d'Arenberg Toilet Wine

Recently I read that Australian wine consumption has dropped around 25% in the last couple of decades

I mention this because it is unusual that I bought half a dozen bottles recently.

For me it's also unusual as I last bought wine for drinking, rather than cooking, about a decade ago.

Sometimes I'm drinking wine that I bought decades earlier, since I have been enjoying the benefits of cellaring bottles in cardboard boxes.

So, what prompted me to buy wine in 2026?

This also seems unusual because I was prompted by a Youtuber.

Bobby Fingers is a wry Irish artist who makes entertaining videos about building dioramas.

His interests extend to dabbling in a variety of media, such as the music that's often included in his videos, as well as a recent excursion into writing romantic fiction.

The most recent video shows the process of constructing a small scene discussed in the defamation proceedings between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, which prompted Fingers to try making his own wine as part of research into Depp's fondness for fermented grape juice.

 

Since I've already shown the result of that digression from the detailed diorama, it's no spoiler to share that Bobby Fingers ended up in South Australia at one of the most highly-rated wineries.

One of my top five wine experiences was a 1998 d'Arenberg Footbolt shiraz and I still remember a eureka moment when it hit my tongue.

That taste was when I understood some of the wine terminology about vertical stacking of tannins, as the flavour was bold and seemed as though the taste continued to explode in my mouth after the wine had gone down my throat.

While the Bobby Fingers branded Toilet Wine is a decent drop, although a bit more expensive than what I normally drink because Australian wine is generally very good value for money and I'm cheap, I think d'Arenberg have done something that will be emulated for years to come.

The wine itself shows the same clever blending that I associated with the 1998 Footbolt in having a long-lasting taste, although it is surprising to me the flavour does not seem to be as decidedly fruit-focused as Australian wine is generally.

It might be that I'm so far out of the habit of drinking wine that I haven't noticed it before, or maybe d'Arenberg are making a conscious decision to aim for a more European sensibility since Mr Fingers is based in that part of world.

A clever aspect of this marketing-based product is the obvious affinity that Chester Osborn has with Bobby Fingers' art-making and I thought the suggestion that the Toilet Wine might actually contain fermented toilet was hilarious.

While I couldn't taste toilet in my glass, it's not something that I have much experience in discerning.

However, while Australian wines don't usually note the blends in detail on the labels unless it is more than a certain threshold, I thought it was also clever of Chester to link the role of malbec in the blend in the video.

 

It was memorable to compare the meaty taste of that grape to seared kangaroo. 

This is the kind of small, yet amusing consideration that could cultivate a broader audience for tasting the product and developing an interest that goes further.

At risk of being sentimental, it was sweet to have my appreciation for wine given another lesson from d'Arenberg.

 

They have produced a wine with Bobby that could have been ordinary, but instead they appear to have seized on an opportunity to reach an new audience and educate them a little in doing so -- which might be what this Australian industry needs in the longer term.

Responsible service of alcohol

One of the outcomes from training for an RSA certification this week was craving alcohol

I haven't felt the need to drink for ages, so my mind turned to the collection of bottles in my dwindling cellar.

This Morris Durif was a gift from my father-out-law and, when I saw the year, I knew it needed to be drunk.

While durif usually benefits from cellaring, the year 1998 was sweet and fruity and that meant many of the wines didn't have the same tannin structure you want for keeping them longer term. 

The wine reminded me of a wonderful jam that I bought at a church sale, which was cherry with vanilla.

This durif had some oak flavour prompting the latter, while the softness of the body was like juice.

There's a lot I could write about the RSA course, which was a full day and weirdly structured with important details like defining intoxication left until the fifth module. 

It also neglected giving detailed consideration to the antisocial impacts of this legal drug, such as the disproportionate number of men who suffer violence from strangers.

However, it was eye-opening for me to learn about the strategies for minimising drink-spiking that impact on women.  

A haiku a day

This year I've resolved to write even more haiku.

