By Fergal Gleeson
Blind Tasting at Green Door Wines
Do you think you could tell a red wine from a white wine if you couldn’t see the colour? Put yourself to the test and taste 4 different wines out of solid black glasses at Green Door.
These glasses are the perfect tool to handicap your senses, removing all visual clues and allowing for a non-biased approach to the wines. Do the tasting blind and win a glass of wine on Green Door if you can guess all wines correctly. No pressure!
Green Door have had great success with the ‘El Toro Tempranillo’ winning a gold medal at the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show. They have also been fermenting Spanish style wines in Amphora Clay Pots producing an Amphora Grenache and an Amphora Tempranillo.
The vessel that a wine is fermented and stored in, whether new or old oak barrel or tank, can have a big impact on the wine in your glass. See for yourself at the cellar door.
Grazing platters also available at the Cellar door which was voted ‘Best Small Cellar Door Geographe’ by Gourmet Traveller Wine 2019.
Match Wine and Food at Capel Vale
Capel Vale planted the first commercial vines in Geographe in 1974 and it is the region’s largest producer. It is still owned and operated by the Pratten family.
Unlike other Geographe producers Capel Vale has expanded beyond the region and now owns additional vineyards in Margaret River, Pemberton and Mount Barker.
The logic of the expansion has been to be able to produce varietals in the regions to which they are best suited.
Their Malbec plantings are now 10 years old and were originally grown for blending with Cabernet.
Jonathan Loxton from Capel Vale describes the Debut 2016 Malbec as “a lighter, fruit forward style of Malbec which is best drunk younger. Argentinian Malbec is a more robust, spicy style which can age well.”
The 2019 Debut Malbec vintage is coming soon. There’s also the 2018 Capel Vale Malbec Rose, their first dryer style Malbec Rose, with rich red apple and strawberry flavours.
Match Restaurant allows guests to take a wine and food journey with multiple food components paired to an individual varietal of wine.
The Malbec Rose is perfectly paired with the cured kingfish, a light orange and fennel salad or a lightly spiced crispy skinned barramundi fillet.
Match Restaurant is open for lunch from Thursday to Monday. The Cellar door is open 7 days a week.
Wine, Beer and Pizza at Oakway Estate
Oakway Estate won the Trophy for ‘Best Alternative Wine’ at the WA Boutique Wine Show 2019 for ‘Los Niños’ Single Vineyard Malbec 2018.
They bottled their first ‘il Siciliano’ Single Vineyard Nero d’Avola 2019 with a release date in mid-2020. Nero d’Avola is a Sicilian red grape with soft tannins, dark plum colour and is easy drinking.
With 9 different traditional and alternative varieties in the vineyard, they offer a range of red, white, rose, sparkling and fortified wines.
If your palate tires of wine tasting you can head to their in house ‘nano’ brewery, ‘Ned’s Brew Club’ where they rotate three craft beers on tap in the themes of lighter, unusual and hop influenced.
Their Kolsch is a popular summer light ale, their ‘Lampo Rosso’ and ‘Lampo Bianco’ are Belgian styled Witbiers with red or white wine grape infusions as a secondary fermentation and there is a hop influenced ‘Red IPA’.
All wines and beers combine with fresh made pizza and gourmet local produce platters. Oakway Estate has some of the best flavoured coffee beans in the region at the cellar door café on the Capel River which is a 15 minute drive west of Donnybrook.
http://www.oakwayestate.com.au
From FOUND Magazine
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