REVOLUTIONARY DRINKS FOR CHINA

Baiju: China's powerful pacifier

Wine trade war? Penfolds pacifies China ... maybe it's only just a start
by PHILIP WHITE


It's hard to believe that only six weeks ago I wrote that trade war could quickly erupt in Australia's biggest wine export market, China. 

Triggered finally by China's expansive maneuvers in the South China Sea and Donald Trump's dangerous international buffoonery, the seeds of this trouble seem to have sprouted in the concern our press and politicians were beginning to show for China's quiet exercising of manipulative power - real or imagined - in the inner workings of our society and education ethics, pushed along a bit by what this writer called the April Fool's Day edict of Senator Anne Ruston. It seems this was designed primarily to prevent Chinese operatives within Australia from exporting wines which purported to be things which they were not. 

Like Penfolds premiums. 

Unfortunately, it never actually mentioned this.

In that brief gap we saw Treasury heavies leave the much-anticipated Hong Kong Vinexpo to dash off to China to get wine shipments flowing from the wharves where they were being held up by recalcitrant officialdom. 

There were more rumours than your actual wars, but among others, we saw Pernod Ricard, too, the French owner of Jacob's Creek, hurriedly navigating a similar dodgy platform to ensure its Aussie product ran freely. 

Peter Gago with the revolutionary $3000 G3, which sold in a flash ... Milton Wordley photo

This week Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago announced the September release of Penfolds Special Bottlings Lot. 518, Barossa Shiraz fortified to 21.5 per cent ethanol using baiju spirit, like the Kwaichow Moutai reviewed  a few weeks ago. 

Cynics saw this new product as little more than a deep grovelling conciliatory bow to China while those who appreciate Penfolds' capacity for spasmodic bursts of revolutionary creation simply can't wait to see what the blend will taste like, baiju being a powerful spirit made typically from sorghum, rice, wheat or corn, but principally based on sorghum. 

Then, of course, there's always the visionary nature of Penfolds blending cultures out of respect. Not to mention the fact that in China, baiju consumption will not be slowed by trade wars.

Then again, in worthy respect of the underground behaviour of Max Schubert, the journalist reporting his actual tasting of the stuff didn't seem to report that his drink was a mock-up. Maybe the Melbourne Treasury people forced the early announcement of a product someone like Gago would have kept totally secret until it was truly made and proven and ready for market in Australia's most sensitive and largest mission field for wine, Maxwise, Maxlok Max say nothing until the time is right.  

These baiju shocks are highly exotic flavours for westerners, as nearly all baiju is consumed within China. Moutai, for example, the world's most valuable liquor company -  estimated by Forbes in January to have a market value of more than AU$190 billion - sees only five per cent of its production consumed outside of China, where it is the famous official deal-sealing and toasting oil. 

To compare the scale of these things, Australia in total exports about AU$1 billion worth of wine into China, including the contentious Hong Kong. So now that China will have its own hybrid "port" one wonders what the next step may be. 

Continuing in a prophetic mood, permit me to discuss something very Chinese which it seems even they have not yet considered as a potential alcohol beverage. A paraplegic friend introduced me last summer to a herb, Gynura procumbens, which also known as Sabuñgai or Sambung Nyawa, the "longevity spinach". 

"Eat this stuff," he said in response to my whingeing about my comparatively piffling health hiccups. "It's really good for you" at which point he grabbed a handful of leaves from a potplant that looked all the world like basil, thrust half of it toward me, and munched the rest himself. Rarely have I eaten a fresh plant which gave such an immediate feeling of envigoration and well-being, from its first crunchy chew to the gentle verdancy of my exhalation. 

Procumbens tastes a little like a watercress with no peppery character, with a  sort of juicy crunch reminiscent of raw carrot and celery. 

He gave me a plant to take home, I put it in half a wine barrel full of mulchy,  sandy potting soil, gave it a big drink of fish juice, and off it went. And so did I. Simply eating a refreshing bunch each day seemed to get all the troublesome organs working much more efficiently, coinciding with a general improvement in my well-being and confidence. 

Highly sceptical about miracle herbs, I researched it. First, my feeling that I'd seen it before suddenly made sense: it's a vine-like, procumbent ground cover that grows in the tropics: China, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Like in jungle clearings, along roadsides. Everybody eats it. As for its efficacy as a medicine, I lunged into my regular checker, the United States National Library of Medicine Frontiers in Pharmacology site, which as far as compendiums of scientific health papers go, seems a more reliable source than a skrillion others. 

