Blog 52: Adelaide Good Food & Wine Show- discount tickets opportunity

Oliver’s Taranga will be joining a group of other McLaren Vale Wineries at the Adelaide Good Food & Wine Show on the 7-9th of October. For those of you who have never been, it is a great opportunity to taste loads of new and exciting wines & foods, and check out your favourite celebrity chef. It is also our 170th celebration that weekend- on the 8th of October, so it is going to be a MASSIVE weekend.

We are very excited to bring you a special offer – $5 off the adult entry price to Good Food & Wine Show when you pre-book your ticket to the Adelaide show.

 

How to book tickets – Go to http://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/Show.aspx?sh=GOODFOODA    or call 132849 and quote the codeword MCLAREN.

Blog 55: Guest blog from Richard Angove- a wine & grape family celebrating a great milestone this year

Dr. William Angove

Richard Angove

Today, I have been lucky enough to get a guest blog from one of Australia’s great winemaking families- the Angoves. 5th Generation Richard Angove has been extremely modest in his blog- have no doubt this family have excelled at their craft and have helped shape the South Australian industry with 125 years of contribution. We welcome them to McLaren Vale (cellar door opening soon) and wish them all the best with their 125th year celebrations…Corrina

Over to Richard…….

William and Elizabeth Oliver were true pioneers of McLaren Vale and it is amazing to think that just five years after the state of South Australia was settled, the Oliver Family were beginning what would be a 170 year relationship with the beautiful region of McLaren vale.

In 1886, 45 Years after the Oliver’s settled in McLaren Vale my grandfather, Dr William Angove established a medical practice and vineyard in Tea Tree Gully and began tinkering with winemaking.

It would have been a small world in South Australia back then so it may well have been possible that the Angove’s and the Oliver’s would have known each other, a common interest in viticulture and wine has the propensity to get people together.

The Angove vineyards in Tea Tree Gully are now long gone replaced with the Adelaide suburban sprawl. With these original vineyards gone a vineyard planted to 80 year old Shiraz, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot was acquired in McLaren Vale on Chalk Hill and Oliver’s Road, incidentally only 1km around the corner from Oliver’s Taranga Cellar Door and Vineyard on Seaview Road.

The pressure on McLaren Vale from the urban sprawl has been well reported this year however with appropriate planning the longevity of the region and some of Australia’s best vineyards will hopefully continue to make some of Australia’s best wines for another 170 years.  

This year Angove Family Winemakers celebrates its 125^th anniversary, this milestone is dwarfed, really by the 170 years the Oliver Family have been growing grapes and making wine. That both businesses are still 100% family owned and run is also quite amazing in an industry that has had many peaks and troughs.

The Angove Family today- 4th, 5th & 6th Generation

Congratulations Corrina and Family on your birthday and looking forward to sharing a few Pizzas and some cracking McLaren Vale wines this year and in the future…….

Blog 56: Dons pruning tips!

The pruning season is nearly over..

The tools of the trade- the trusty snips

So here is a little snap shot of what pruning entails for us.

 At Oliver’s Taranga we prune our old block of Shiraz using mainly spurs, leaving two buds and occasionally we use a ‘cock rod’ which has five buds left on it. The reason we use the cock rods is to open up the canopy and keep the cropping levels up on a old vine that has a lot of dead arm (This is a disease – Eutypa- that grows in very old vines which results in the the arms dying and they don’t produce any fruit).

This shows a 'cock rod' on the left and a spur on the right

We have 100 hectares of vines to prune each year. With 8 pruners pruning it takes them about 3 months to get over the whole property. Each pruner will prune about 400-500 vines a day! That’s why these days pruners prefer to use electric snips rather than  manual snips especially when pruning old vines with really thick wood as they are really hard to cut through.

We chose to hand prune rather than machine prune (hedging) because it gives us more control over the crop levels when the fruit starts to develop. When you are pruning young vines you don’t really prune for any type of crop level, you prune for shape, getting them the way you want them for years to come.

Don pruning our Old Shiraz block

When pruning white grape varieties we aim for higher crop levels so therefore leave more buds but when pruning premium red grapes we are aiming for 6 tones to the hectare so only leave 2 buds.

 

Don

Blog 61: Great review for the 2011 Fiano by Tony Love

Tony Love has written a great little article on our new 2011 Fiano- “A fino-like aroma that the winemaker describes as “pine nuts and lemon rind” is bang on, but more happens on the palate with decent medium-bodied weight and texture filling the mouth. Captivating.” 4 out of 5 stars. Read more: http://www.taste.com.au/news+features/articles/2989/olivers+taranga+2011+fiano

Blog 66: Bottling today

Very busy bottling the 2009 HJ Reserve Shiraz & new 2009 DJ Reserve Cabernet-exciting, but not much of a blog- Sorry!!

Down the line goes the 2009 DJ Reserve Cabernet

Blog 69: The making of the new DJ Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

Way back in February 2009, Don & I were out doing our morning vineyard walk, and were really taken by the developing flavours in our ‘Old Block’ Cabernet Sauvignon. We decided right then, that 2009 could be a year to watch for Cabernet, and decided to see how the flavours progressed as the ripening continued. Daily visits to the ‘Old Block’ for berry tasting consolidated our idea- and thus we decided to make a premium Cabernet from the ‘Old Block’ in 2009.

