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WELCOME to all
friends of Winepros
Some great news! As a former or recent subscriber to
the great wine resource that is Winepros,
you might like to know that it is under new management, and
that the entire website - over
100,000 pages - is now open to all subscribers, FREE.
We think that Winepros is too good a site for wine lovers to
lose, so we aim to maintain it as an archive for all to enjoy.
Can't find older vintage notes anywhere? In Winepros
Archive you can now freely access
- articles, wine reviews and tasting notes
dating from 1990-2005,
- articles by many of the world's leading wine
authors,
- wine region summaries from 68
countries around the world, and lots more.
Winepros is especially useful for looking up
tasting notes on older vintages, drink by
dates, cellaring information, for reference when purchasing or
selling wine, or simply when rummaging through your wine
cellar wondering what to drink. It also contains many
articles that have never before been seen in the public
arena, including writings by the late Len Evans, OBE.
To access
this treasure trove of wine information:
- Simply enter your Winepros username and
password under the Wine Clique login on the Winepros
home page, and you can access the entire website. All
articles with a padlock sign will be unlocked.
- If you have forgotten your password, and you have the
same e-mail address as previously, click here and have it e-mailed to you.
Then use it to login.
- If you have changed your e-mail address, you can update it, or your other details, here.
- And if you've forgotten your username and password,
or you are new to Winepros, simply go to the
Winepros homepage and register as a new user
with your current e-mail address.
WIN a bottle of Penfolds
Grange Hermitage 1998 in time for the festive season!
(perfectly cellared). Everyone who follows the steps above and
logs in or joins as a subscriber to Winepros before 7th
December 2007 will be entered into a draw to win a bottle of
Penfolds Grange Hermitage 1998 (valued at A$400+), to be drawn
on 9th December 2007. The winner will be notified by email and
the results posted on the Winepros website. (See competition
details here).
To make it easier to browse the site, we've added a
Google search facility - much faster than the old search - and
a sitemap located in the footer. Enjoy! And please
recommend Winepros to your wine-loving friends. We
will send you another newsletter in the New Year (we promise
no spam). In the meantime, don't forget to add winepros.com.au to your safe senders
list.
Enjoy browsing our archives over the coming
festive and holiday season, free to all subscribers.
PS We ask that you please treat the
Winepros archive with respect, like an aged wine. The
technology of the site is now very old in internet terms, and
it's not as fast as modern sites. So please be patient. We'll
also move the (very slow) forum to a new server soon, but
should you wish to post comments and notes to fellow wine
lovers, it does work (eventually!). Also note that James
Halliday is no longer associated with Winepros, and that all
articles are pre 2005.
New and updated winery entries (over 2700 in
Australia) can be found on Winepros' partner website,
VisitVineyards.com, which will be fully open
early in 2008. VisitVineyards.com® will feature a range
of new authors, and includes food, travel, art, golf and other
wine region activities as well as wine. Your updated
subscription to Winepros also gives you free access to
VisitVineyards.com®.
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Jancis' Robinson 'Purple Pages' Members offer.
Le Figaro calls her "the undisputed mistress
of the kingdom of wine" - who else but Jancis Robinson MW OBE,
wine critic, author, film script writer and yes, star? One of
a handful of wine communicators with an international
reputation, Jancis writes daily for her website
JancisRobinson.com, weekly for The Financial
Times, and bi-monthly for a column that is syndicated in every
continent.
She is also editor of The Oxford
Companion to Wine, the 3rd edition of which is now
online on her website, and is co-author with Hugh Johnson of
The World Atlas of Wine. Each of these is books recognized as
a standard reference worldwide. In fact, the Oxford Companion
to Wine is the only drinks book to appear in the James Beard
Book Awards Committee's 20 Essential Books to Build Your
Culinary Library just announced to acknowledge the 20th
anniversary of the James Beard Foundation of a new edition of
James Beard's classic cookbook Beard on Food.
But
wait! Before you rush to her website, Winepros, together with
our new wine and food travel website partner
VisitVineyards.com® is privileged to announce that all
our subscribers now have access to Jancis' members-only Purple
Pages at an exclusive rate of A$109 p.a., a full A$50
or approx. 30%* off her regular rate. (Rate valid worldwide;
*note the % savings may vary according to exchange rates and
credit card charges). As Robert Parker has written about
Purple Pages, "no-one can afford to miss the musings of the
chatty Jancis".
