These ‘mini goons’ are clever and cute
New delivery service A Glass of will drop the equivalent of five very generous glasses (200mL) of premium wine at your doorstop for $45. The wine is packed in “mini-goon” form – little releasable pouches that keep the wine away from light and oxygen. A bit like squeezy yoghurt, but way more fun.
The project is not a by-product of the wine industry. Founder Paul Taylor, who has an advertising background, saw a gap in the market and ran for it. He says this isn’t a COVID-inspired project, “It’s been in R&D for two to three years, and in my head for 15 to 20.”
Taylor, who openly admits that he doesn’t know much about wine, (I think he’s playing it down) will enlist the help of the somm community to choose the featured products. First up is Gabrielle Webster of Sydney’s Icebergs with indie wines from Blind Corner, Nick Spencer and Studebaker, among others. TBC on who is next in line.
Currently there’s only one set of wines, but there are plans to expand the offering once the product has a wider reach. “I think of A Glass of as a ‘brought to you by’ company,” Taylor says. “We’ll never make wine… the real people in the brand are the winemakers and the somms who find them.”
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
New Moo Brew spiked pilsner
Spoiler alert: Moo Brew’s New pilsner and pink gin ‘boilermaker’ is not pink. It’s not really a boilermaker either, but we’ll let that slide because Moo Brew follows about as many societal rules as the other companies its founder owns*.
It’s actually Moo Brew’s second limited release boilermaker-inspired brew. Lauren Sheppard, general manager at Moo Brew, tells me the October 2020 beer + whisky co-lab with Lark Distillery sold out in 45 minutes, although to be fair, she says, they didn’t make much and their combined mailing lists are quite long.
Thankfully, there’s a bit more of the pink gin/pilsner combo to go around. It’s effectively a spiked beer – Moo Brew pilsner is bumped up with Forty Spotted’s now-sold-out summer pink gin (the brand is owned by the same company as Lark). “We bought the last of that,” Sheppard says. “The only place you can get it now is inside this beer.”
It comes in at a reasonable 5.5% ABV, which means it’s taxed and priced like a beer, although that does equate to 1.8 standard drinks per 375mL can. There are floral and grapefruit notes, and it’s punchy without knocking your socks off. The most efficient way to get your hands on slab is via moobrew.com.au, but if you want to pick up a cheeky can or two in person try Big Bargain Bottleshop (around Hobart) or McCoppins in Melbourne (Abbotsford and Fitzroy).
*Last week, Dark Lab (the entity behind Hobart’s Dark Mofo festival) announced plans to soak a British flag in Indigenous blood. Like drinks brands Moo Brew, Moorilla and Domain A, Dark Lab is part-owned David Walsh, who also owns Mona. These entities are run by entirely different creative teams. They are so different that some members of the Mona curatorial and social media teams publicly expressed their surprise, disgust and objection to the project.
Moo Brew had nothing to do with Santiago Sierra’s proposed artwork, but it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the business connection. The proposed project is a. racist and b. an act of colonialism in itself. Amid calls to boycott the festival from Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, Dark Lab has now withdrawn the work from the program and apologised.
SA’s Bird in Hand buys land in Tasmania
South Australian label Bird in Hand has bought 400 acres at Seymour on Tasmania’s east coast. One hundred and fifty acres of the land will be planted under vine and in other areas, vegetation will be restored with native plants.
The interstate move is part of a huge expansion plan. Bird in Hand’s Adelaide Hills winery and cellar door is about 12 months into a four-year renovation to expand winemaking facilities, revamp the cellar door and restaurant, and add accommodation and an art gallery.
That’s the overall aim for the Seymour site too, but they’ll start by putting vines in. Bird in Hand founder Andrew Nugent tells me it’ll be predominantly pinot noir and chardonnay with a view to sparkling wine production. The plan is to make that wine in Tasmania, too. There should be 40 new full-time jobs up for grabs by 2024, after the winery infrastructure has been built.
The property borders the Douglas-Apsley national park to the west and the ocean to the east. Nugent has brought in landscapers and biologists to make sure the vineyard doesn’t mess with the ecosystem. “We’d like to create habitat corridors and progressive viticulture where we can manage the land in a genuinely sustainable fashion,” he says.
DRINK: Stift Goettweig Grüner Veltliner
I love inexpensive wines that not many people know about. Case in point, this cracking grüner I picked up from Blackhearts and Sparrows on a whim last week (from the fridge, not the website). It’s just about the best $25 you can spend on a bottle of drink-now white wine, IMHO.
Stift Goettweig wines are from Austria, or more specifically, the Kremstal region. In some fashion, Stift Goettweig has been making wines since the 11th century (not a typo). The winery is in a Benedictine monastery, and Göttweiger Messwein means “altar wine”. Apparently, it cannot be produced without the permission of the bishop – praise be.
Kremstal grüner veltliner can be labelled as a DAC wine (DAC is a bit like Austria’s version of a French appellation – think Champagne or Burgundy). This particular bottle is not, which goes some way to explain why it doesn’t cost twice as much. However, it’s bloody delicious – it’s all crisp apple skin, lemon rind and just a little pepper spice. A very good reason to order a whole case, I think.
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