I'm pretty sure wine is magic.

Last week was my Father In-Law's 60th birthday. To celebrate we were invited around to his house for an evening of food and wine, the likes of which we see reasonably often living so close by. What made this evening notable (apart from the aforementioned temporal milestone) was the wine being served was:
a) A bottle of our favourite domestic champagne (Hanging Rock Macedon LD)
and
b) A bottle of 1983 Grange.

I was (I think understandably) excited. Would this be the best wine I had ever tasted? It would certainly be the most expensive wine I've ever had the good fortune to taste. Also the most critically acclaimed.

There is no doubt that the 1983 Grange is an exceptional wine by the standards I'm used to judging by. It has survived the passage of time wonderfully, and I'd imagine would have continued to do so had it stayed in the cellar. But blind tasted, would I pay the hundreds of dollars asking price? I sincerely doubt it (even if I did have that sort of cash). Is it even top of my list of favourite wines? Unfortunately I'd have to say no. But you know what it is? It's magic.

To explain simply, I think there's an undentiable romanticism of wine. Since the instant the Grange was mentioned, the dinner transformed from an occurance to a ritual. From the careful removal of the crumbling 27 year old cork, to the decanting of the contents, and even just leaving the wine to breathe; the ritual was excitedly observed by all present. Even members of the group who were not particularly fond of wine understood, this wine was obviously special. Not because it was expensive, but because it was Grange. A wine that over the years has attained an almost mythical status at the top end of the Autralian wine tree (that should probably be vine).

But as for the most important part of the ritual, the drinking, what happens then? Everyone smells, tastes, smells again, tastes again. Then talks. The first few minutes are spent discussing the wine, but once that has been done then what? Once we've discussed tannins and oaks, fruits and nose, and exhausted our wine vocabularies what do we do?.
We move on.
We talk of other things.
Sure, every now and again throughout the evening the conversations moves back to the Grange, but that becomes the background of the evening. And at once it becomes clear that the ritual of the wine is not even about the wine, it's about who was asked to take part. The Grange was opened, consumed, and now it's gone. And years from now the six people around the table that evening won't even remember it apart from in broad, general terms. But we'll remember where we were when we drank it. And who we were with.

That is the magic of wine.

A little background:
Narkoojee is a fairly small winery just out of Traralgon, about 200km south east of Melbourne. Conveniently, this places it a very short distance from where I grew up, and an even shorter distance from where my parents live now. As a result, whenever I'm down that way visiting family, I tend to make a detour to the vineyard and cellar door at Narkoojee. Last weekend I didn't have to go to them. They came to me.

We were invited* to Red Emperor at Southbank at midday, lured by the joint promises of much food and wine. The $50 ticket price sounded an absolute bargain given the quality of the wines on offer, so we hardly needed to be asked twice. The food was unfortunately not entirely up to scratch, but I'm choosing to gloss over that due to the fact I easily drank a $50 compliment of Narkoojee wines and hence the dumplings, duck, and beef were essentially a bonus.

This is the third winery function which I've been to in recent years. I've been going to the Hanging Rock one for a while, and Eastern Peake put on a small dinner late last year; but I'm going to try and make more of a habit of it. I'm one of the people who, on the poll on the left, said I would rather go without food than wine. And at winery functions the wine is obviously what takes center stage.

The five wines on offer this time were the Sparkling 'Harriet' Chardonnay, a melon and citrus-y affair which has spent seven months on lees. The 08 Reserve Chardonnay, a personal favourite; one of the best chardonnays around as far as I'm concerned, though I've been told some of the older vintages are even more extraordinary. The 08 Pinot Noir, paired (obviously) with Peking Duck. The 07 Cabernet Merlot, this caused quite the discussion at our table, with suggestions this was a sleeping giant in the Narkoojee lineup, the word 'flagship' was bandied about, although most gave that distinction to either the chardonnay or the Athelstan Merlot(unfortunately not offered at the lunch). And finally came the 06 Sparkling Merlot. My comment would be "well, what else would one do with straight merlot? Were it not for the fact that the above mentioned Athelstan is so good.

While we had a great time (as everyone tends to do when quality wine flows so freely), there was a slight tinge of disappointment with the food. I think the winery has really been let down by the dishes served with their wines, and while the wines held their own they really weren't done any favours. Previous Narkoojee wine lunches have been held at such restaurants as Neilson's in Traralgon, Church Street Enoteca in Richmond and Matteo's in Fitzroy. Red Emperor sits oddly in such company, and I'm not sure I'd be returning in a hurry on the strength of this visit. The wines however, will maintain a presence in our cellar, and my visits to the vineyard will remain a tradition for years to come.

*Note: My parents actually heard about this first and invited us, the lunch was technically booked out, but it helps that my parents have been known to go grape picking with the owners of the vineyard.