Cullen 2010 Cullen Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Semillon

Read the winery's tasting notes and you'll find references to the beneficial effects of biodynamic viticulture that are almost guaranteed to create debate between enthusiasts and sceptics, but it's impossible to deny the presence of something special in this 12% alc/vol number.

Not knowing anything about such matters I'm probably better off leaving them alone, but I can't help feeling people who are going to go to the trouble of ensuring they're following Steiner's principles down to the impeccably crossed ts and immaculately dotted is are probably guaranteed to turn out a quality product regardless of whether biodynamics actually deliver. If you micromanage to this degree you're going to come out way ahead of the just bung some chemicals on the vines and hope for the best mob.

Check the available details closely and you see we're talking grapes  picked at various degrees of ripeness (between 9.7 and 12.2 baume) over a number of different days (picking for the flavour components rather than a well, it's sort of ready now, let's get it off) and you're going to end up with (and I'll admit I'm guessing here) a number of different parcel that are going to be micromanaged to within an inch of their vinous lives.

And if that process delivers something as good as this, that's absolutely fine with me. Loved this one and will be back for more.

Cullen 2010 Cullen Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Semillon (5* $35) 66% sauvignon blanc and 34% semillon combine to deliver a package that's almost seamlessly integrated and delivers plenty to savour and speculate about. A hint of this? A tad of that? among the herbal citrus on the nose and across the palate. Not, I think a wine for food since the food flavours will get in the way. Open it early, savour as an aperitif and then throw in the fresh seafood as you hit the end of the bottle. At 12% you're not going to be absolutely stonkered by that stage, but you'll be absolutely well disposed towards the world at large. A dozen oysters or a couple of fresh red spot prawns with the last glass would work well for me. Outstanding as long as your palate can handle subtle and you're not throwing in distractions in the food line.

Cullen 2010 Mangan Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Semillon

When it comes down to tin tacks, most of us who drink would have to admit that we do so, at least partially, for the effect. True, there are any number of other considerations that impinge on the matter, including what some might consider minor details like taste and food matching, but when you scrutinise the matter with an intense and totally honest scrute, the desired effect is always lurking in the background.

Reflecting on what we'd sampled when Warbo and the Dragon Lady landed on the Friday night pizza doorstep here at The Little House of Concrete had me casting the mind back to a chance liquor barn encounter with an ex-student who rejoiced in the nickname of Jimbob.

At the I was browsing through the quality end of the operation rather than the cask and el cheapo section and a glance at the pricing had Jimbob suggesting that the price point was a matter of wankery since it was all about getting you off.

That was close to twenty years ago, but the encounter still sticks in my mind for some reason.

Yes, effect is a significant part of the picture, but it's not the only part. Suffice it to say, what we're looking at here aren't aimed at the Jimbob fraternity.

AS far as I'm concerned, however, I want something interesting to drink, and I want variety, which is why we've got a swag of boxes on the floor of the office to go with the contents of the wine rack, the stash in the wine fridge and the selection in chilled storage in the bar fridge.

And if you're after something interesting to sample, you're probably after some details, which explains the statistical and other information cribbed from Mr Halliday and the winery website, since I'm interested in, for example, what makes this one different from the almost identical blend produced by the same producer from the Cullen Vineyard.

Cullen 2010 Mangan Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Semillon (5* $35) 62% Sauvignon Blanc and 38% Semillon from the gravelly (c.f. the loamy Cullen) Mangan vineyard with some French oak (13%) on the SB side. Clear pale straw, with a subtlety through the nose that needed a little time to open up, revealing understated grass and citrus notes and a blend of citrus and minerality on the palate that was poised, balanced and textured to run out to a rounded finish. Subtle and quite superb…

Deep Woods 2010 Jack's Patch Sauvignon Blanc

When it comes to phone calls asking acquaintances if they want to share a case of wine they're usually emanating from the LHoC rather than heading in the opposite direction.

We were almost out the door on the way to collect my brother from Whitsunday Coast Airport when the phone rang and Jimbo put the proposition, and the nature of the surrounding circumstances possibly accounts for the fact that I thought we were talking Cabernet or Cab Merlot rather than Sauvignon Blanc.

Subsequent research from Jimbo suggests this is the Deep Woods export label and the wine, under its official guise, took out the trophy for Best Sauvignon Blanc at the Margaret River Wine Show in 2010.

