Bavarian style lager with some nice fruity aromas a warming mouthfeel and a nice strong bitterness to finish. It was made by Paul Smith, another beer/wine maker and designed to entice the drinker with wine-like characteristics. Australian malt and sauvin hops combine to produce a flavoursome, yet easy drinking lager.

Saltram, who produce Pepperjack from the world famous Barossa region of South Australia, has teamed up with canny brewmaster Brad Rogers to create a beer which is another step along the blurred line between beer and wine. A beautifully crafted beer with some rich, warm undertones, Pepperjack Handcrafted Ale actually contains a portion of the 2007 vintage Pepperjack Shiraz grape concentrate giving a fruitiness to the aroma and softening the harsher edges of the bitterness in the beer. While the wine flavours are deliciously interwoven into the overall body of the beer, it was a surprise to discover that this wine makes up a third of the fermentables in the beer. It also contains a portion of wheat malt which works well in ensuring that a nice bitterness and head retention is ensured.

So we may be approaching a cultural crossroads in the near future. One of the joys of being a beer lover is laughing at the snobbish and wankish-ly floral way in which aficionados of wine prattle on about their precious drop. If they all cross over to the dark side, who will be left to take the piss out of?

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner