| Here's a fascinating bargain from Australia, although I have to confess upfront that I am afraid it has been made expressly for the British market and for the moment is available only in Asda stores in the UK, for just £5.99. Hats off then to Nick Dymoke-Marr who has seen the potential of offering something genuinely new and different from the world's most successful wine exporter, much better known for efficient, made-to-measure Shiraz from hot, irrigated wine regions on the Australian mainland. This comes from Australia's coolest wine region, the island of Tasmania off the already-cool coast of Victoria, where Cabernet Sauvignon is not the most obvious grape variety to be growing there. In fact this wine is a crisp, appetising, deep-coloured blend of Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc and would appeal to lovers of red bordeaux looking for something inexpensive with more guts than a œ5.99 bordeaux would have. The packaging is smart, as you can see, and the wine really does taste like a cool climate Cabernet with some ocean influence. It was made from four, separately-vinified parcels of fruit in the northern Piper's Brook and Tamar areas with some fruit coming from the old Piper's Brook Vineyard set up by Dr Andrew Pirie. You can tell Tasmania's different. It hangs on to its apostrophes. |
Readers outside the UK are urged to keep a look out for Tasmania's particularly interesting style of wine. There are delicious Pinot Noirs from the likes of Freycinet/Wineglass Bay' great steely Rieslings from the likes of Tamar Ridge and Stefano Lubiana, as well as some more great Cabernets from Domaine A – as well of course as some of the nerviest base wines of all in Australia's sparkling wines.
Incidentally, Dr Richard Smart, globe-trotting canopy management guru, is now based in Tasmania at Tamar Ridge, convinced that there is hardly a variety that cannot be grown successfully on the island.