Deep Woods 2010 Jack's Patch Sauvignon Blanc (4* $n/a) Pale in the glass with green tinges, varietal aromatics on the nose and zingy acidity across the palate, this presents as an ideal summer drinking style without standing up and demanding attention.

Two excellent little numbers

While the retired lifestyle is supposed to deliver plenty of time to do things it doesn't take much to throw a spanner in the works and disrupt the old blogging schedule.

Now, the reader who's familiar with Hughesy's habits will probably leap to a totally unwarranted conclusion when I remark that a recent hiatus in blog activity coincided with a milestone birthday, but the arrival of my brother on the doorstep to assist with the celebrations associated with the milestone had a considerable impact on the publishing schedule.

We collected him from Whitsunday Coast Airport around Friday lunchtime, took a leisurely lap through Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour on the way back, entertained Mr & Mrs Actor over pizzas on Friday night, spent much of Saturday chatting and catching up, took another drive to Airlie for the long lunch on Sunday, took things fairly easy through the actual birthday on Monday and lost a fair chunk of Tuesday dropping him off at Whitsunday Coast, so there was a fair quantity of what might have been writing time gone….

Add to that the decision to acquire littlehouseofconcrete.net and a need to generate some content to start filling it, the start of the process of migrating content from MobileMe to the new site, and you'll see why we've got this backlog of data that needs to be delivered to the various LHoC sites.

There are these two little numbers from the Sunday Long Lunch at Déjà Vu, for example. After some recent experiences I was mildly apprehensive about what I was likely to find on the wine list, since there's nothing about it on the Déjà Vu website, and I suspected we might be finding ourselves in the land of the usual suspects once again.

It only took a brief glance to reassure me, however, and I was in the process of tossing up between a couple of options in the white department before settling on a Tasmanian sauvignon blanc.

Decisions in the rose/red section of the list were a bit more straightforward, since I'd spotted something that had attracted favourable attention during the Rose Revolution promotion earlier in the month and I had suspicions I'd sighted it in Halliday's Hundred the day before.

As far as the Long Lunch was concerned, at $44 for around half a dozen courses it's reasonably good value with one major reservation.

There were three of us at the table, and we found great difficulty demolishing everything on offer. It appears they've catered on the basis of tables of four, since I couldn't detect much difference between what arrived in front of us and what appeared on nearby tables with two and four customers.

Either arrive in a foursome or, if you can't quite muster the numbers, book yourself into overnight accommodation so you can do a carpet snake routine after a big feed rather than climbing back into the car for the homeward journey. I'm not sure whether five or six diners triggers a double helping, but if five doesn't you might find yourself slightly peckish at the end of proceedings.

As far as the food is concerned, the opening antipasto platter was excellent, the calamari that followed it some of the best I'd tried, the mussel dish superfluous and padded out with far more pasta than necessary, the pizza good but not great, the lamb quite excellent and the dessert excellent, though I wasn't able to finish mine (Madam looked after it, however).

And as far as the wine was concerned:

Dalrymple Vineyards 2010 Sauvignon Blanc (4.5* $25) Pale straw in the glass, and from the first whiff of the aromatic herbaceous nose I was firmly on side. Well balanced citrus and passionfruit across the palate, zingy acidity, and a lengthy finish here's a reminder that you don't need to go to New Zealand for high quality cool climate Sauvignon Blanc. One to look for on restaurant wine lists since it doesn't turn up in the local bottle shops (I looked).

Turkey Flat 2011 Barossa Valley Rose (5* $18) Grenache, shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, dolcetto blend that's salmon pink in the glass (looked great from the time the bottle arrived) fragrant aromas through the nose, watermelon and berry fruits on the palate and a well-defined balanced finish summer drinking doesn't get much better than this. Consistently at the very top of Australian roses says Mr Halliday, and there won't be any dissent from this quarter..

Cullen 2010 Margaret River White

Well, here's another string to add to the Summer Drinking bow…

We're already looking at a regular mix of light reds and Rose, Riesling and the odd Semillon Sauvigon Blanc or SBS, drawn from Brook Eden, Rockford, Pfeiffer and Pikes, with maybe a bottle or two of the Brook Eden Pinot Gris ond Rockford White Frontignac thrown in for a bit of variation.

There'll be a six pack of the Hay Shed Hill Block 1 SSB thrown in for something towards the premium end of the spectrum and, of course, there's plenty of other wine sitting in the rack that will need to be removed to make room for incoming summer supplies.

