BLOG — The Tin Shed

We enjoy growing our own food.   Living and working in the same place (and having plenty of space) makes it somewhat easier for us than for most, but it still takes a concerted effort to make it worthwhile.  This year we grew tomatoes (five months of fresh tomatoes!), cucumbers, zucchini, beans, potatoes, figs, garlic, chillies, spring onions, artichokes, radish, silver beet, lettuce, kohlrabi.

Herbs, too – parsley, mint, basil (fresh pesto!), tarragon, dill, Vietnamese mint, lemon grass, oregano, thyme, sage, bay, rosemary.  What a treat it is to go grab some fresh herbs when cooking, and what a difference it makes to your dishes.  In fact, if you could grow nothing else, herbs are where you get the most bang for your buck.

And finally, chickens.  We’ve kept about four Isa Browns for many years now and the eggs are fantastic.  Not only do chickens recycle your kitchen scraps (can be hard to properly manage in a composting system) into more food, but also produce excellent manure for the veggie patch.

Growing your own food has benefits beyond flavour and freshness:

• You get some good exercise!
• Your more mindful of what is seasonal and cook/eat in a more seasonal fashion
• Your respect for farmers increases, knowing what it takes to grow good food
• You’re more thankful for the range of fruit and veg you can get at your local market/supermarket
• Your ability to pick good produce from bad/ordinary/old/decaying produce increases
• You get closer to the season – you pay much more attention to what’s going on around you – mindfulness…
• You realise how difficult it must have been to live in a truly self-sufficient way, and how hard it would have been to get through winter/spring with a full belly

With the wine, vegetables, herbs, eggs, our own lamb and beef (thanks neighbour Dave!), and olive oil on the way, we’re truly appreciative of the benefits of growing your own.  Now for the orchard….

NM and FW

From our newsletter The Tine Shed in 2015.  In the last few years, the combo of Riesling and Thai food seems to have become widely accepted:

It’s sometimes difficult to find a match to more fiery foods, but Riesling seems to know no bounds as a delicious accompaniment to Asian food, including the hot stuff.  From sweet and rich Peking Duck pancakes to fiery Thai dishes, it just seems to keep working.

Last night we made some Indonesian style chicken sates, and my favourite peanut sauce.  The marinade for the chicken included a hefty dose of fresh red chillies and the sauce another hefty dose of crushed, dried chillies.  The Riesling saw through all that and picked up the lemon grass beautifully, cutting through the richness of the peanut sauce and mellowing the heat.  That was with the 2011 Riesling, which has quite a bit of body and deep lemon/lime fruit.

It even stands up well to Thai heat.  Recently we rediscovered one of David Thompson’s earlier works on Thai cuisine – “Thai Food”, and have been busily working our way through it.  He reminds us that Thais often turn things on their head – a sauce like nahm prik is the centre of the meal, then everything else (including meat dishes) become an accompaniment to the sauce.  It’s subtle, but makes you think differently about how to put a meal together.

It’s hard to think of a hotter sauce than nahm prik.  Its basic form of garlic, salt, shrimp paste, chillies, palm sugar, lime juice and fish sauce has endless variations, but almost always the flavours are very strong and very hot, with balance (“hot, salty, slightly sour and slightly sweet”) critical, and the shrimp paste central.  Accompanied by seasonal raw or steamed vegetables, or pickled vegetables, it’s a refreshing delight.  Accompany it with grilled fish or pork and it becomes a more substantial part of a meal, or a meal in itself.

Nahm prik is exactly the sort of food that has traditionally been avoided at all costs by wine buffs, believing that ingredients like chillies and shrimp paste kill the wine.  Certainly, you can lose some of the subtle notes of the wine, but I think this is more than made up for by the way a wine like Riesling finds friends in the complexities of the sauce, adding citrus notes and cleansing the palate.  We’ve recently tried several versions of nahm prik with the current release 2015 Riesling and found the match sensational, particularly with well grilled or pan fried fish.

