While some restrictions are being eased, the days of piling into your local pub, packed to the rafters, or pulling up the last free stool at your favourite wine bar are some way off. Given that we’ll all still be taking most of our drinks at home, we’ll keep bringing you the go-to house beverages of drink gurus nationwide. This time, it’s Louis Schofield – from Adelaide’s Hellbound and Worlds Apart Wines – taking his turn at the tiller.
It’s Autumn here at our house in the Adelaide Hills, the best time of year. We’ve finished making wine for the year; all the barrels are topped and sitting quietly in the winery. The trees are changing colour; the fire is lit and the bushwalks are superb. Lockdown means we are cooking (my partner Hannah is an amazing chef) and gardening and not much else. There is also a fair bit of breast milk around here at the moment, but I don’t like drinking it. Here is what we are drinking…
Firstly, get yourself a business partner (in my case, it’s Mark ‘Reggie’ Reginato) who is a boutique spirits distributor, judge and guru of all things cocktails. If not, you’ll have to batch up your own and just keep them in the freezer. Negroni (equal parts MGC Gin, Maidenii Classic Vermouth and Campari, with a dash of grapefruit bitters) and martini are my go-tos. Just pour your pre-made deliciousness into a glass and throw the appropriate garnish on top. Formal dinner wear optional.
We eat a lot of Middle Eastern, South-East Asian and Mediterranean kinda food. Aromatic, fresh, delicious. So, the wines we drink tend to follow suit. I love light-bodied grenache: l’Anglore (Eric Pfifferling), Ochota Barrels, Rayas (yeah, like I have loads of Rayas at home!). We do also drink our own wine a fair bit – is that bad?
Our dear friend gave us a Moccamaster coffee maker before he returned to Copenhagen last year, and we love it. It has been getting a serious workout while we’ve been homebound. I try and get locally roasted, fair trade beans from our favourite coffee shops to give them some support. I feel like the defining question of lockdown is, “Is it too late to drink coffee, or is it too early to drink wine?”
Gareth and Rainbo Belton have released their best wines to date. This is a brilliant journey from making quaffable natural wine to top tier single vineyard pinot noir and chardonnay. I feel super lucky to have closely followed a few makers like Gentle Folk in South Australia over the last decade. Also, the Little Creek vineyard is owned by one of the great food and wine personalities of the Adelaide Hills, Nigel Hopkins. It’s about halfway between our house and Gentle Folk.
I bloody love bourbon. I’m not a snob about it – Jim Beam out of the fridge door is fine. But at the moment, I’ve got a Woodford Reserve open. Admittedly, it is a better drink. I drink it out of Riedel ‘O’ whisky tumblers, which are a delight. In fact, one of the few benefits of having a wine bar is always having nice glassware at home. Almost makes up for how much we have to spend replacing broken ones at Hellbound!
Louis Schofield is a former retailer/sommelier/wine rep, with 10 years in the trade. He is the assistant winemaker at Ochota Barrels, and makes wine under his own label, Worlds Apart Wines, while also co-owning Adelaide’s iconoclastic Hellbound wine bar.
This year is certainly unlike any other before it. Across the community, COVID-19 has postponed any idea of ‘business as usual’, but that only adds to the sense of purpose behind Tahbilk’s quieter work – that of placing environment and sustainability at the centre of all its winery practices.
The Top 50 winemakers in the 14th annual Young Gun of Wine Awards has just landed. It’s one of the most diverse groups we’ve ever seen, with finalists from right across the country, and making wines that couldn’t be more different in style, but all linked by their sheer quality and individual character.
This year marks the 17th annual edition of the Young Gun of Wine Awards – created for young wine labels and winemakers on the rise. These winemakers are forming a new fabric in Australia’s wine culture and community. The annual list has become the go-to guide for drinkers looking for cutting-edge wines and the stories behind them. And now, the time has come to reveal our Top winemakers for 2023.
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