DiscoverVin is open for business!

DiscoverVin™ is pleased to announce it has commenced trading!

We are delighted to welcome you to our website and our unique range of wines from the Bordeaux region and South West of France.

We are Australia's premier source of well made and value for money wines from this region.

We look forward to sharing our passion for quality French wines from the South West of France with you.

We are gradually adding more information and content to the website www.discovervin.com.au

We also have a facebook page discovervin wines. Check it out.

Where to start ? Below are some suggestions for the summer. We are really pleased that the wines seem to be flying out the door. Several customers have ordered the wines and then after tasting them have immediately  re-ordered bigger volumes! We certainly appear to be on track to achieve our aim of bringing well-made quality and value for money wines to Australia. Our wines are unique and are not available elsewhere in Australia.

So have a look at these 3 wines and the fabulous range from ZETTE....

If you are looking for a refreshing drink during this hot and humid weather now is the time to try some of our light, crisp and fruit driven wines.

Château Jolys Jurançon Sec Blanc ($17.99) is delightful, complex and dry, offering great value for money. From the excellent 2009 vintage, it is a blend of Gros Manseng and Petit Manseng its similar in style to a Sauvignon Blanc, but with floral and fruity aromas and much more ELEGANCE.
Could this be the next big thing after New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc? Discover for yourself!



Château Tour des Gendres - Le Moulin des Dames White 2009 ($39.99)
This is the wine to drink with your summer meals or as a pre-dinner drop. Once again it would be of interest to those that like a Sauvignon Blanc. This is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon with more ELEGANCE, greater COMPLEXITY and possibly more FLAVOUR and FINISH than those you may be used to. This is a very classy wine Discover for yourself.

Chateau La Rayre Bergerac Rosé 2009 ($16.99)
Rosés are meant to be consumed when young and fresh and that means discover them NOW . The La Rayre is REFRESHING, enjoyed by itself and versatile with a range of foods, from salads to steak, Thai to Chinese.
One of our suppliers in France described this wine as one of the best rosé wines that he had ever tasted! It is made from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

And last but not least.. check out the ZETTE range... the coolest wines this summer!

We would like to thank our suppliers, business associates and family and friends for their encouragement and support.

We welcome any feedback on the wines or the content of our website and facebook page! info@discovervin.com.au

A night at Boire

A night in Melbourne during the Australian Open tennis season, without a restaurant reservation booked months in advance, can be a nightmare.  But not for us on this lucky occasion.  We arrived at our hotel in Fitzroy, dumped our bags and headed straight out to Smith Street where we had heard of a fairly new restaurant called Boire, which didn't require a reservation.  With kids in tow we arrived to find one table vacant (don't be fooled by the empty outside tables as they don't have a license to serve alcohol out on the street - very un-French!).

Boire is a very lively place with the tables turning over frequently.  Long painted blackboard wall down one side with changing menu and wine list. Several whites and reds are served by the glass and a longer list by the bottle.  Polished concrete floors and long white wall down the other side with an interesting variety of hooks, paintings, an antique clock and paper hand towel rolls (a novel alternative to serviettes) provide an interesting and useful mix.  All the hard services and the volume of customers make for a noisy space which in turn is heightened by the choice of background music..... or maybe I'm just getting old!

Wine buckets brought to the tables fit into a snazzy compartment in the centre of the round tables. Bottles of cold tap water are provided without asking.  Air-conditioning and service weren't at their best on this occasion, despite the floor staff doing their best to keep pace.

But enough about the place!  It was the food and the wine that we were most interested in.  For entrée we ordered the olives, saucisse (salami), free range rustic porc paté and mussels served at room temperature with pastis, tomatoes, basil and parsley - mmmmm.  All delicious and served with a rustic sourdough.  We enjoyed these dishes with wines by the glass.  I was not disappointed with my selection of Chantegrave blanc "Caroline" 2007 (Bordeaux Sauvignon Semillon), a dry white 'Graves' with buttery tones and a palate of tropical fruits - great on its own or with food.  We also tried the Marionnet Touraine Chenin Blanc Vinifera 2008, a non grafted grape from the Loire Valley.