Based on a slight degree of disappointment with the Margaret River Red I hung off this one for a bit, but a retry of the red had me sneaking the previoous rating a bit higher, bunping the 3.5 I could buy this up towards a 4* I should buy this. I'm still not !00% there, but if I'm going to line up for more of the White, and given the fact that I don't quite need a dozen of these, I'll probably be in for a couple more of the reds.

Time to whack a bottle of the Red in the fridge to see how it handles that option, and I'd better get a Mangan Vineyard Semillon in there as well.

Cullen 2010 Margaret River White (4.5/5 $19) A variation on the traditional Bordeaux blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon with a splash of Chenin Blanc, a dash of Chardonnay and a touch of Riesling, it's still basically a Margaret River SBS with added complexity from the additional elements. Those extra dimensions come across on the nose, with enough elements in there to keep you sniffing for a while as you have a go at identifying them. They deliver across the palate as well, with a rounded elegance coiled around a core of soft-edged acid. An interesting blend for the short term with depth on the palate that's remarkable in a wine that registers 12.5% alc/vol. I may well be looking for more of this one.

Two whites (Helm 2009 Sauvignon Blanc and Stella Bella Suckfizzle Sauvignon Blanc Semillon)

Visitors to the Little House of Concrete (at least, visitors who will take a drink) provide an excuse to open something that I mightn't be sampling as an everyday drinking line. Those everyday drinking styles tend to arrive in multiples, not always by the dozen but somewhere between three and the box. With a visitor on the premises you can try one of those odd bottles secreted around the rack or lurking at the back of the fridge.

Selecting the appropriate bottle is, of course, a function of whatever is on offer on the food front, and these weren't the best option for a chicken tikka masala but there were other factors that came into the mix.

The visitor, this time around, was the fabulous Staggster, a forty-year acquaintance from Teachers' College days and ex-colleague in Townsville prior to my relocation to beautiful downtown Bowen. She's based in the national capital these days, so I thought it was worth starting with something from her home territory.

Inquiries about Helm while we were assembling the dinner sealed the issue. The winery, I was informed, was a bit on the expensive side (well, given the small winery bit that's par for the course) but I think we might have persuaded someone that the $25 Sauvignon Blanc and the $28 Riesling were worth investigating.

Into sitting around after dinner mode, with Richard Thompson's 1000 Years of Popular Music on the DVD player provided an excuse to crack one of the Stella Bella Suckfizzle SBS.

Helm 2009 Sauvignon Blanc (4.5* $25) Hand picked grapes and free run juice deliver plenty of herbaceous aromatics on the nose and intensity across the palate, a cool climate Sauvignon Blanc with varietal character and a lengthy finish. Will be back for more, most likely for a six-four Riesling-Sauv Blanc blend in the next ten-pack.

Stella Bella 2006 Suckfizzle Sauvignon Blanc Semillon (4.5* $36) Plenty happening on the nose, herbs, grass, berries and talc, with the interaction between Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and oak delivering a complexity across the palate with layers to savour over a lengthy sitting. Won't be waiting too long to open the other bottle on hand and definitely one to throw in the next order from Stella Bella.

Fermoy Estate 2010 Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc

Truth, Jimbo remarked on yesterday's morning walk, is stranger than fiction. We were talking music rather than wine at that particular juncture, which may have prompted my Or, to borrow the name of a Robert Wyatt album, Ruth is stranger than Richard. Jimbo has a brother named Richard, though I'm not sure whether his circle of acquaintances is a Ruth-less or Ruth-free zone.

This morning's brisk stroll around the Front Beach, however, returned to the subject of wine, and, predictably, given the fact that we wandered around impressions of Sauvignon Blanc with and without the addition of Semillon, that truth is stranger than fiction bit kicked in again, prompted by two items I sighted yesterday and cited in the course of the stroll.

For a start yesterday's Wine Companion newsletter had Mr Halliday describing the 1.62 million tonne 2011 grape harvest as  unexpected and profoundly shocking.

I'd been rash enough to opine that we might be looking at the end of the current grape glut, thanks to a mixture of factors including floods, mildew and botrytis in almost every region around eastern Australia. Talking to Steve Doyle at Bloodwood I was told he was one of the few producers in Orange who'd been able to pick anything at all, and I'd heard a similar report from Ken Helm outside Canberra, yet here we are with a crop that's nearly 25% bigger than the quantity needed, and, to quote Mr Halliday, it is certain that the extra 300 000 tonnes were very poor quality grapes sold for a song and destined for the bulk market.

