Sirromet owner Terry Morris laid down the challenge to his chief winemaker Adam Chapman last year.

That was to make the best cabernet based blend possible, or as the US makers would have it “make a meritage”.

So yesterday the project became communal when Terry Morris asked a handful of scribes and company executives to get their tongues wet tasting off the components for Cabernet Blend X.

 I was not surprised when the invitation said the process would take ninety minutes.

Laid out were 23 barriques of dry red representing cabernet sauvignon, merlot and petit verdot, and later revealed some cabernet shiraz, all from the 2009 vintage from Sirromet’s three Granite Belt vineyards-Seven Scenes, St Judes and Night Sky.

After having been given a clipboard I worked my way through the barrels, scoring each wine, and rating them as likely or unlikely partners in my “wine blend in the sky” the working name I have dubbed this process for future reporting when the wine is blended, bottled and released.

And how did they taste? As encountered in a scrambled lineup was a very soft petit verdot, lots of barrels of mint/leafy and chocolate mocha cabernet with varying degrees of ripe tannins, generally on the mild side, some great plump and ripe merlot, and finally some cabernet shiraz which was chunky, quite plummy and obviously important in the final blend.

I learnt afterwards that every taster’s scores will be anonymously compiled and used as the consumer anchor for the final blend made sometime soon by Adam Chapman and his assistant German-trained Velten Tiemann.

After this small tasting effort there were four unmarked carafes containing cabernet blends for a relaxed taste.

These turned out to be Primo Estate Moda Cabernet Merlot 2005 (88), plum and spice, had a very chunky square palate, very big wine, finishing very chewy and spoilt by brett; Chateau Gazin Pomerol 1997 (merlot 85), too leafy and too green to enjoy, palate being astringent, unyielding to bitterness of tobacco, the Sirromet merlot components being far better than this over-rated wine.

The next Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1997 (cabernet, merlot, franc, verdot 93) was the best of the four wines, sweet berry nose, cedary oak, very sweet fruit on the palate, and a very, very soft, non-Bordeaux finish while the last wine was simply tired, an Achile-Fould negociant bottling of Chateau Beycheville 1961 (80), bretty nose, reduced, old damp boots style, dried out and very astringent, probably a great wine once.

The two 1997 Bordeaux are rated 84-87 as vintage years by Paker’s chart with the Mouton drinking beautifully now. www.wine-pages.com

The tasting finished with a great lunch personally served by head chef Andrew Mirosch, choking us with wonderful tastes of chilli prawn, tempura bug, rabbit backstraps in lentils and tempting tri-flavour wontons of bug, yabby and prawn.

 Served were Sirromet Seven Scenes TM Viognier 2006 USD 88 (92), irridescent green and gorgeous with its juicy palate of ginger and melon, then Seven Scenes Chardonnay 2009 USD 24 (91), taut, honied and restrained now, and a keeper for 3-5 years.

Further information: www.sirromet.com 41/2 star winery James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2011 Edition

Today’s Penfolds re-corking clinic held in Brisbane’s Conrad Treasury Hotel had a fitting ring to it, for the recent re-naming of Fosters Wine Estates to Treasury Wine Estates had some additional significance from the choice of venue.

Every four years Penfolds invite collectors of Grange Shiraz and any other Penfolds wine 15 or more years-old to be submitted for re-corking.

The absolute star of this Brisbane clinic was the 1903 half pint bottle of Auldana Cellars St Henri Claret (mainly shiraz) presented by a local collector.

Penfolds Chief Winemaker Peter Gago says, “We did not open this wine for in fact it is cleverly sealed with an internal brass ring which means that opening the bottle results in us being unable to re-cork it. It would just have to be drunk on the spot!”

Gago personally has half bottles (thirteen ounces or 369 mls) of similar styles made in 1917 and 1935 under the Auldana label commenced in 1887 by a famous South Australian gent, Edmund Mazure.

Penfolds purchased Auldana Cellars, a property with vines and winery adjacent to the current Magill Vineyard in 1943, and all St Henri Clarets were released in branded Penfolds dark brown bottles from then.

Collectors made appointments to present with their old reds: these were inspected, metal capsules paired off, double long stranded corkscrews inserted sequentially into the cork (often crumbly, some sodden from slow leakage or simply broken up) which extracts many a poor cork in one piece.