Last year I challenged myself to write a 17-syllable poem each week and this year I'm aiming for one each day.

Mostly I like the challenge of phrasing an observation within the syllable constraint. It's a kind of journal, although it seems the small audience for my haiku are more interested in my grog reviews.

Last week I mentioned this haiku project in one of the online communities that I frequent and got this reply from Dennis Flax.

You can find my haiku here.

Christmas present

Here is a pic of mistletoe from the hopbush that's playing the role of Christmas tree for my household this year.

Below is an early present that my kids chose for me when they went into town to buy chickens for lunch tomorrow. Apparently the chilli sauces had numbers up to 15, when the size of the jar shrunk dramatically.

The kids tell me this chilli sauce has scorpion in it but I didn't see it listed on the ingredients. It's hot but not like eating a raw habanero off the plant, which isn't something I'd recommend.
I remember tears flowing as a result but the endorphin rush was pleasant.

P.S. On Christmas I got another bottle of wine from my out-laws. I drank one of these a few years ago and found it ready-to-drink then, so hopefully it's still got some spine.

2002 was a good year

Been enjoying these cabernet and shiraz wines from Taminick Cellars, who are outside Glenrowan in Northern Victoria. 

I've kept them in boxes and moved them between four houses in the last 13 years or so but they've still managed to throw a crust of sediment, just look at the dark line on the left-hand side of the bottle.

Also had a box of 2004 wines, which were much sweeter and matured earlier. The wines from 2002 still seem like they could mature longer but retain a fruit flavour that's hard to resist.

I'm also appreciating how little headache I get the following day.

Pressing question solved

See this bottle of wine? You can tell from the crust near the neck that it's a good one and it's been cellared.

It's a 2004 Cabernet from Northern Victoria and, yeah. it's good but not as good as the 2002 I've also been drinking.

Anyway, I've been drinking these wines for around 12 years and occasionally wondered about the image on the label. I'd imagine they were exotic buildings, perhaps temples.

Then the other day I looked at this grape press at Pioneer Park and that exotic image vanished.

Wine blending workshop at McWilliams

A few pics from my visit to McWilliams' Hanwood winery. I've been drinking their wines for years and was excited to visit the cellar where they store their aged semillon and shiraz, Elizabeth and Phillip.

They are one of a few wineries to offer wines that have been matured. Apparently 98% of wine bought is drunk within 24 hours, so McWilliams are offering a service in making cellared wines available. It takes time otherwise to get to experience the difference.

Winemaker Russell Cody shared his passion and skills, answering my questions and offering guidance in the wine-blending workshop. I'd been to one at Toorak Winery last year and, once again, concluded that maybe I should've stuck with shiraz rather than blending it with cabernet.

The shirazes showed an interesting variety: a big Barossa fruity explosion, a Heathcote with a metallic sparkle, then the pleasant Riverina I noted as 'prune' as well as an oaked version. In combination they kinda played out in that order on your tongue. The cabernet was from Coonawarra and was rich as expected, so I wanted that in the mix but in hindsight I should've pocketed it as it was good on it's own.

McWilliams' class was fun but seemed to skimp on materials. The refreshments particularly though I think they should've handed out palate wheels too. It was great to look around their facility, which can hold up to 50 million litres of wine. We also had a glass of their 13-year old port.

Quaffing pic

The Herald Sun ran a piece about Leeton and there's a pic of me, taken at the Toorak Winery Cab-Savvy Wine-blending Workshop last year.

It says the photo was supplied but I'm sure the journalist Chanal Parratt took it, as she was sitting opposite me and taking photos on the sly.

Universe in a glass of wine

Cab Savvy at Toorak Winery

Leeton's Toorak Winery held a very successful workshop on wine blending last weekend as part of the Taste Riverina food festival.

The photograph shown comes from the Toorak Winery Facebook page.