Strange. We've got a glut, so we ensure that the situation remains in place by harvesting large quantities of crap grapes for the already over-catered for lower end of the market.

I've also noted that calls for a floor price for alcohol to counter, among other things, binge drinking in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory are greeted with claims that a steep increase in the price of a five litre goonbag would remove one of the few pleasures available to the Australian age pensioner.

Strange. We have an on-going health disaster in the Territory largely fuelled by the availability of vast quantities of industrially-produced ethanol but we can't do anything about it because of the impact on our pensioners, who deserve a far better deal than they're currently getting.

Based on the Carbon Tax debate, one would have thought that the extra revenue from a floor price (I'm assuming that this would be achieved by changing the way alcohol sales are taxed) could have been evenly split between expenditure on indigenous health and raising the age pension to the point where the elderly, who definitely deserve it, could afford to buy semi-decent quality bottled wine.

Then there was the article in the Sydney Morning Herald linked from the Daily Wine News that suggests that they're selling 3.4 million cases of Sauvignon Blanc per year in this country, and most of that seems to be sourced from New Zealand, where producers seem to be (and I'm quoting from the Australian Tax Office website here) entitled to a rebate of 29% of the selling price of the wine. There's more on the same subject here.

I'm not an expert on these things but it looks awfully like we've got a continuing glut due to sales of cheap imported wine that attracts what amounts to a subsidy. Strange.

Those matters might explain why I'm able to buy something like this rather good Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc for $7.50 (the '09 back in February) or  $10.85 (the '10 in an end of financial year sale).

Fermoy Estate 2010 Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc (4.5* $22 Sale $10.85) Another crystal clear pale straw number with bright aromatics that are a bit closer to the hay and curt grass end of the spectrum than I recall from the '09, this one hits the palate with sharpish varietal character, a balanced acidity and a tinge of sugar that rounds into a lengthy finish. Under my five point scale, 4.5* means I really need to buy this, while 4* equates to I should buy this, but with eleven bottles left in the box I don't need to buy any more, do I? On the other hand 4.5 means I'll be looking very closely at the '11, n'est ce pas?

Fermoy Estate 2010 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

My tasting note for the Fermoy Estate 2009 Yallingup Vineyards Margaret River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc that I reprised from back in March concluded with Will be looking very closely at the 2010, and while $10 freight free is a slightly higher impost that the $7.50 including freight I paid for the '09 there was no way I'd be bypassing this one at the price..

A perusal of the back label suggests a cancelled order that would have been heading Stateside....

Fermoy Estate 2010 The Partnership Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (4/5 $20 Sale $10) Green tinges in the glass, the regulation tropical fruit and citrus nose that goes with the regional blend, this 55/45 combo hits the palate nicely balanced, with the same tangy complexity and lengthy finish as noted in the '09. Maybe not quite as impressive as the last one, though that may well be a reflection on the accompanying meal rather than the wine itself. I'm inclined to round things down rather than up, and reserve the right to ratchet the rating up to 4.5 after a later sample.

Voyager Estate 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Semillon

While it would have been interesting to have left the last survivor of this dozen for the warmer weather that's probably just around the corner a combination of a surfeit of Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc, SBS and SSB blends along with a severe case of cases on the floor in front of the wine rack meant that this one was a prime candidate for Operation Room in the Rack.

Voyager Estate 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Semillon (4.5/5 $24) One of the best examples of the standard Margaret River white blend I came across when we visited reduced to $18 and freight free was a no-brainer in October last year, and it's a minor miracle this last survivor has lasted eight and a half months in the rack. Pale straw colour, regulation elements present on the nose, with fresh zingy acidity balanced in with the fruit on the palate and a gentle, textured almost understated rounded finish made for a great drink, and prompt a mental memo to scour the horizon for the 2010. 93 from Halliday.

Fermoy Estate 2009 Yallingup Vineyards Margaret River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

While mileages may vary when it comes to winery ratings those of us with a limited budget as far as time is concerned need some sort of framework to start from when we're visiting somewhere like Margaret River. Lacking either local knowledge or acquaintances who've visited the area recently (though we had one friend who pointed us towards Hay Shed Hill) it was a case of turning to Halliday, and a quick squizz revealed enough five star operations to keep us busy for a week rather than the two-and-a-bit days we had available.