On extraction a small pour was made for my Penfolds red winemaker, Steve Lienert, wine gas (mix of nitrogen-70% and carbon dioxide-30%) is jetted into the headspace to flush out air, a temporary cork placed in the bottle while discussion on the state of maturation between winemaker and owner proceeds to develop a mutual understanding of the drink date, current condition and likely reliability in re-corking the wine for subsequent cellaring.

The first bottle up was Penfolds Shiraz Mataro Bin 2 1970, having a large ullage in a burgundy bottle, cork leaking and generally looking in a terrible condition.

The grape origin was Barossa and Magill for shiraz and Magill for the mataro (also known as mourvedre): this wine was very aged with huge mature molasses and tar flavours, but sweet fruits and good ripe tannin softness, and a touch of oxidation creeping in. This was topped with the current vintage St Henri 06 to freshen and re-fill the bottle.

Wines were re-gassed then corked using heavily QC’d natural, reportedly high class cork and finished off with the current gleaming red tin metal capsules. Penfolds winemakers assisting included Andrew Baldwin (red winemaker), Kym Schroeter (senior white winemaker) and Adam Clay.

The next pair inspected were St Henri 1974, a very poor year for South Australian wineries (floods, wet and misty weather during the harvest) where only two main wines stood up to the test of time, this St Henri and Yalumba’s FDR1A Cabernet Shiraz.

One bottle of St Henri was in brilliant condition; nose of rich bonox, real attitude and power, importantly smelling fresh, then good syrupy texture and mature shiraz character reflected by the tastes of tar, earth, baked plum and beef essence. The second bottle had aged faster than its predecessor, no doubt this being accelerated by air through its cork, and was simply a shade of a wine.

The remaining bottle was Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 1975; mature but quite fresh on nose, palate also bright, tannins strong and good leafy cabernet characters abound. But drink it over the next few years.

Steve Lienert placed a rear label on each wine; signed off on it for drinking status and suitability to progress as a fine mature example of Penfolds wine. Any wines no longer drinkable, oxidised, cork tainted or seen as unsuitable examples of the company’s wines were not endorsed, receiving a white dot sticker and no signed back label.

One moral to this story: there are not just great wines and great vintages of them but simply great bottles to drink. And some bottles fail through cork collapse, or if you are lucky through this being arrested at the clinic.

Penfolds move to North America next month to conduct similar clinics in Dallas, New York and Toronto.

Last month’s Hilton Brisbane Masterclass Weekend included a Hilton room with chefs from Auckland, Cairns, Beijing Wangfujing (there are three Hiltons in Beijing), Sydney and Kuala Lumpur Hilton hotels.

A very commanding man, tall in stature and demure in voice was the Indian chef Latchuman Supramaniam who demonstrated curry preparations to Masterclass attendees.

Alongside Latchuman was the Purple Palate’s Darren Davis, essentially a Barossa Valley devotee making wine pairings for Southern Indian curry influences-machili samosa (salmon puree masala filling), idli (steamed domes of rice/lentil dumplings) with koli kulambu (chicken gravy/curry) and meen moilee (fragrant barramundi in set coconut cream curry).

Darren emphasised that curry dishes containing sweetness, high spice, high bitterness and high astringency will do the following: dumb down light fruit flavours, make wines high in astringency, high alcohol and high oak hard to swallow due to the food component-wine component duel of tastes. Put simply pairing wines with curry takes some analysis and a bit of skill which Darren showed really well.

With salmon samosas Darren paired Greystone (NZ) Gewurztraminer 2009 from Waipara (90), great perfume but even better a spicy palate to carry the curry herbs, at 18.7 g/l residual sugar, though in this match it tasted dry.

With chicken curry (Koli Kulambu) Darren matched Smallfry Barossa Riesling 2010 (89), nice limey nose and a great belt of acidity which is absolutely fundamental with curry, as acidity keeps your mouth fresh when the wine and chicken curry mix up, better with 17 g/l residual sugar.

With the Kerala-style fish curry, Darren chose two more forceful wines, Massena Surly Muse Viognier 2009 (88) from the Barossa, a great slippery palate, low oak, yet poised and punchy, able to withstand the ginger, chillis and mustard in the curry.