While I'll leave you to peruse that document at your leisure, let me tease a little by saying this very ordinary looking plant is good for "kidney discomfort, rheumatism, diabetes mellitus, constipation, and hypertension". It also appears to have "cardioprotective, antihyperglycemic, fertility enhancing, anticancer, antimicrobial, antioxidant, organ protective, and antiinflammatory" capacities. 

Given the plant's alarming tendency to refresh, this twisted mind immediately wondered about juicing it. 

You need more than I managed to propagate before our chill winter slowed it down dramatically - this chilly winter you ideally need a greenhouse - but jeez it's delicious, along the lines of a gently-flavoured Verdelho, Grüner or Sauvignon blanc. 

With soda and vodka? Don't tell anybody, but I'm in deep now. I'm onto something way beyond port made from Shiraz and baiju. 

Reading deeper, I found "The present study aimed to evaluate the hepatoprotective effect and mechanism of action of Gynura procumbens on acute and chronic ethanol-induced liver injuries ... Our findings suggest that EEGS and one of its active ingredients, chlorogenic acid, may be developed as potential effective agents for ethanol-induced liver injury." 

Bingo! The cause and the cure, all in the same glass, and delicious. If a particularly keen drink inventor poured some money into this, man you'd have a drink to please China! 

Until the weather warms, or I build some form of greenhouse to increase my winter crop, I'll have to be content with eating the odd handful of stalks and leaves raw, on  impulse, using it in salads or wraps, or indeed floating leaves in soups and asian style broths and congee. 

Market gardeners and restaurateurs, please take note.

PERMIAN-TRIASSIC SUPERANOXIC EVENT

"Digitising old slides and came across this shot I took of a core from WA," tweeted Flinders University Associate Professor Paul Willis today. "On the left; the last days of the Permian Period, a life-rich green mud. On the right; the first days of the Triassic Period, a lifeless, anoxic black sludge. This is the greatest mass extinction." 

Willis went on to say his greatest fear is that global warming will have a similar killer result. Summary execution of pretty well everything that lives. 

To read the official paper on this core, go here. 

In the meantime, imagine watching everything die as hydrogen sulphide and methane replaces the oxygen. If indeed you could hold your breath long enough, or survive in a capsule. That drill core tells no lies. 

Tweeters can follow the Prof (below) @Fossilcrox.

PRUNING THE BABY BUSH VINES

This will be an old vine in the future. Ten year old Yangarra bush vine Grenache over the fence from where I sit. You don't see too many putting little bushies in anywhere these days because they're real slow starters, especially in this hard ironstone country. But they repay the patient with greater flavour on a more drought-resistant vine.

The pruners whipped through them this chill morning.

In this ground, you can judge the depth of the soil by the size of the vine. And these littlies get a bit of drip from the dam! 

To compare, this Grenache vine below is up the hill in the High Sands, which Bernard Smart planted in 1946. It has never been irrigated. Springtime. Budburst.

Here's Bernard and his son Wayne in their famous 1921 Grenache on the next ridge north.

This is about the highest Grenache gets above the sea on the Fleurieu. I made this photo just before ripening, looking south-east towards the Willunga Escarpment. 

There's a breeze I get that comes from the Antarctic over those hills. It obviously finds no solice in chilling my brain to gelato, while it often smells of whale's breath.

If they marched toward the camera and over me and the hill, Wayne and Bernard might, after harvest, find viticulturer Michael Lane being attacked by an old Hickinbotham Grenache 200 metres away. 

This one tried to bite him when he pruned it. It's a different place.

Between this hilltop and the one you see across the decline, in the middle, falls the dramatic Onkaparinga Gorge. That decline goes a long way down. In drought it's like a deep Flinders Ranges gorge, but when they let the weir go at Mount Bold, the entire gulch looks like a milkshake.

Onkaparinga is a Kaurna term that means 'women's river'. 

Onkaparinga was a safe place for Onka [women]  when rival groups invaded to get valuable ceremonial ochre from the coast, twelve kays to your left ... photos Philip White

POLICE PORT OF POLITICAL PROVENANCE

As this special rarity is now much older than 30 years, it seems fair to give it some parole. 

So it's open. The cork was fucked. But the wine is good. As I ponder my notes for the word piano, I wonder if any readers can help with some detail about the wine. Somebody from Bleasedale must remember its sale, bottling, or assemblage.

The labelling, design and presentation is impeccable. Straightest labels in town.  

Of the Burnside Criminal Investigation Branch, I was very lucky to meet a few impressive officers, including the one who gave me this wine. On the other hand, that 'Burnside Club' included some notorious crooks. Any survivors out there? 