In cases like that, the list from Halliday is a starting point and you (or rather I, readers may operate differently) then start sifting through other details to sort out the wheat from the chaff. We had Cullen Wines pencilled in for lunch on the last day, didn't want to overdo it, and I noted with interest that Fermoy Estate was just down the road from the planned stop, conveniently located near a chocolate factory Madam expressed an interest in, and, in Halliday's words "happy to keep a relatively low profile, however difficult that may be given the quality of the wines". Sounded good to me.

Which explains how we got there. What happened when we did meant that we'll be keeping an eye on the website for frequent orders even if they're nowhere near the heavily discounted ($20 to $7,50 by the dozen with freight)

Fermoy Estate 2009 Yallingup Vineyards Margaret River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (4.5* $20) Not quite half and half (52-48%) the Semillon characters sit on top of the grassy passionfruit Sauvignon Blanc, resulting in a blend that's  tightly knit with a tangy complexity and a lengthy finish across the palate and plenty on offer through the nose. A wine that had me wishing there were more than five of them left.  Will be looking very closely at the 2010.

Fermoy Estate 2009 Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc

While I'm quite aware that I've been marching to the beat of a different drum for much of the past forty years a recent stroll around downtown Bowen reinforced the difference between Hughesy's tastes and the drinking habits of the wider community in these parts.

Given the prevailing humidity, a walk downtown usually comprises a two-and-a-half-block trek from home to the (air-conditioned) post office, with subsequent stops at the bank, the regular newsagent and the local library, all of which offer a temporary cool down.

The need to visit the supermarket on Friday resulted in a further stop at the corner newsagent, and with around a hundred metres to go before the supermarket I yielded to temptation and sidetracked into the liquor barn.

These days, my wine purchases are almost invariably made direct from the winery, so visits to the liquor barn have become few and far between. They've remodelled the interior as well, so these days I'm not quiote so familiar with the layout.

The new look works around the multi-layer stand the bottles up arrangement, with signs indicating areas devoted to particular varieties and styles. I'd have had no problem locating the Sauvignon Blancs, for example, though I'd have a bit of a problem if I was after something interesting and attractively-priced that didn't come from New Zealand.

There was, however, nothing to indicate where I might find a Riesling, and I managed a fair cooling off period before I found a limited range hidden at the very bottom of the Moscato and Sweet Whites section.

Now, if I had to pick a varietal that's ideally suited to the tropical lifestyle, where people tend to go for fish and seafood and some of us don't mind the flavour profile of Thai dishes, I'd be heading directly for the Riesling without passing GO and collecting $200.

I could well have gone a Riesling with dinner that evening, but an email from Fermoy Estate had landed boxes of 2009 Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, rather remarkably reduced from $20/$22 to $6.25 ($7.50 when you add freight) and the Sauv Blanc needed to be sampled.

Two points that emerge from the above:

(i) Continued bafflement at the public's refusal to go for varietal Riesling (actually, I'm sure the reason lies in the confusion between generic goon-bag swill marketed under the name and the genuine article);

and (ii) The marketing snow job that's persuaded the broad mass of Australian drinkers to subscribe to the cut price Savalanche rather than sample some of the very acceptable styles produced on this side of the ditch.

That second point presumably accounts for some of the remarkable price reduction in

Fermoy Estate 2009 Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc (4.5* $22) Almost crystal clear pale straw, brightly aromatic and leaning to the tropical rather than the cut grass end of the spectrum, balanced with genuine varietal character, depth  and a lengthy finish, this was quite wonderful drinking and had me wishing I'd (at least) doubled the order. Assuming consistency across future vintages I'd happily pay the full RRP whack, and at the discount on offer at the time (it's presumably long gone) a no-brainer.

Lenton Brae 2010 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

Lenton Brae was the first place we stopped when we were in Margaret River, and yhis was the first wine we tasted there. Not a bad way to start! Subsequent visits to the website revealed references to Gold Medals and Trophies, awards I find much more plausible than a certain other wine reviewed recently in these parts.

Lenton Brae 2010 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (4.5* $22) Not quite half and half (52% Semillon, 48% Sauvignon Blanc), and while the Semillon just comes through on top the varieties blend close to seamlessly. Powerful from the aromatics on the nose to the lingering acid on the finish, and there's an abundance of fruit in between. While it may develop over time there's no way the other two in the order will be getting a chance. In fact, they'll be lucky to see March and April is almost certainly out of the question. Stunningly good, and within a whisker of a 5* rating.