“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


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23 September 2008

The succulent succulents of Mornington


by PHILIP WHITE






Yesterday, after a feast of fresh crab at Greg Fahey’s stylishly modernised pub, The Maid and Magpie, on Payneham Road, Adelaide, Kevin Greg, publican of the legendary Exeter, handed me a glass of wine to appraise.


“It’s Mornington Peninsula pinot noir”, I said. “Made by Sandro Mosele”.


Indeed it was. The Scorpo 2006.


So how did I know?


I’m a fan of Paul Scorpo’s wines, and regard Sandro as a winemaker who truly has the touch: he shows a rare gastronomic intelligence and the sensitivity pinot demands.


Some Mornington Peninsula wines – pinot and chardonnay in particular – tend to display an aroma and flavour spectrum which for some reason reminds me of coastal dune vegetation, like the smell of pigface, Carpobrotus rossii, from the Aizoaceae family (pictured). I reckon I see the same characteristics in some wines from the seaside vineyards on South Australia’s Limestone Coast.


Whether or not this is an admirable characteristic, I wonder precisely what it is. Any ideas?


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're nuts.