When you have joined or updated your
details, simply go to the Winepros
Members' Page and follow the instructions. Immediately you
can join a lively community of wine enthusiasts in more than
70 countries, and enjoy exclusive online access to the
multi award-winning 3rd Edition of the Oxford Companion to
Wine, brought to you by Winepros and
VisitVineyards.com®.
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 WIN one of 3 copies each of our two Winepros "Books of
the month"
Every month
subscribers of Winepros and Visit
Vineyards.com can enter our regular monthly
competition to win great prizes. In December we have
2 new wine books to give away: 3 copies each, one by Rob
Geddes MW and the other by wine author Campbell Mattinson.
Being books, December's competition is open to anyone
in the world (local laws permitting), but you must be
over the age of 18 to enter. Please fill in the entry form on
VisitVineyards.com - click here to enter to win a copy
now.
The prizes will be drawn at the end of
December, 2007. Winners will be notified by e-mail (we'll ask
you which book you prefer) and your prize will be posted to
you.
Our first wine book for December is Rob
Geddes MW's 'a good nose and great legs' (Murdoch
Press, 2007). Rob is an Australian Master of Wine and
has 'studied, drunk and slept in some of the world's most
famous vineyards and wineries'. This is his irreverent yet
comprehensive guide to growing, making and drinking
wine.
He describes wine as 'a coded message from
another place' and this book aims 'give you the key to...
unlock the message'. Rob asserts (and we agree) there are
three legs to the wine stool: the place it
originates, the people who grow and make it, and what grape
varieties it is made from. The first 2/3 of this rather
weighty book introduces these three elements, in considerable
depth.
On top of this stool sits you, the wine
drinker, to whom the remainder is dedicated - how you
taste, how to buy, wine in your life (serving, wine etiquette,
etc) and matching wine and food, and cooking with
wine.
This is an excellent book for a person
relatively new to wine - not perhaps a total novice
but someone with a bit of experience who wants to learn more.
More a reference and for regular dipping into than a book to
read from cover to cover, it brings together lots of material
that are scattered elsewhere, like the aroma wheel
(more easily presented here in a matrix format) and
examples of the primary fruit spectrums for several grape
varieties, and puts a new perspective on them. The
palate graphs for each grape variety are a
step forward in understanding and communicating about tasting
wine - certainly they will provoke some discussion. Buy online through Winepros bookstore now.
(It will be posted to you from our book partners
Seekbooks).
Campbell
Mattinson's 'Why the French Hate Us'
(subtitled The Real Story of Australian
Wine), is, however, a book you can sit down and read.
For one thing, it weighs a lot less. And it's more a
collection of short stories about wine, Campbell's
(sometimes hilarious, other times evocative and poignant)
experiences with it, of wine characters he has met, plus a
selection of reviews of outstanding Australian wines and
wineries. So inspired were we by his reviews that we opened a
bottle of the 2004 Savaterre pinot noir to see if we agree
that it's a 'wine to watch' - and we do... [When we first
tried this wine over a year ago, we felt it still had some way
to develop - well it's sure arrived now, and seems destined to
age well. No, let's go further - it's the best Victorian pinot
noir we have tried in the last year! Hmm, what else has he
recommended..?]
We asked Campbell about the
title. Sure, the theme of Antipodean envy runs
throughout the book, but hate is a strong word. Gallic
disdain, perhaps? His reply: 'It was suggested to me.
Clearly it's a love it or hate it title'. (Pardon the pun,
presumably). 'I can live with that. I canvassed about 25
people before settling on it, and it was 20 passionately in
favour and 5 passionately against.'
Whatever your
opinion, when someone has the guts to self-publish, or again
in Campbell's words: 'I wrote it, desktop published it, did
the cover, input corrections, my wife edited it, and I took it
through the print process ... and will pay for the print
process', then they sure have the right to pick their own
title, too. Well done, Campbell.
Hardie Grant will
distribute Why the French Hate Us, which you can buy online through Winepros now. (It will be
posted to you from our book partners Seekbooks).
However if you are over 18 (not just because of
Campbell's sometimes colourful language), wherever you live in
the world - local laws permitting - you can click here to enter to win a copy now.
Please note, the prizes will be drawn at the end of
December, so won't arrive in time for the festive
season. Buy one for a wine lover instead, and suggest they
read it over a couple of afternoons by the beach, glass in
hand, of course... and enter the competition to win your own
copy later on.
