Toss lamb in flour. heat oil in frying pan and brown lamb. Put lamb in slow cooker. Add more oil and cook onion, garlic cinnamon, cumin, coriander until fragrant. Add wine bring to boil. Add honey and stock bring to boil. Then add spices and liquid to lamb in slow cooker.

Bascially cook for the whole day on low and about 2 hours before you want to serve it add the sweet potato.

For the couscous here are the ingredients:

combine couscous with water and butter in a large bowl, cover; stand for about 5 mins fluffing with a fork occasionally. Then stir in the following ingredients: 2 tbsp lemon rind, 3/4 cup seeded green olives chopped coarsely, 1/3 cup cup parsley chopped coarsely, 1/3 cup toasted slivered almonds, 1 medium green capsicum chopped finely.

Thanks to Susanna for this one

Nose: This is nice and brooding, rather dark. Spicy, a little star anise and vanilla. It’s fantastic and seems to evolve in the glass, my favorite aspect of this wine.

Palate: Nice grippy tannins that kick in right in the mid palate. However the only fault I can pick with it, it seems to leave a big hole at the back palate right at the end. The edge of my tongue and cheeks are still possessed with the tannins, but the area up the back is just empty.

I wonder how this one will age, I suspect the hole may fill in a bit with a few more years. Definitely worth a look even in the $15-20 price range.

On the palate – there is fruit starts right up on the front, giving way to smooth grippy tannins at the back end. Some spiciness + pepper also. Excellent long mouthfeel. I can’t help but feel this was some vinfanticide opening it up now, but it at least lets me know this one has some time to go yet. The fruit and wood characteristics are becoming nicely integrated compared to 15 months ago when I last cracked a bottle of this. A little dry dustyness too. Fantastic mouthfeel. Loving every taste of this, a pity the bottle was shared w/ 4 people.

There is nothing wrong with my storage conditions.

Top of leaky cork

So this afternoon I have decanted one of the remaining 8 bottles of St Henri (none of which show any leakage) and what do you know – it’s in perfect condition. It’s not oxidised, it’s not suffering from heat damage, it smells mighty fine – full tasting notes to follow when we start drinking this proper in a few hours.

To Penfolds I say – there is nothing wrong with my storage conditions. There is however something very wrong with the corks you have used in this St Henri vintage. With your recent price hikes for the brand name, I can’t say I’ll be recommending your wines to any one in the near future. Fosters – go back to brewing beer and sell Penfolds to someone who understands wine, for at present, thou art scum.

Penfolds say this is caused by improper storage - rubbish it's their faulty cork.

To anyone who buys wine – check for leakage out of the box – don’t leave the boxes sealed for any period of time.

EDIT: (5h later) I received a phone call from a Penfolds CSU and they’re sending a package to collect the cork and will determine what recourse to take from that point (replacement if 100% sure, substitution if there is some doubt) it’s nice to be taken seriously.

Dear people of the anti-microwave cult – the mob who say no I don’t want microwaved food it ruins – please allow me to direct you to some research that have quantified how much microwaving reduces the anti-oxidants within foods. Seems like many foods don’t mind this and microwaving most foods is better than boiling.

B-o-r-i-n-g. This wine was utterly boring – it did not taste bad, it did not taste great, in fact it barely tasted at all. The notes on the nose were of faint, and I mean very faint white table grapes hiding a sliver of under-ripe pear (I like my pears crunchy so for me – under ripe means very very under ripe).

On the palate there was not much, barely any of the grape that was on the nose, although the acid was refreshing. It’s about all that can be said – practically tasteless – a white for wine haters everywhere. The one redeeming feature was that it was definitely a food enhancer. The Salmon that we had tonight went fantastic, no was actually enhanced by this wine, perhaps it was the searching of flavours that I was performing that made the Salmon, Capsicum, Celery, Carrot, Lime+Pepper spiced cous-cous that made up dinner taste so much better, but there was some enhancement.

I would recommend checking this out only for the weird taste enhancement and the sure fire ability to go with any food (barring dessert), but as a drinker this one needs some more experimentation!

The nose has subtle hint of creamy lemon zest with an odd smell of skinned carrots w/ freshly cut capsisum.

The tiny bubbles slowly come out of the wine as it hits the tongue, which is disappointing as something like this you’d hope for an explosion of tiny bubbles. Perhaps a little too much sour yellow citrus almost over preserved with SO2) too much acid here. I’ve had worse is about the best I can for this bottle.

I’d held on for just a little too long. The nose was all over the shop and after about 3 hours had pretty much blown off, however the palate was surprisingly resilient. The black fruit was there a sort of mulberry cross plum I supposed would be how I would describe it hints of leather, flowing to a liquorice whack on the end. A fantastic length of finish at the back end, but unfortunately this was a bit too bitter and only got worse as it aired. I have no idea what would have happened with a long decant time – it would have been phenomenal or empty and frankly not worth the risk. Surprisingly tasty with food (lamb chops).