But the really great thing about Riesling?  If you can’t be bothered cooking anything, or even heading out to let someone else cook for you, Riesling is wonderful just by itself!  Otherwise, see if the recipes at the end of this newsletter inspire you to a Riesling vs heat cook off.

It’s fascinating that an area so rich in seafoods, such as the Mediterranean, has a love affair with dried, salted cod, an import from the North Sea and northern European cuisines.  But love it they do, and have done for centuries, no doubt traded for local goods.  It would have been a good over-wintering source of protein.  It seems to have gone out of favour in many local delicatessens, but can still be found around the place.

We served this at our recent Spring lunch – a Languedoc inspired lunch.  As anticipated, it enticed a few aficionados out of the woodwork, and got a very good reception.

500g salt cod

200 ml good olive oil

200 ml milk, boiled then cooled

Salt, pepper

Salt cod, takes A LOT of rinsing to remove salt and soften it up.  If you don’t have a fresh water stream handy, put it in a large plastic container with a lid and cover with water.  Rinse and repeat, at least half a dozen times over 12-18 hours, holding it in the fridge.  If it hasn’t softened up by then, keep going.

Poach in simmering water for 5-6 minutes, then drain.

Shred the cod, removing any bones, fins, hardened edges, etc.  Mash the cod in a mortar and pestle or food processor (pulse it).  Gradually add half the oil, then half the milk, mashing/pulsing as you go.  Continue adding the oil/milk combo until the mixture is snow white, thick and shiny, and will take no more oil or milk.  Season well, but be careful with the salt.

It can be served as is, or shaped into quenelles, and put under the grill for a few minutes.  It will brown slightly, and the flavours will intensify.  Serve with toast triangles and cornichons or a simple salad.

My goodness, our 20^th anniversary!  Starting out as “Yass River Vineyard”, we planted our first vines, Cabernet Sauvignon, on 22 November 1997, in an old sheep paddock off a dirt road.  Three more plantings over the next three years saw the vineyard completed.  Six hectares were duly trained, watered, weeded and fed, giving us our first small crop in 2001.

Our first vintage was a small batch of Cabernet Sauvignon made with borrowed equipment in the garage.  Not bad for a first try, either.  Not sure that we have any left, which is always a good sign.

Next was the winery.  We wanted long term sustainability and a building that blended into the landscape, finally settling on a passive solar design featuring straw bale, rammed earth, and classic aussie corro.   It works well, not only as a place to make wine and serve our guests, but also as a magnificent bush retreat for friends and family.  How’s the serenity!  

We opened our doors in December 2004.  Friends, family, neighbours and colleagues gathered to witness our welcome to the land by Eric Bell (now deceased), one of our local aboriginal elders.  It was a moving ceremony, reminding us that we are just temporary custodians of this land within a timespan of profound immensity.

Some highlights over the years:

• Grafting in two new clones of Sangiovese, now some Fiano
• Exporting to China, Norway and Vietnam (although we now concentrate exclusively on the domestic market)
• Introducing a new label
• Transitioned to a hybrid conventional/organic farming regime
• Discovering the world of “natural” wines (or “natchies”)
• Being rated a 4 ½ star winery by James Halliday
• Helping Hartley Lifecare and our local bush fire brigade with their fundraising

And here’s a few rough numbers from the last 20 years:

• 13,000 vines planted, trained and managed
• 400 tonnes of grapes crushed
• 200,000 litres of wine bottled
• 500 tonnes of compost made
• A couple of thousand Wine Club packs delivered
• 30-40 medals awarded
• 33 wine festivals celebrated
• 90 monthly food and wine matching lunches served
• 13 winter solstice bonfires lit
• Thousands of happy (well, mostly!) customers, many now long term (thank you, you know who you are)

“Why do you do it?” people sometimes ask.  It’s not for fame and fortune, that’s for others.  It’s certainly tremendously satisfying to make award winning wines from our own vineyard, and see these wines bring so much joy to our customers. 