The 'Old' Cabernet Block

Picked on the 17^th of March 2009, this glorious ‘Old Block’ really came into its own. It was planted in 1973 (what a great year- I was born then as well!) by my grandfather HJ. It is a very old Cabernet clone that is known as ‘Reynella’ amongst those in the know. It was crushed, fermented in stainless steel open fermenters via a natural yeast, and popped into some of my best French oak hogshead barrels.

While the wine sat peacefully in barrel over the years, we had to rack our brains as to what to call it. Would we make a special release, would we do a once off, or would we develop a new wine for our range- a brother for the HJ Reserve Shiraz?? The latter idea ended up being the winner. And so…. the DJ Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon was born. We had just received a brilliant charcoal drawing of Don, thanks to the ever talented local artist Jen Wright (yes- we are related- Jen is my mother-in law). This drawing was perfect for the label & so the design was also sorted.

Fast forward to today, and after sitting nicely in barrel and developing beautifully, we are getting it out of barrel and preparing for bottling next week. Some lucky customers happened to be in cellar door when I burst in with excitement about how the DJ is coming together, so they got to be the first tasters outside the family. They made comments like ‘floral, cassis, vibrant’- I hope they were as impressed as I was!!

This is the most exciting time in the winery apart from harvest time- finally getting to see a wine safely into bottle, seeing the whole package come together & seeing how the wine develops in bottle.

All this excitement- but the DJ won’t be for sale for a little while. We are thinking just before Christmas 2011. Keep it in mind for then……

Blog 70: The real reason Brioni was missing from The Adelaide Magazine article

This is one for everyone who has been asking me why Brioni was missing from our recent article in The Adelaide Magazine- she was having much more fun…….

“Its winter so a good opportunity for us to get out of the winery.

Chris and I filled the back packs and jetted over to LA to soak up some California sun! Cruising around Santa Monica on our low rider bikes, checking out the muscle men at Venice Beach. Making our selves sick on the roller coasters at Disneyland! And keeping our eye out for movie stars. Fun times!

Brioni & Chris & Disneyland

We then hired a little blue VW and drove across to Vegas to try our luck!.. being the big spenders that we are we lost a whole $50 USD, so we gave up on that idea and decided to check out some shows! We saw Mystere Cirque du Soleil ( the underwater one, Amazing!), The Lion King (also amazing) and The Carrot Top (interesting..)

Next stop Mexico! Which pretty much consisted of tequila, corona, tacos, fajitas, lying on the beach and reading! Tough couple of weeks! But don’t worry I’m back, energised and ready to go! 

Mexico Cities Pyramids

Cheers,

Brioni x

Blog 75: End of vintage party at Andre’s Cucina & Polenta Bar- Adelaide

The entire Oliver’s Taranga Team headed to Andre’s Cucina and Polenta Bar for a night of wining and dining in celebration of the end of vintage 2011.

 

The team dines at Andre's Cucina & Polenta Bar

Andre’s is an Italian restaurant with a unique twist. As the name says, traditional polenta dishes are part of the focus with platters designed to share. A really great way to eat.

 

For Stuzzichini (appetiser) we had fried seafood with lemon aioli, focaccine margherita, stuffed olives and herb pate! Yum! The waiters then bought out the long wooded boards with all kinds of vegetables and condiments, amazing Italian shaved meats, 2 types of polenta, the most amazing porchetta and fabulous slow cooked beef. I was stuffed, the food was amazing and the wines worked really well with all the dishes. Just when you think you can’t eat another thing! The most divine chocolate filled banana donuts come out with a vanilla bean custard dipping sauce……Ohh soooooo good, and a glass of Banished to finish it off. Not a bad way to end the night.

 

We all had such a fantastic night, maybe one too many wines.  I also want to apologise to any other diners, as we were the loudest group in the restaurant.  Especially when Jim (our resident comedian / vine hand extraordinaire) was telling Andre how a pruner in the ‘good old’ days used to communicate  with another pruner in another block of vines. I was thinking, goodness where is this going…… and then Jim leans forward with his hands around his mouth and takes a deep breath and lets out the loudest ‘ShaWoo’ (which is kind of like a ‘Cooee’ but different). Anyway, everyone in the restaurant jumped around to look at us and see what had happened! Take the country kids to the city and it all goes pear shaped! 

Jim chowing down on the slow cooked beef bones

Just a normal night out with the Oliver’s Taranga Team!

After eating at Andres Cucina & Polenta Bar again- I can’t wait for the 170^th dinner! Maybe Jim can show everyone the ‘ShaWoo’ again!   

 

Margie, Don, Andre & Brioni

Blog 76: Some lovely reviews for our 2011 Vermentino & Fiano….

 

The boys from WineWeek have reviewed our 2011 Fiano. Click here if you would like to check out their thoughts. Mike Bennie at The Wine Front also gave both the Vermentino & Fiano 90pts! See the reviews here and here. And we had a great review for our 2011 Vermentino from Jane Faulkner in Saturday’s Age- Vermentino & Sardines- YUM!!

 

 

The Age Sat 23rd July from Jane Faulkner

Blog 78: Calling Ladies of Radelaide- Join us at the inaugural Sips & the City