How many detectives did Burnside need?

All officers were proudly listed on the back label when their branch was shut. I think there's a good dose of Verdelho in with the Shiraz here.

GO GET GEDDES GEOLOGICAL SHIRAZ TRIO

Tim Geddes at Seldom Inn; and below, his Shiraz, with ironstone ... photos Philip White

Another Blewitt Springs secret: tasting new Shiraz at Geddes' Seldom Inn
by PHILIP WHITE

First time I saw Tim Geddes he was standing in the gloom in the back of Wayne Thomas's winery on McLaren Flat Road. I was there for a tasting - the mighty Thommo wanted to pick my brains over one wine or another. 

He'd collected me first thing in the city, handed me a stubby of Cooper's Ale and a smoke, and off we set, southward. The McLaren Vale pub was not officially open, but we snuck in the back door, attacked more beer and another pack of full-strength Escorts while Thommo emptied his wallett into the gambling till. 

Damn nags. Never happy til he was up to his ankles in betting slips. 

We reached the winery at about eleven ack emma for more beers and friggin fags while Thommo (left) got this bloke he called Tim to bring samples for me to taste. Your actual red wine. Beautiful red wine. 

"Bloody top winemaker, Tim," Thommo assured me, as if he had nothing to do with it. 

"Bloody Kiwi. Helped get me two Bushing Crowns. And the Perkins trophy. Want another beer. Whitey?" 

Now the lovely crazy Thommo's long dead, and Tim wins trophies for himself. He's married to Amanda, a chef, and they've got two great kids and a new winery and tasting room they call Seldom Inn. It's deep in the belly of McLaren Vale's latest glam discovery, Blewitt Springs. 

South across the Blewitt Springs gullies from Yangarra's High Sands ... photo Philip White

Which, as your actual geological region, serious white locals have appreciated for over a century. Before they arrived, the Kuarna must have revered it for its food and shelter. Before that it was significant for the fifty million years it took to take shape atop the billion year old bedrock way down below. 

Tim and Amanda offer a great range of local wines, including some brilliant single-vineyard selections. There's a long queue of vendageurs wanting to work there through vintage as Amanda matches the lunches to the wines. I'm dribbling like a dill into three current Geddes Shiraz offerings. Go visit! 

Geddes Maslin Shiraz 2017 
$40; 13.8% alcohol; screw cap 

Darrel Hunt's Le-Fleurie vineyard is in Maslin Sands at Maslin Beach. Darrel lives in the original Maslin's cottage. On top of that deep rusty coarse-grained sand there's a thin layer of clayey loam with odd scraps of calcrete and some very happy Shiraz. 

Darrel, Cowboy and Tim in Le-Fleurie ... photo Philip White

When made like everybody makes wine, with the conventional barrels and the conventional ideas, the Le-Fleurie wine reminds me of Coonawarra. But Tim made this in a posh 3,000 litre French oak foudre, or very expensive, very old-fashioned tank. In place of the usual simple berry fruit,and at this ideal, respectful alcohol level, this huge oaken tank gives the wine a leaner, tighter look. In fact, it seems to wind the volume of the ferruginous bit of the sand right up: in some ways, it smells like a forge, with all those whiffs of hot coke, tar and iron ... even the smithy's leather apron gets its nose in. 

So there's no shortage of complexity or interest here. Or brilliant Shiraz fruit picked at a sensibly modest baumé. Take a slurp and you have this tight, athletic, strapping red. Its modest alcohol keeps it lissom and bright, to bolster its deep garnet snarl. It's whippy and strapping, and reminds me of the St Henri Clarets of the '60s and '70s. 

Made in big wood tanks: St Henri Claret at Penfolds Magill Estate ... photo Philip White

To drink right now, it's a little like the reds Stephen Pannell makes in his very big oaks; tending to modern Spain in style. Let it have a few years in the dark and it'll drag you back into those gentle old-style St Henri Clarets, made in big wood tanks, not sappy new barrels like Grange and 707, and at much lower alcohols than those Penfolds of the '70s and 80s. Rock and roll. 

Geddes Fe2+ Shiraz 2016 
$40; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap 

Iron-rich - ferruginous - loam over calcereous clay near Torresans' Winery gave this fruit, which Tim thought deserved some new tight-grained French barrels. He chose puncheons, the largest of the conventional barrels. 

Profile near Torresan's: see that ferruginous, nutrient-rich top layer of loam? That's soil. The calcerious clay below is geology ... photo Philip White

So we have another tight irony bouquet in which the oak seems in a way to counteract the prickle of that higher alcohol. But the fruit aromas here are right down the Blackberry Nip/Ribena alley and there's not much sign of raw wood at all: the grapes have eaten it. Lively little bastards. 