Maybe a better question is - does the world need Yarrh Wines?  We think so.  Delicious, food friendly, Canberra District wines, estate grown and bottled (paddock to plate, vineyard to bottle) made and presented without pretention, for a fair price – that’s a combination Australian wine lovers need.

Finally, a potted history of Yarrh wouldn’t be complete without an acknowledgement of our past partners – Peter McGregor (now deceased) as an early partner in our vineyard venture, and Peta and Chris MacKenzie Davey (now trying to retire!), who took the leap of faith from their cosy cottage in Leeds, UK, to set off on their own adventure in the wilds of Murrumbateman, Australia.  Then of course there is our beautiful daughter Julia, who’s grown up at Yarrh, and in her gap year is now pruning vineyards across the district.  Thanks to all!

 NM and FW

From our 2012 Newsletter The Tin Shed.  We'd now add "lean", "savoury" and "varietal" to our house style.  The new label has stood the test of time, too:

Things take time in the country.  It takes time to master your craft, know what’s special about your piece of land and where it fits in the local environment. It takes time to know your vines and your vineyard, and how they react to each unique season.  It takes time to listen, learn from others, read and taste extensively and it takes time to develop your own philosophy.

After 15 years, we think we have identified the unique Yarrh style.  A move towards sustainable and organic farming practices combined with winemaking technique refinements including the use of natural fermentation has been fundamental to the Yarrh evolution – the wines are now edgy and elegantly structured.

To match this evolution of style, we re-engaged the original designer of our label, George Macintosh of Some Cowboy. George’s task - refresh the look of Yarrh wines, evolving the brand to reflect the handcrafted, natural, premium products in the Yarrh range.   We think he’s done a great job and we really feel our new brand and label look are worthy replacements.

Each of this Spring 2012 club wine packs contains some wines with the new label.  What do you think?  So far reaction from customer and the broader market has been very positive.

NM

Oak barrels have been used since Roman times to store wine. It is only in the last hundred years or so that the use of oak in winemaking has taken on a more significant and considered role. It affects the colour, flavour, tannin profile and texture of the wine making it more complex and interesting.

Maturing wine in small oak barrels does many things, but two main effects are:

• allows the oak to impart its own character to the wine
• allows oxidation to occur in minute amounts.

Wine stored in oak becomes more aromatically complex as compounds are extracted from the wood. Some flavours and aromas descriptions can include cedary, toasty, spicy, sweet, nutty, vanilla and chocolate. The uptake of these aromas must be carefully monitored to ensure that that it becomes a harmonious part of the wine’s overall structure and does not dominate it. This is managed by the amount of new oak that the wine is stored in and the length of time the wine spends in barrel. For lighter bodied wines like Pinot Noir the wine may only stay in oak for 6 months. For more fuller bodied wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon at least 12 months is the norm.  Over time less and less oak character is extracted and the barrel takes on a new role usually as a flower pot.  

It seems counter intuitive to expose wine to oxidation when it is maturing. When we drink a bottle of wine it is exposed to a large amount of air and oxidises very quickly hence the need to consume it within a day or so before it starts tasting like vinegar. A little bit of oxidation during maturation is good as it helps to intensify the colour due to reactions between the pigments and tannins in the wine. The wine has better colour than if it was just store in a vat and is more stable over time. This reaction also helps to soften the tannins making the flavour of the wine more attractive.

Over time water evaporates out of the barrel and as the level of wine goes down the surface area of the wine exposed to air is increased and thus the risk of oxidation. The oxidation is controlled by keeping the barrels full. Topping up of barrels is done every couple of weeks.

Racking the wine every 3 months also exposes the wine to oxidation, but again in a controlled manner. Racking involves removing the wine from barrel, cleaning the barrel, returning the wine and topping it up. (Losses are referred to as the angels share). This promotes the controlled oxidation of tannins, thus softening them. It also allows any sediment to be removed thus helping to clarify the wine.

We may not fully understand all of the interactions between oak and wine but there is a synergy there that enhances the richness, interest and complexity of the wine.

FW