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Our Featured Wine
and Food Region - the Mornington Peninsula,
Victoria
Winepros
and Visit Vineyards® are proud to feature some wine and food
producers and other members of the hospitality and tourism
industry of the fabulous Mornington Peninsula, Victoria.
This region may perhaps be the closest place
to God's own country in Australia - a mild maritime
climate (surrounded by sea on three sides), rich soils and
rolling hills, beaches, astonishing views interspersed with
hidden valleys concealing small vineyards and farms, great
gardens and restaurants, nature, art and galleries, funky
little shops... the list goes on and on. All this is within an
hour and a half's drive of Melbourne. No wine or
food lover's visit to Victoria - or perhaps Australia - is
complete without visiting the Mornington Peninsula,
preferably for several days. Summer on an MP beach is great,
but it's fabulous there all year round, too!
The
Mornington Peninsula's many quality food
growers, makers, provedores, restaurants and more are
represented by the Mornington Peninsula Gourmet
Association (mpG), which was established to promote
the Peninsula as a fantastic venue for the enjoyment of
gourmet food and wine. mpG members include The Tasting Station, Red Hill Cheese, Ashcombe Maze, Elgee Park, Heronswood, Max's at Red Hill, McClelland Gallery, Montalto, Salix, Sunny Ridge Strawberries, plus more
restaurants, tours and accommodations. Visitors comment on the
beauty of the scenery, the quality of the food and hospitality
at the many venues on the Peninsula.
Look out for the
mpG logo as your symbol of quality assurance and
genuine provenance, as you travel around the
Peninsula, or when buying produce either locally or in
selected retail outlets in major city centres.
Read more about mpG and its members and
products here.
 Ah,
but what about the wines? As a former fruit
and in particular apricot growing area, the Mornington
Peninsula's climate was always destined for grapes. (Read more
about the viticultural history and principal wine styles in
the Winepros Archive). Today the Peninsula is
home to over 175 vineyards and wineries, with 50 cellar doors
open to the public, reputedly Australia's greatest per area
vineyard concentration.
Certainly when it comes to
quality - especially of the region's
signature wine styles of chardonnay, pinot noir and
increasingly pinot grigio/gris - there are many star
producers. For pinot noir, it's hard to select between Paringa Estate, Stonier's Reserve, Foxey's Hangout, Moorooduc Estate, Tuck's Ridge, Montalto,
Willow Creek's Tulum - the list is long -
another to look for is Merrick's Creek (their Close Planted 2005
pinot noir rates closely along Savaterre, above). T'Gallant and pinot gris are fast becoming
synonymous, but watch out for winemaker Kathleen Quealy's new
labels Pobblebonk and Rageous from her Balnarring Vineyard. Read more about MP
wines by Jeni Port on VisitVineyards.com.
Perhaps due to
climatic similarities, Mornington chardonnays
may be considered on par with Margaret River's, and again
Paringa Estate, Montalto, Willow Creek, Moorooduc, Dromana Estate and Elgee Park produce stunning chardonnays that
are hard to beat. Of course, this list also only skims the
surface of the many highly rated Mornington Peninsula wines
available.
The Mornington Peninsula Vignerons
Association (MPVA) is the industry association for
the wine-makers and grape-growers of the Mornington Peninsula
Wine Region. Find out more about the MPVA and its activities here, including a
range of public wine tastings, dinners and festivals held over
summer, both in Melbourne and on the Mornington Peninsula.
We hope you have enjoyed this revitalized newsletter,
and hope that you will continue to enjoy the free
Winepros Archive and Visit Vineyards® community for wine, food
and travel.
Kind Regards,
Robyn Lewis, Editor.
PS Don't forget to
log in to Winepros before 7th December 2007
for your chance to win the bottle of Grange 1998. (Competition
open worldwide, where local laws permit. You must be over 18
to enter). Please click
here to forward this newletter to your wine lovings
friends so they can enter, too. Good
luck!
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© Winepros and
Visit Vineyards® 2007-2008 All rights
reserved.
Visit Vineyards - PO Box 488, North Hobart TAS
7002.
All images are © of their respective Copyright owners
and are used with permission.
The header image is of
Scotchman's Hill, Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria,
Australia.
Image by MPVA is of the multiple
award-winning Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove, Mornington
Peninsula, Victoria, Australia.
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