Category: Food and Drink

  • Orlando ‘Trilogy’ (Sparkling Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Miunier) NV

    This sparkling has been fermented in the bottle on the lees for 18 months. 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…

  • Barossa Valley Estate – ‘Ebeneezer’ Shiraz (2001)

    This wine was past it’s peak with some bricking beginning to show in the colour. 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…

  • Casillero del Diablo – Carmenere 2007

    The nose on this wine is pretty interesting, with the assistance of my pregnant supersniffer wife we’ve been able to get out of it the following smells leather (wet), vanilla, fresh (hot) bread, dark chocolate (lindt – 80%cocoa), coffee grounds, mulberry, (tiny teeny itty bitty vegemite), jersey caramel, hints of aniseed (going compared to when…

  • Varietal in Focus: Carmenere

    Welcome to a new feature on Bugga.NET – “Varietal in Focus” where we take a quick look at a specific variety used to produce wine. Not too sure where this will lead to, but could be interesting, the very first variety to be examened will be Carmenere inspired by the individual to whom the NWLD…

  • It’s that time of year again…

    It’s the time of year when several of the wineries from McLaren Vale are dropping their 2006 vintage Shiraz’s and Cabernet Sauvignons. Be on the look out for Wirra Wirra’s “RSW” Shiraz and “The Angelus” Cab Sauv. Coriole have just dropped some vintages as have Kay’s Amery the makers of the very fine Block 6…

  • Wirra Wirra – ‘Sparrows Lodge’ Tawny Port (NV)

    Phwoar – this is a tasty Tawny. It’s got orange zezt combined with orange blossom honey as a primary flavour, with mocha and burnt toffee backing it up – these combine very nicely to form a full, mouth filling flavour that is not too intense. There seems to be a little fire/heat wilst in the…

  • Watermelon Curry

    Watermelon Curry. Half a small watermelon or quarter of a large one. 4 garlic cloves, crushed. 1 pinch turmeric powder. 1 tsp cumin seeds. 6 – 8 cardamom pods. 1 tsp hot chili powder. 1 cup coconut milk. Peel the watermelon and cut the flesh into bite-sized cubes. Fry the garlic, cumin seeds and cardamom…

  • Wirra Wirra – “Sparrows Lodge” Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

    This Cab Sauv from Wirra Wirra is a fantastic drop. I think it deserves a phwoar 😉 Seems the 2006 goes for $30/btl I’d suspect that I got mine on sale somewhere for around the $20 mark but I still think it would be worth $30AUD as price of admission. The nose is fantastic and…

  • The joys of a good drop of wine.

    It seems that having the occasional drop of red wine could really be good for you.? The catch is that it seems the resveratrol is something that is very helpful for your health and diet and can be found in red wine (albeit in small quantities) yet not so much in white wine. So don’t…

  • Customer service done right – Kingsleys

    Kingsleys Crab and Steak House have recently made me very happy in the way that they have handled an issue I had with them, and it’s always nice to have a happy story to tell regarding customer service. The not so nice: I came in this morning to two marketing emails from Kingsleys (which I…