For our main course we enjoyed two reds by the glass -  the Sainte Foy Franc de Ferrierie 2006 (Bordeaux Cabernet Merlot) and the Cosse-Maisonneuve 2004 from Cahors (Lot et Garonne, Malbec) which were both perfect with the with the duck (Duck breast and leg paupiette with green beans, nectarine, almonds and pink potatoes).  The vegetable dish (Roasted yellow courgettes with breadcrumbs, aubergine puree, chickpeas, tomatoes and shallots) was a delicious accompanyment.  For dessert I couldn't resist the Chocolate Trio, whilst the husband had a dessert wine by the glass -  Gaillac Doux - not too cloying and would have been fantastic with cheese or a fruity dessert.

Our kids also loved the salami, olives, paté, mussels and boiled eggs, followed by the creme caramel.  Oh, and they were delighted to be offered the homemade lemonade from the elegant wine glasses that we also enjoyed.  All in all a good night out and we all went home with contented tummies and palates!

Now .... anyone for tennis?

Chateau Dassault

After Laurence had insisted we visit her at Chateau Dassault we didn't need any more encouragement and organised a visit towards the end of our stay with Mary joining us. We drove through the vineyards of Pomerol and St Emilion on a beautiful summers evening, past chateaux, farmhouses, villages and roman ruins. And for miles there was a carpet of vines, all meticulously trimmed and trained upright. Green fields like we haven’t seen for 10 years. We were greeted by Laurence, who by chance had just hosted the buyers from Fortnum and Maison, and so just happened to have opened some great bottles, 2006, 2001, 1999, 1995, 1994. First we had a tour of the winery and like every French winery we had visited in the region we were impressed with how meticulous and high tech it was. She spoke passionately about the terroir, canopy/vineyard management, hand picking, hand sorting and using concrete tanks in preference to stainless steel and the use of technology to control of fermentation. There are a number of myths I think that are common in Australia regarding French wines and French wine making techniques which may be based on past practices (or perhaps just ignorance).

Then the wines! Beautiful, opulent, complex, balanced, gorgeous wines. We had to recover with dinner in Saint-Emilon sitting in the courtyard of a lovely bistro well frequented by the locals, under the bow of an ancient fig tree, besides the wall of a 14^th century church, sipping a bottle of St Emilion and eating perfectly matched seasonal food, locally grown and light in style. The decanter was the most fantastic we have seen - a large bowl on a long stem with a lip for pouring. Looked like one massive glass of wine!

Laurence had told us she thought that the 2001 wines were ready to drink and of good value so that’s what we drank from Ch Laroque.

We again felt so privileged to have had experiences like this. We coined a new phrase. The only good thing about leaving Bordeaux was knowing that we would definitely be returning again.

In the instance of that restaurant and St Emilion we loved it so much we took our good friends from Australia, Libby and Ian there for lunch the following Sunday!

Le Week-end des Grands Amateurs

The Weekend des Grands Amateurs was a fantastic weekend of wine events. Not so sure about the elitism implicit in the name but it was a great opportunity to try some amazing wines. On the Saturday tasting of many of the best wines in the region was held in a renovated warehouse on the Quai des Chatrons, overlooking the Garonne, under the auspices of the L’Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux. More than 100 Grand Cru classe chateaux offered a taste of their 2006 vintage plus an older vintage. The major headache was choosing which ones to try!

Armed with Oz Clarkes eminently readable wine tome “Bordeaux” I did some research the night before and decided to only try the “best of the best” according to the classification system (why bother with Grand Cru St Emilion when one could try Premier Grand Cru for example) as it would be impossible to try everything. A few lesser classified wines with big reputations were added to the list (for example Chateau Chasse-Spleen, cru bourgeois on the classification but the critics and the market tell us it is a “better” wine than that. So having pulled apart the list and read about the wines on offer I felt ready to try as many as I could before my palate gave out.

Having developed a fondness for the savoury, rich, tropical fruit flavours (and what I would describe at times as an almost oily texture) of the wooded Semillon Sauvignon Blancs of Pessac-Leognan, I started there. I ran into Lina Zhang from the local wine shop, having a quick taste on her way to work but I guess that’s OK if you work in a wine shop! She was also keen to try the whites of Pessac-Leognan, and it was great practice for me to have someone with whom to try and discuss the wines (in french). We tasted several excellent 2006s. What struck me was the consistency of the style: rich tropical fruit (pineapple) flavours, wood characteristics, fresh acidity, good balance and length. Theses are surely amongst some of the greatest white wines in the world. The bordelaise being bordelaise hardly even seem to think dry white wine worthy of drinking and will usually order red wine with just about everything. These wines certainly don’t seem to garner the same interest as the whites of other regions (Sancerre, Bourgogne, Pouilly-fumé etc) but seem every bit as classy. I certainly will be looking out for them in the future.

