Ullaged wine

[Greynomad]

I’m happy to leave the work to others & just enjoy the finished product!!

[dream4red]

Thanks for the tip Terry, Will remember to have a clean bottle handy when we finally have great grandchildren.

William, you really can't stop making yummy things. Your wines sound like you like to be kept very busy in your retirement.

[Greynomad]

In case anyone was wondering, this is my double-helix corkscrew:

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[Newcastle George]

Ray, Do you lay the bottle on it's side to use that cookscrew?

George

[Greynomad]

Um... George,
I think that would result in significant leakage.

I opened the less-ullaged bottle, interestingly the older one: 1975 Tulloch’s Hunter Dry Red (no grape variety noted in those days). Cork came out cleanly & in one piece, thanks to my double-helix corkscrew... good quality cork!
.... ..... ....
I think my taste in wines has improved since then.
I used to like my reds so dry ‘you can taste the flint in the soil’.
Not any more. After tasting one mouthful I poured it down the sink.
I did, however, open another bottle: a Drayton’s 1977 Lambkin Estate Hermitage.
I reckon it has just hit its peak. (Maybe I’ve opened it a tad early. )
Think I’ll save the other bottle for Christmas.

[Greynomad]

SWMBO had a taste of the ‘75, then poured herself a glass of Chateau Cardboard.
She very rapidly dumped the new wine in favour of the ‘75.
I wonder why?

[T1 Terry]

We have a friend who wouldn't drink cardboard box wine even if it was the only thing available. So we filled a well known brand labelled bottle with the cardboard box wine and another bottle of the "good" wine into the bladder in the cardboard box. We gave her a taste test but let her see which container each glass was decanted from .... she made horrible faces when she tasted the wine from the cardboard box but considered the wine from the bottle to be a very nice drop ...... I've had Aldi wines and Uncle Dan's clean skins that tasted great, yet tasting at some of the fancy wineries that I considered weren't really suitable for cooking with, maybe better for pickling or similar
So much of the perceived taste is associated with the label for many people, to me, it either tastes good or it doesn't, I don't care if it was home brewed if it tastes ok

T1 Terry

[Newcastle George]

We buy Berri Estates Dolce Rosso red in a box. On a couple of occasions we weren't impressed so called them up and received replacements. They even paid the postage for the returns so that they could check it out themselves.

George

[Greynomad]

Trust T1!!
Good one, mate.
Some pompous balloons need pricking... or have I got that wrong way 'round?

SWMBO's taste test was the genuine article. The '75 was nectar of the gods...

(Note the past tense. )

[T1 Terry]

We have a some visitors arriving soon from "The sunshine state" who consider themselves to have a good wine palette, yet are still delusional about where the best Durif is bottled. They have a problem with their palette that has lead them to believe the stuff using a different grape name (the American version) bottled in Glenrowan is better than the product from Warrabilla.
Sadly, I have no more samples of the superior Warrabilla Durif to do further taste test battles with these people and hopefully they have run out of that inferior Glenrowan stuff, although I can't imagine they'd have drunk it by choice and used up their supply
We might yet do the Winter Reds wine week end through the Adelaide Hills if they get through the mess the SA govt has generated with changing the entry requirements and passes yet again making all the preparation they had already been through, a complete waste of time and effort.
They have already changed their travel directions to come in through Broken Hill to avoid the whole Victorian travel problems, now the NT has opened up their borders so they could have entered via Camooweal and down the centre.

T1 Terry