The wine blending workshop succeeded in revealing a lot of the skill in winemaking. As we experimented with identifying tastes and then combining them, there was ample time to ask questions about the process.

I really enjoy wine and have learned a lot from drinking with wine science students while living in Wagga. One lesson was that you learn more from opening a few bottles than you do from opening one bottle because the compare and contrast approach assists in identifying tastes. This was the first time I'd been able to try contrasting approaches using the same grapes. It was a revelation in how combining these flavours can promote or disguise characteristics.

Drinking with wine scientists also taught me the importance of spitting out. It's good to remember when sampling around a dozen wines within a few hours around the middle of the day. Before we started comparing blends, Robert Bruno led a tour around his family winery, identifying the differences in producing white and red wines as well as the mechanical and chemical processes involved in producing 3.4 million litres of wine largely within a few months each year.

A vertical tasting of the premier brand Willandra Shiraz gave a sense how ageing changes wine, as well as the subtle berry bouquet of their double gold medal-winning 2006 release. It was so good I didn't want to spit it out, I wanted it to be part of me. Toorak Wines have won over international wine show judges and overseas suppliers with their European approach. The flavours are more integrated and less like your stereotypical Australian wine. It's not the brash and bold sorta thing I normally drink, so the whole event made me feel incredibly sophisticated.

Winemaker Martin Wozniak poured glasses of the shiraz currently maturing, different batches from the same harvest that illustrated some of the scope of his job.  My tasting notes for these four glasses could describe four different wines and, in a sense, they do. These different flavours have been exaggerated and shaped into a palatte from which they will find complementary and contrasting shades to colour releases for a vintage. The key constraint that wine must be made from grapes ensures no one gets too crazy with the contents of our bottles but it's this sense of working with what you've got that's really appealing about winemaking. The problem-solving required as well as the chemistry to produce a sensuous product like wine makes it an art.

After lunch we began the process of settling on our blends. Using two shiraz batches and a cabernet sauvignon that the winemakers thought they'd most likely be selling unblended, we once again found contrasting flavours.

My initial attempt was to combine the shiraz whose eucalyptus note I liked with the tree fruit-flavour of the cabernet and the result was underwhelming. My second attempt favoured the shiraz again while introducing smaller amounts of the cabernet and the second shiraz. It was another revelation. The flavours seemed to rearrange themselves on my palate. The coppery note that had left a bad taste in my mouth in the second, rougher shiraz now carried a tannin finish after the wine had departed.

Examples of different oak treatments illustrated the knockout vanilla taste of American wood versus the restrained French equivalent. A couple of Hungarian alternatives were subtler and different again. This demonstration lead to discussion of the oak treatment already employed on two of the three wines we were blending.The shiraz I called rough I learned hadn't had this process.

When Robert asked if anyone was ready to blend their bottle I raised my hand. To keep the measurements easy to scale he made more than what was required and I was stoked to hear people sampling my blend making appreciative comments. We each had different approaches and it was fascinating to taste and discuss how small increments in the ratios were noticeable in our mouths.

This wine blending class wasn't something I'd seen promoted before and in the local paper the winery are quoted as saying they're thinking of running it again next June. If you like wine there's a lot to learn about the science and artistry as well as a very satisfactory feeling to be gained blending your own bottle. Highly recommended.

The Blue Nun in Piskor's Wizzywig

Had a chuckle while nearing the end of Ed Piskor's Wizzywig last night when I spotted this quote from a sample used on the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head -- my favourite of their albums for the way it mixes up their interests in punk, hiphop, Buddhism, etc.

The quote appears in the interlude track The Blue Nun, which samples On Wine: How To Select and Serve by Peter M. F. Sichel and Sondra Bianca. Found this short interview with Sichel while looking for the track on Youtube just now.



Ed Piskor is currently preparing a comic on the history of hiphop.

March into the archives : wine appreciation

Two images from Charles Sturt University's Bathurst Campus about six years ago. These days I reckon the students can afford wine in bottles.