It's all looking good for 2009

Welcome to our Winter Newsletter. Vintage is well and truly behind us now and the wines are all nearing completion in the winery. The season was overall a good one which allowed us to ripen slowly and without any major interruptions from the weather.

The sparkling wines were the first to be picked as usual and looked very good in the bins. Beautiful Pinot Noir and Chardonnay fruit and a touch of Pinot meunier. These three varieties all come together to make our blend of classic traditional method sparkling. At the same time some chardonnay was picked to make our Blanc de Blanc. This style has proved to be very popular at the cellar and is selling at the same pace as the blend. The white wine fruit looked so good as did the pinot noir for wine. This year we have made a small batch of Merlot from hand picked fruit and we are all looking forward to this wine.

Pruning is now underway. There is no quick way of doing this job. Slow and meticulous you need to be to get the best result. Some changes are being made to let more sunlight into the fruit which will require a lot more management throughout the year but the result should allow us to manipulate the fruit quality to get the best from the vineyard. We always are trying to get the ultimate result from our unique vineyard site so we can present you with special premium wines.

Lee and I have just returned from 5 weeks in the UK and Ireland where we managed to meet up with two new Irish importers who have now received our samples. Ireland is a beautiful country and we shall try our hardest to convert some of the guinness drinkers over to some of the cool climate wines from Denmark, Western australia.

Be quick at these prices. Stock up on wines for summer. 30% discount on our 2007 Sauvignon Blanc and 2007 Semillon. That’s only $13.30 bottle for Sauv Blanc – usually $19.00 and only $14.70 bottle for Semillon – usually $21.00. You can have a mixed dozen and free freight to Perth. Small charge for country Wa - $8 per case and Eastern States $19 per case. Both wines are drinking so well and this special is only available to our newsletter customers. 93% and 94% from James halliday.

2 tblsp coriander seeds
2 tblsp cumin seeds
1½ tblsp sea salt
1 garlic clove
3 handfuls fat-leaf parsley
2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil
4 x 200g blue-eye cod or other firm white fish fillets
2 tbls light olive oil

Mashed potato to serve, lemon wedges to serve. Preheat oven to 180deg. Put the coriander and cumin seeds on a roasting tray and roast for two minutes or until they begin to darken.
Remove, cool briefy and put in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder with the salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Grind to powder, then add the garlic, parsley and extra virgin olive oil. Mix to a paste.
Rinse the fish fillet and pat dry with paper towels. Press the paste on to the top of each of the fish fllets forming a thick crust that completely covers the surface.
Heat the light olive oil in a large ovenproof frying pan over high heat until it begins to shimmer. Add the fish to the pan, crust side down. Sear for 1 minute, turn over and cook for a further minute. Put the pan in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove the fish and serve on a bed of mashed potato with lemon wedges.

A Somerset Semillon would be the perfect accompaniment for this fish dish.

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Don't Miss Out – Go Mail Order!

The only way you can get some of our award wining wine is when you visit the cellar! However, for all you workaholics in the metro area – getting down to beautiful Denmark may be somewhat hard to do, so we have set up a fantastic mail order system. Discounted wine and free delivery to Perth makes it all too easy for you. Give us a call or fax an order through, you can even use our website and we will have a case of wine on your doorstep in two days (ready for the weekend). Just fill in the Mail Order form over the page. Mail Order form.