Despite thousands of years of winemaking history, we’re still refining our understanding of the myriad factors leading any given wine to taste and feel as it does. Arguably, no other consumer product has such variety or involves so many minute, often inscrutable, factors. A wine’s personality is influenced by geology, microbiology, chemistry, plant and human physiology, agronomy, entomology, geography, weather, and more…
Ben Shewry moved from his home of New Zealand to Australia about 20 years ago. A young chef, he came to study, train, and learn. He was amazed by the flavors and textures of the native ingredients of Australia, and perplexed by the lack of interest Australians took in them. He became a great champion for these ingredients—fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices with names like lilly pilly, desert lime, quandong, lemon myrtle…
It’s natural to want to understand something new in terms of something known, to define A by its similarities to and differences from B. This is often especially true for emerging wine regions, where a direct comparison to a more established area provides a shortcut for consumer comprehension. Prior to my trip to the Okanagan Valley, I marveled at all the marketing materials that compared the region to Napa. In…