Fifty years ago, when attending Test and Shield matches at the Sydney Cricket Ground, I would often forego my entitlement to watch from the members stand (I was a member of the SCG at that stage), preferring the company of my friends, staking out a patch on the long-since-disappeared grass-covered hill. In fact there was a choice of two ends, but that’s another story.
In those faraway days, smuggling wine into the ground was a simple matter, particularly if it was white. A group of us would each have a thermos filled with icy cold white wine, and chilled soda water in an insulated bag. You could use as much or as little soda water as you wished, but half and half was a common choice, creating a spritzer with roughly the same amount of alcohol as mainstream moscatos (and beer). And, of course, going to the beach and setting up with friends under several large umbrellas, life was even easier, with no need for subterfuge.
If you added a barbecue into the day’s enjoyment, red wines would come into play, and there without the benison of soda water. These days, sparkling moscato, sparkling pink, sparkling anything are on the approved list of choice for totally informal, outdoor enjoyment.
Upping the ante, and now spanning location onto the verandah at home, or at your favourite Chinese restaurant, Kabinett wines from Germany’s Mosel Valley are always at the head of my list. Here you have the added advantage that the wines of makers such as Ernst Loosen, JJ Prum, Doctor Richter, Egon Muller, and a cavalcade of others offer you a choice of different vineyards and different degrees of sweetness, the only common link being that amazing balance between fruit sweetness and acidity.
Coming back to Australia and its ever-increasing number of regions growing and making superb riesling, you have the same wine warehouse full of opportunities and choices. The age of the wine, now almost always presented under screwcap, opens previously undreampt of vistas. The Clare and Eden Valleys no longer have the omnipotence they once had, with Western Australia’s five subregions in the Great Southern (Albany, Denmark, Frankland River, Mount Barker and Porongurup) duelling not only with each other but also the other new kid on the block, Tasmania.
Sparkling wine or champagne is, of course, at its very best when consumed over Christmas, and here the Australian dollar has thoroughly muddied the waters when it comes to the mix of price, quality and style. Go to a reputable wine merchant, or a website that you know and trust, and it’s all there for the taking.
The list expands dramatically once you get into Christmas proper, but pinot noir is the link in between white, sparkling and red wines. The one thing to remember is that pinot is supremely intolerant when it comes to temperature. It must be kept just above an obviously chilled offering.
Finally, for the quintessential Aussie barbecue, now extending all the way from greasy sausages wrapped in a slice of white bread and tomato sauce ending up on the outside of your stomach rather than the inside, full-bodied shiraz will obviously make a big impression if untimely rain arrives, and the moon replaces the sun.