By David Ellis from vintnews.
If you love your plum puddings and rich fruit cakes, and all the more so on these cool chilly nights, a great wine to match them up with is a very more-ish Fortified Durif under the Three Bridges label from Calabria Family Wines in the NSW Riverina.
Being so wonderfully full bodied, rich and big, we’ll bet you’ll be quick to realise that this is a drop to start thinking about for another time too… December and these Christmassy delights all over again.
With 18% alcohol by volume this is a sipping wine that by enjoying slowly you’ll really appreciate it’s delightfully rich and intense palate of dark berries, balanced tannin and beautifully silky smooth finish; and on pouring, savour it’s equally enticing aromas of lush berry fruits and elegant brandy spirit.
At $40 the currently available 2013 Calabria Family Wines Three Bridges Fortified Durif is ready for enjoyment now – then come Christmas, too – or it can be bought and put away for anything up to 40 years.
One to Note: Heemskerk Wines brought together fruit from cool climate vineyards in the Coal River and Derwent Valleys of Tasmania’s south to create their very flavoursome 2014 Abel’s Tempest Chardonnay.
Reflecting just how well Chardonnay does in such cool conditions, this rewarding drop has generous flavours underpinned by lemon and citrus fruit and subtle oak, yet still remains quite soft and elegant.
Pay $25 and pair with Chicken Dijon as a hot main course, or with a cold seafood platter of oysters, prawns, spanner crab and smoked salmon.
The Abel’s Tempest label is named after the violent winds that hammered Dutchman Abel Tasman and almost thwarted his discovery and landing on Tasmania in 1642.
