WG+M Travel Blog Archive

We were supposed to be at Henschke until 5PM but after visiting the Hill of Grace vineyard and grabbing a late lunch and coffe in Angosten we were finished by 3PM. I made a quick call to our friends at the Grateful Palate and tried to organize something on the fly to fill up the rest of our day. The lovely Rachael Harvey managed to score us a dinner with Christian Canute of Rusden and Corey Chaplin of Lunar Wines, two of the more agressive and talented young turks of the Australian wine industry. We raced back to Adelaide to get ready, not knowing what to expect of the two young men we were meeting out. While Nathan showered I researched Lunar Wines, as it is a new project and I wasn't familiar it. Turns out both Corey and Christian got their starts at Rockford, famed for their fantastic Basket Pressed Shiraz, and have been friends ever since. Corey's family also owns Viking, a small winery in the Barossa that regularly sources fruit to other wineries. Lunar was a project that started because Corey wanted to work his own magic on cabernet and shiraz- and believe me he's done it. The cab is especially good, soft and subtle, with depth and complexity, excellent round fruit and the structure to last for five to ten years, a real rarity in this region. Rusden on the other hand is the brainchild of the gifted wildman Christian Canute. He's been at it since 1996, working with shiraz, cabernet, grenache and even zinfandel. Christain's wines are stunning, each singular- monumental all, but nuanced and layered like few others. The Grenache Christine's is one of the finest examples of the varietal in the valley and his Christain's Chenin Blanc is simply sublime. The Ripper Creek Cabernet Shiraz blend 2004 was fantastic (we have the 2003 at WG+M now). My two favorite wines were the 2004 Shiraz Black Guts and the 2004 Zinfandel Chookshed (As good as any Turley zin). Both Corey and Christain are thirty years old and love to have fun. These two can drink anyone under the table. When they were told by Rachael to show two "important Americans" a really good time they went out of they way to take care of us. First they took us to a local pub called the Exiciter where we downed a few Coopers pale ales. Then we moved on to a great place called Jolly's Boat House for dinner. At dinner Nate and I ate our first bugs, local langostines- these were fried and quiet delicious- and drank our way through many bottles of Rusden and Lunar with Corey and Christain and their domestic distributor Ben. Big steaks were next- great compliments to the Black Guts and the Ripper Creek. When we finished dinner we thought the evening was over but the boys assured us that they weren't finished with us and took us pub crawling in Adelaide. Many beers and shots later a frienship was cemented, although Team Australia was able to squeak out a close victory against Team America on the pool table. Stumbling back to our hotel room after 3AM to ask for a wake up call at 6AM for our trip to the Clare Valley was not what we had in mind when we called Rachael earlier that afternoon. It wasn't that we regreted it; we just weren't smart enough that afternoon to know exactly what we wanted. Its a good thing the trip to Clare was two hours by car . . .