Over forty minutes we covered everything from cellar construction and cellaring conditions to investment strategies in the current economic environment with side-tracks to cover each wine and a timely reference to the importance of taking notes when you’re going tasting.
Hughesy doesn’t get to wineries that often, so while the guy at the cellar door has a range of wineries within reach and the opportunity to develop a thorough note-taking system (I suspect a notebook rather than scribbled notes on whatever publicity material happens to be lying around the premises).
I hadn’t quite progressed that far at this point in proceedings.
Following his suggestion, I tried to take notes at each of the places we visited.
Looking back over the accumulated materials as I type, the records vary wildly and don’t always give an accurate summary of my reaction to the winery.
From here on, where there’s a lengthy discussion it means that I’d ended up with plenty of notes (I’m typing this a fortnight later from written notes compiled a day or two after we visited the winery in question). In other cases, I took notes which then somehow got lost in the shuffle between the tour and the write up in the journal.
That said, my notes from Leasingham suggest my favourite of the four was the Individual Vineyard Riesling. Bin 7 Riesling is one I’ll be keeping my eye out for in bottle shops and restaurant wine lists, as is the Magnus Cabernet which is as good as you’re likely to find at this price point.
I thought it represented excellent value for money.