As hinted in the Maslin review, the smaller new barrels seem to preserve the berry flavours, while the cheeky bare-faced juiciness of the fruit overwhelms any simple new barrel sap which would be more obvious with grapes of lower quality. Maybe grapes grown in ground with less nutrient ... or indeed made in even smaller barrels: hogsheads or barriques. 

So. A bouquet verging on the sinister leads to a mouthful of healthy fresh fruit, fleshy and vibrantly bright. It'll live for yonks, but this is a wine I will prefer to drink in its youth. It's fun. It makes me smile. 

Geddes Old Vine Shiraz 2016 $40
14,5% alcohol; screw cap 

73 year old bush vines in Blewitt Springs popped this baby out. The unique geology of the Blewitt gullies is confusing: way down there's the same coarse Maslin Sand that underlies Le-Fleurie, twelve kays away on the coast. On top of that in Blewitt Springs there's a layer of conglomerate ironstone (see photo), sometimes massive slabs of the stuff, otherwise pellets the size of grapeshot.

Slab ironstone in Yangarra's Ironheart Vineyard (top). This forms when loose Maslin Sand is exposed to the air where it oxidises in ferruginous water, which has washed those tiny quartz pebbles into the conglomerate before it set like terrazzo. This formation underlies many vineyards from Hickinbotham Clarendon on the rim of the Onkaparinga Gorge, south through Blewitt Springs to the edge of McLaren Flat.

This fresh profile's at the back of the Seldom Inn winery. Way below this lies the ironstone cap on the deep, loose  Maslin Sand that underlies much of the region. On top of that there's a layer of ferruginous clay, which you can see here, with a layer of grapeshot ironstone and quartz which has been washed on top, then the very recent æolian, wind-blown sand with its vegetal nutrient topping and scraps of calcrete ... photos Philip White

Then there's often some clay and on top a layer of white-to-grey æolian sand which the wind blew in during the last few thousand years. This sand is mobile: remove the vegetation and the sand moves. 

Tim made this in a foudre, but included one new small barrel's worth in the final assemblage "for structure". 

It too takes me back to the smithy, with all its dark gunmetal glints. Fruit? Think of the darkest, bluest, tiniest things like juniper. All those lovely little red things your Mum said were poisonous. This bouquet will  take a decade to unfold. Use a decanter. 

But the flavour? It IS a drink, and it's a very dangerous, easy slippery slide of a drink right now. It's wickedly delicious, with the bitter pickled cherry we're finding more and more in the new generation Grenache wines grown in those sands. 

It's delightful in its elegance, but also gives real meaning to the word ravenous, the restless driven hunger of the raven. In this instance it also indicates that scary black-blue gunmetal hue. And mood. I'd be careful who I shared it with: if they had the faintest glimmer of this in their eyes I'd be a goner. Stone the crows.

Mansplaining? Nah, holding forth: with Cynthia Ganesharajah at Geddes' handsome new tasting and sales room on Blewitt Springs Road, McLaren Vale ... photo Russell Jackson

IRONHEART SHIRAZ READY TO GO

After harvest, the leaves hung longer than I've seen before, but they eventually fell. Then they put a tractor through with a dodge plough, which loosened the soil to a depth of about 15 cm in a neat row directly beneath the vines. Then the sheep came in and tore all the juicy bits of the weeds from the freshly-opened soil. Next came the barrel-pruner: a tractor-mounted cutter which removes the wildest canes, so the pruners have easier access to the cordons. Then the pruners came. Jeez they're good! They woke me this morning, their quiet chatter replacing the rhythmic munching of the sheep, which have all lambed. Here those good people finish their expert job as the evening chill sets in. All we need now is rain.

THE 3 Gs MARS AFFAIR AND SUNDRY CRISES

Moonrise over George Grainger Aldridge's head

A month of international crises finally takes vinous extra-terrestrial twist
by PHILIP WHITE

It's been a tricky week at the depot: we blew our diplomacy budget as our portals bustled with cranky envoys from China, Bierzo, Nauru and now Caucasian Georgia. 

We have also survived skirmishes with the United States of America, Germany and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.  

Initially we had the thunder and spittle of Australian ethanol magnates and the fusty Family First Winemakers blaming DRINKSTER for triggering a wine trade war with China.

Wrong. That was all blue-eyed, borborygmic fluff and blunder.

We were the first wine journal to report that possibility, of course. That's what we do. But we didn't start a trade war.