We did get to taste 2 older white wines. Chateau Haut-Bergey 2002 (from Pessac-Leognan) very minerally, pineapple fruit again but with some developed toffee flavours, and Chateau Smith Haut-Lafitte 1998 (from Graves), excellent: balanced long and still fresh but again with some developing aged characteristics. What a start to the day!

It was getting crowded and I was thinking the rest of the day would be a bunfight. I left Tina who found it impossible to walk past the sauternes stand (fair enough and I’m sure that her boss Patrick would do the same) and I whizzed off to the station to pick up some good friends Caroline, Paul and Alice, who were coming for the weekend.

When we got back the crowds had dispersed. Thank God for the French 2 hour lunch break!

Paul and Caroline had a couple of whites to taste and then we got straight into some reds. Again I was amazed by the consistency of the styles-the broad round, soft tannins and fruit but the power of the St Emilions and Pomerols (who would have thought merlot could taste this good?) and the complexity, length, structure and dryness of the reds of the Medoc (predominantly cabernet). As a whole the 2006 were difficult to really appreciate, as they were too young, so we soon decided to concentrate on the older vintage on offer. The angels sang at Chateau Angélus and Chateau Beauregard. One of the highlights was Chateau Figeac 2001. Red fruit, tobacco, meat, spice, vanilla, minerals, soft long tannins, balance, length. Extraordinary! What a privilege to taste these wines! The temptation to swallow and not spit was getting difficult to ignore!!

On to the Medoc, concentrating on the older wines on offer. The 2006 wines although expressing beautiful fruit were just too young to really appreciate at times. I mean I am not complaining.

I wrote for the Chateau Batailley (Paulliac 5^th growth) 2006: red fruit, spice, vanilla, good fruit, balance, long, velvet tannins. Super. But some of the older wines were exceptional: Chateau Gruaud Larose (St Julien, 2^nd growth) 1999: blackcurrant, tobacco, vanilla, soft tannins but big in style, yummy. Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande (Paulliac, 2^nd growth) 2003. Still young++, big and powerful (2003 famous as the “hot” year), intense blackcurrant flavours, juicy, tannic but so well balanced.

The crowds had well and truly returned after lunch. A short break and last but not least the Sauternes and Barsacs. The first wine tasted was a Chateau Suduiraut 2002. Oh my lord.

Length, balance complex fruit, developing toffee and marmalade, sweetness with the characteristic dry finish of the appellation. That was it! No more spitting! Surely it was a travesty to spit a wine like this! This part of the tasting was superb and apart from the absence of Chateau d’Yquem it was a who’s who of famous chateaux. Climens, Coutet, Guiraud, La Tour Blanche, Sigalas Rabaud, Rayne Vigneau. The highlight was La Tour Blanche 2006 complex, apricots, nuts, citrus, vanilla, apples, caramel, rich, balance, length. Again a great privilege to taste wines of this quality.

And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better we went home, got dressed up and caught a bus for dinner at Chateau Coutet in Barsac…..

We had a great night. Amazing food and amazing old wines:

1998 Chateau Coutet (Barsac 1er Cru) as an aperitif.

2005 Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion (Pessac Léognan) with Roulé croustillant de tourteaux txangurro

1976 Chateau Coutet (Barsac 1er Cru) with Homard au mousseux d’asperges

1998 Chateau Dassault (St Emilion Grand Cru) and 1996 Chateau Langoa

Barton (St Julien 3eme Cru) with Poularde fermière des Landes aux deux cuissons. Printanière de legumes

1990 Chateau Lynch-Barges (Pauillac, 5eme Cru) and 1988 Chateau Léoville Barton (Saint Julien 2eme Cru) avec Trois fromages du Pays Basque

2003 Chateau Ormes de Pez (Saint Estèphe, Cru bourgeois exceptionel) avec Dacquoise fraise-pistache et crème glacée

There was about 6 tables of 10 and on each table sat a winemaker. After each course the winemaker explained the wines – in French and then fluent English. There was a table of people from Brazil and so someone also translated the speech from French to Portuguese. We had the fortune to be sitting at the table of the charming Laurence Brun and her husband. Laurence took over form her father as the chief winemaker at Ch Dassault at St Emilion in 1995. She spoke passionately about the 1998, which she thought was “her” first vintage, a few years after taking over at the winery and instituting some changes in vineyard management and new technology in the winery.

She insisted that we visit her winery before we left Bordeaux, so since she insisted, we did!