Clonakilla Dinner Series
Each year Clonakilla hold a series of dinners around Australia to give people the opportunity to taste current and back vintage wines and hear the words of wisdom from general manager and chief winemaker Tim Kirk. We attended the Brisbane event held at Era Bistro at South Brisbane, one of our favourite Brisbane restaurants. The theme for this year’s dinners was “How do Clonakilla wines age?”
After an introductory drink of 2012 Viognier Nouveau we were treated to three brackets of wines:
- Riesling - 1998, 2006, 2012
- Ballinderry (Cabernet Merlot) - 1997, 2006, 2011
- Shiraz Viognier - 2002, 2005, 2011
which were followed with the 2011 Auslese Riesling with desert.
There was no doubt that the Clonakilla wines do age well and it was interesting to see how the flavour profile of the wines changes over time. Tim recounted stories of his personal development as a winemaker including his visit to the Rhone in 1991 which lead to the development of the Shiraz Viognier which Clonakilla is now so famous for.
Tim also discussed the change in closures from cork to screw caps for the 2003 vintage. On the night some of the 2002 Riesling was corked. Tim recounted how the 2001 Shiraz Viognier was rated the best ever, but many of the bottles were cork tainted, severely diminishing the pleasure that could have been gained from this great wine. He noted that this reinforced his decision to go to screw cap.
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