DRINKSTER has had a long and deep friendship with China. We were amongst the very first Australian winers to bother visiting when we went to talk and research the tea industry in the '90s. 

Second, we are still negotiating our way through the Great Nauru Shitfight. We suggested (on InDaily) that some wines smell like superphosphate sacks, which combine the oxidising methoxypyrazine of hemp, or burlap, with guano, the seabird shit which our professors alleged made up most of that lonely Pacific isle. 

The Germans began strip-mining Nauru's guano/phosphate for export in 1906-7; after which Australian troops overthrew them and with Britain and New Zealand, set up the British Phosphate Commission. 

Now, as the resource dwindles, an incoming missive from Robert Mencel, Chief Executive Officer of RONPHOS, The Republic of Nauru's Phosphate Company, kindly explains "The theory that Nauru's  phosphate was deposited as 'Bird Shit' was dismissed 20 years ago. The original source has been proven to be marine sediments, in other words 'Dead Marine Shit'." 

Mencel attached the comprehensive fourth chapter of the Davis Feasibility Report, The geological origin of Nauru, its limestone and phosphate, which explains this in appropriate geological detail and leaves the DRINKSTER team with 40 years of tasting notes to correct.

Like change most references to bird shit to fish shit. Big difference. 

And now we have the Georgian incident, codename Three Gs Mars Affair. Writing on the Eurasianet website, Tbilisi journalist Giorgi - all these Georges! -  Lomsadze revealed that vinicultural scientists this week launched IX Millennium at the Georgian National Museum. Their aim is to grow Georgian grapes on Mars. Or at least find a more appropriate variety if their local hero don't get up. 

Rkatsiteli by Nikoloz Bezhanishvili

This move comes in response to the May call from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), encouraging international co-operation in making Mars more liveable. 

"This could include shelter, food, water, breathable air, communication, exercise, social interaction and medicine," NASA said, "but participants are encouraged to consider innovative and creative ideas beyond these examples." 

In comes Georgia. "With a 8,000-year record of cultivating grapes on the Planet Earth," Lomsadze writes, "Georgia is still eager to give it a whirl. After all, NASA and International Potato Center have successfully experimented with growing potatoes in Mars-like conditions, so why not take Martian farming to the next, more sybaritic stage?" 

He reports the project involves up a "vertical greenhouse lab to grow grapevines in a 'closed, controlled space' ... in a lab based in a Tbilisi hotel and operated by a company named SpaceFarms." 

Lomsadze reminds us of the Georgian folk song that was sent into space on a solid gold record on The Voyager in 1977. 

"As with traditional polyphonic singing," he explains, "winemaking also is deeply intertwined with Georgian national identity. The glory of the grapevine is sung in folk songs and poetry and depicted as bas-relief ornaments on the nation’s ancient churches."  

The polyphony is now heading toward Gliese 445 at around 62,140 km/h. Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode is on the flip side.  

In November 2013 in the City Final edition of The Daily Toper George Grainger Aldridge first published our ground-breaking paper, Evidence of vineyards on Mars. 

This offered unequivocal illustrated proof that Mars already has a booming wine business, and surprise, surprise, it's all red. 

Like the Chinese, Martians have a distinct dislike for the colour white, as it indicates people like me: the walking dead. 

NASA operatives knew of the discoveries revealed in this report one week after its publication - their staff canteen people bought the first copies. 

As our research and extensive field work revealed, the Martian vignoble is distinctly rufous.  

DRINKSTER envoys are now en route to Tbilisi to negotiate the highly sensitive matter of introducing white or golden grapes like Rkatsiteli without showing full respect to the confounding Martian blonde phylloxera quarantine protocols.

There's a great deal at stake. Never say DRINKSTER's not diligent.

Sample review from Evidence of vineyards on Mars:

Casa Flagrante Zoomico 2019  

When you get to the corner of this wine it’s all bananas and bricks.  There’s some salt damp in the eastern crater, and when you look at the tracks the damn thing leaves it’s obvious there’s a nail or something in the fifteenth tyre on the left.  They probably wrangled the canes for maximum exposure to Saturn and forgot the forthcoming supernova in NGC 387, which has fried the epidermis and left all the titanium looking crackly. That thing sticking out the side is troubling, but it’ll probably go down when the twin moons come across next week. I’d recommend you have it with all your husbands and spermicide on toast. A touch overpriced at fifteen grocks, but it’ll keep.

... and here's George with his pet aural ectoplasm emergent in the Australian desert during our years of intensive field work in Martian-like conditions: