I can never get more excited about wine book writers than when I hear about a tourism wine book being written. One can only read so many tasting notes! And why would that be? Because the needs of wine tourists are still scantily accommodated when the mainstream books outline where to stay, drink, and sleep; and sometimes not very well other than for the needs of the average traveller. For the top-end or budget visitor the details are often difficult to discover.

Wine travel books rarely address the other needs of wine tourists; such as art galleries, vantage points, interesting local sites, and for me, walking tracks. After much convivial eating and drinking, local walks with significant kilometres to cover are rarely accessible or easy to find when the urge takes place. A meander through vineyards is so important for fitness and vitality, even more so than with being too close to the main thoroughfares where the scents of the air are exhaust gases instead of rural backyards!

The Barossa Valley is Australia’s most recognised wine region. Few international drinkers know much about where Oz wines are grown but if hard pressed they will recall the Barossa and not the other sixty one places!

Two Queensland men who love the Barossa Valley, mainly its people and the old Germanic charm have recently written Barossa Wine Traveller. Wine book publisher Tyson Stelzer (who has Barossan roots) and golf commentator cum wine blogger Grant Dodd have cobbled together this little directorywww.barossawinetraveller.com.au $19.99 Wine Press 2009.

Barossa Wine Traveller is not a book about what wines to buy there, or taste, other than the styles for which each producer is currently reputed. It is the book you buy and read before you visit the place-it’s chocked full of stories and characters around the wine industry in this region. It has feeling, little quotes from the owner of each brand and a writing style which compels the reader to love the place. There is some magic about the history (the oldest productive shiraz in the world of at least 149 years) yet some rejuvenation of thought by the smart “young guns” around the place who inject the can do innovation.

BWT is worth buying for the non-wine visiting guidance-churches, cheese shops, helicopters, markets, bakeries, wurst houses, no walking tracks but I did find the Mount Crawford Forest.

Recently last July a wonderful Houghton shiraz 2008 from Frankland River took a trophy as best commercial red wine of the RNA Brisbane Ekka Wine Show. It was aromatic and juicy, showed little or no oak. Clearly this wine is not destined for very long aging but immediate drinking, and few of us care if the wine lasts past a year or so.

However there are concerns if wines from Houghton are advertised to be great agers but do not cut it. And how can that be as I discovered the iconic Houghton Gladstone’s Shiraz 2000 from Frankland to be falling apart and now an aged wine with its primary fruit transformed into “beef stock” and earthy, herbal flavours. Clearly the oak used has also integrated and is not visible on the palate.

Looking closer at the wine, all the six gold medals and the one trophy were awarded at wine shows in 2002 and 2003 when the fruit was at its opulent best and the classy oak, the sweetest smelling and nicely coiled around the soft tannins. You can buy this and other vintages at www.winehouse.com.au; an online Australian seller of rare and old wines for $54. The 1999 vintage sells for $65 and the 2001 for $55.

The selling aids for these wines at this site quote an external reviewer who says 96 points for the 2000, drink 2008-2018. Clearly this wine has accelerated in its aging to a good common mature drink without much more applause. This happens and in such a case I would not blame the cork either-the wine was fresh and un-oxidised.

This type of behaviour leads me to decide that the lineage and consistency of this style has not yet been bedded in by Houghton. The opposite is the case with their famous white blend from the warmer Swan region which ages delightfully (from verdelho, muscadelle and chenin blanc at that).

Australia’s most consistent red is Grange. One reason it holds its price, with the attendant increases with more recent releases is that it ages well-even the 1951 is a clear example. The people from Penfolds however regularly review each vintage, highlighting when the drinking spans are coming to a close. The Penfolds Rewards of Patience book is the publication which gives this guidance and there have been four editions. The greater majority of these reds in the book are wines from warm areas, and maybe the explanation is that these more robust wines are better aged investments than some of the cooler grown equivalents.

The Gladstone’s vineyard at Frankland was planted by an ex-mayor of Adelaide in the 1970s, managed ever since then by Houghton and is one of the oldest cool region vineyards in WA.

Some wines can just fall over-I wonder if all the other stocks of this 9 year-old-wine have faded equally as well, and that the Houghton winemakers are aware? The RNA Brisbane trophy wine from 2008 just shows how much enjoyment drinkers can have very early in the life of this vineyard’s production. The position of future releases of Gladstone’s top shelf Shiraz requires closer future scrutiny. Maybe I will have the chance to enlighten you someday.

Whether global warming is fact or fiction there is a definite feeling out there that the 2010 summer-Australian vintage 2010 is going to be a warm one.

The first indication of this alarming reality is to take a view of the average winter temperature for the Australian continent in 2009. It is up 1.76 oC on the long term average, and the second hottest winter in the past six years. That spells out that the 2010 season is going to break early with many regions of the country bursting with buds (chardonnay is usually the first) early in September.

For 31 January 2009-harvest under way in South Burnett, Darling Downs, Hunter Valley, Murray Valley, Swan Valley.

Moffatdale (South Burnett) 28oC; Jimbour (Darling Downs) 29 oC; Pokolbin (Hunter) 37 oC; Ballandean (Granite Belt) 23.6 oC; Stirling (Adelaide Hills) 34 oC; Mildura (Murray Valley) 44.1 oC; Tanunda (Barossa) 41 oC; Gin Gin (Swan) 35.8 oC; Margaret River 32.6 oC