Food and Wine

Most people know that my sister and her husband are in the business of making and selling wine. But what I saw during my recent trip to SA is how big this business is becoming. Justin has actually become somewhat famous in SA. He was on the front cover of the Adelaide Magazine (SA's equivalent of the Sydney Magazine). I've scanned the cover (above) and the pages from inside (below).

And while I was in SA, Country Style Magazine came to Emma and Justin's house for a photo shoot. The Lane family will be gracing the Country Style pages in the December edition - so keep your eye out. While the photographer was there I managed to get a shot of the Lane Family - - this is about the best photo I managed to get. It was hard to capture all five of them in the same frame. Apparently QC magazine are wanting to interview Justin as well, and there were write ups about their wine in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald while I was there!!

The images from above are from the Redheads Website, which is the studio winery that Justin runs. If you go to the website (http://www.redheadswine.com/) you can find out more about this arm of their business. Emma tells me that the website is actually a bit old and aimed at the UK market, but worth having a look anyway.

The wine bottle pictured above right is Viottolo Shiraz. This particular wine received rave reviews including 95 Parker Points. Robert Parker is apparently a renowned wine critic and 95 is a very high score. The concept of Parker Points ia a bit foreign to me, and I guess it doesn't really matter to most people (except that it helps to sell more wine). All I can say is that it was great fun drinking their wine and I really loved some of their quirky labels (a couple of which I've posted above).

I actually made a label myself before I left to go to SA - for my nephews. I put the labels onto transfer paper and ironed them onto a shirt for each of the boys. I had visions of taking a photo of all three of them wearing these. But of course that proved impossible. It was difficult enough to get a photo of them all together, quite aside from the logistical challenge of having the shirts all clean at the same time.

Anyway, the shirts were a hit. Oscar in particular loved his and I was very pleased when he was most reluctant to take it off.

Of course wine and food go together and we were treated to a very special dinner while we were in SA. Emma is a bit of a gourmet foodie and has several friends who are chefs. One night while we were staying at Aldinga Beach, Emma's friend Dustin asked us if we would mind critiquing a three course meal he wanted to practice for a competition he was planning to enter. The rules of the comp were that all of the ingredients had to be local produce and each course matched to a local wine. So part of our task was to taste several different wines with each course and come up with the perfect match!! Terrible task I know but someone's gotta do it.

I can't actually remember all of the fabulous wines that we tasted and I can't exactly remember what each course was, but I think it was something like this:

Entree: Sweet Meats with Asparagus and Lemon

Main: Grilled Tailor with Poached Egg and Hollandaise sauce

Dessert: Blue Cheese Icecream with Romano Macaroons (the most unusual dessert I've ever had).