Spring / Summer 2010
It’s a lovely warm spring morning and I’ve just taken a brief respite, looking out over our newly planted block of Mataro, to reflect on a year that is all too fleetingly nearing it’s end.
Like most vignerons, this has been a busy year for us – starting in late February with an earlier than usual vintage for our first ever pick of Chardonnay. A number of interstate trips to various capitals for wine lunches, dinners and tastings and finally to blending the next vintage wines for bottling. We finalised our 2010 Riesling blends around the kitchen bench about a week ago, and will be sending them off to bottling in early December, for release in the new year. Bottling our wines a little later than most and keeping our Riesling on light lees for 8 months has really become a hallmark of our style. We’ll be bottling the 2008 Shiraz early in the new year and a lovely, flavour packed, savoury red blend too.....
I’ve gone into more detail about the goings on @ Radford Wines in the rest of this newsletter, from vintage to vines and what’s happening on the farm. You’ll notice there’s quite an emphasis on food & cooking in this issue. Having trained and worked as a chef for many years and now responsible for making our wines I’ve been working towards creating an even greater balance between these two loves of ours. These range from new tasting menu experiences to the “Radford Kitchen Cooking schools”. Over the years, many of our customers have asked for suggestions and ideas for dishes to match with our wines, so after a number of these requests I’ll be sending out a monthly recipe, starting in December just in time for some festive season inspiration – I’d love your feedback and do let me know if you’d prefer not to receive these monthly emails.
Enjoy and many blessings for the festive season.
Gill & Ben Radford