The second complement was Cirillo 1850′s Grenache Rose 2009 (90), a lovely petal-pink Barossa drink, cherry-fruited, with yummy fruit sweetness, off dry wine, which carried the curry flavours right through to the last swallow.

I caught up with Latchuman afterwards to hear more about his cultural passion and a little more about Indian curry culture.

How long have you been a chef? 20 years

And was it your first profession? Yes

Have you always cooked regional Indian? Yes have always cooked Indian food but I also specialise in Malaysian cuisine

List two or three of your favourite curry spices and why do they do something for you? Cumin, coriander, chillis, fenugreek, these spices compliment my cooking style

What is your birth region and the curry styles from that area? My father is from southern India but I was born in Malaysia, my curry styles range from northern to southern India

In contemporary Indian cuisine are curries the ultimate experience or do you consider suites of other dishes to be important? Curries are important to Indian cuisine and we are always looking to expand to other cooking styles and methods, it’s important to do that

Do you have your own personal “fusion” recipes? I’m currently working on that at the moment but I try to stay authentic to my Indian food

At Hilton Kuala Lumpur what do you supervise ? I am in charge of the Indian restaurant at the hotel

Prior to 2004 were you a chef in 5 star properties or standalone restaurants? I previously worked at Sunway Resort Hotel and Spa in Malaysia

How have the pre-2004 experience influenced your cooking today? I was travelling through France for Malaysian food promotions and found it very inspiring

When you demonstrated at Brisbane Hilton Masterclass what do you think the audience took home most strongly? Guests learnt about Indian recipes and methods of cooking. In Western and Chinese cuisine you learn about making the sauces and separating them from the main dish, in Indian its more about the braising of the meat

In your homeland, hot dishes (high chilli heat) are well accepted; in Brisbane generally this is not the case amongst Australians (ethnicity taken out); how would you modify your cooking for a difference audience but still remain authentic? In my sessions I follow the original recipe, if the dish is too spicy you can add cream or tomato paste to balance the dish and you can then tone down the spices

For more info see the following websites: www.purplepalate.com.au ; www.kl-studio.com ; www.qldmasterclass.com

The release of the James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2011 Edition last week caused a lot of interest. Because lots of wineries were receiving five stars meaning they are the top of their achievement tree.

Or in the eyes of venerable Australian reviewer James Halliday this is the word, although there were a few tasting notes supplied by Ben Edwards who has been assisting James over the past few years.

Halliday has posted full tasting notes for 3888 wines (from 8116 tasted), ratings and drink dates for a further 2613 wines from 1487 wineries rated (there are over 2000 wineries from which to choose!)

The 2010 Gambero Rosso: gambero meaning prawn, and rosso red, yet curiously the publishers are having a lend of readers this year by releasing it in pink paperback with an image of the said prawn on the front cover.

However this is one serious book (23rd edition) with an editor-in-chief, Daniele Cernilli, three senior editors, 10 special contributors, 13 main contributors and 35 other contributors.

Gambero Rosso reports on 18,000 wines (from 25,000 samples) from 2,253 producers, awarding three glasses to 391 wines, editors’ three glass plus to 31 wines, and three green glasses to 75 wines. This release is printed in English and Italian with the address of the publisher in New York.

However browsing through my 1989 Italian version (second edition), 2200 wines were reviewed from 600 producers; there were two editors, Daniele Cernilli and Carlo Petrini (of Slow Food fame).

In the introduction to the 2010 book, the Guide says “The 2010 guide is also the first published by Gambero Rosso alone. Our long-standing collaboration with Slow Food has come to an end”, and that sounds like a story for another day.

The red wine of the year is a nebbiolo from Gattinara (north of Barolo) from Antoniolo, 2005, white wine was a fiano from Campania from Colli di Lapio, 2008 while winery of the year was Piedmont’s Bruno Giacosa from Nieve (three cup Barolo and Barbarescos 05s).

The most significant awards were the green glasses which is a step in the right direction. However the 10 criteria are a little misdirected as there is obvious bias towards large producers who will necessarily use mechanical means to produce wine for everyday drinking but still capable of three glass recognition. This is green bashing gone a little too far.

From Halliday’s 2011 Edition of Wine Companion, one Queensland brand, Summit Estate entered the five star winery category, to sit alongside the ever present Boireann, now a five star winery five years running.