Showing posts with label cape naturaliste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cape naturaliste. Show all posts

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party


Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party
Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party


As you may have gathered from the plethora of recipes that use it, or tales of my trips down to the Margaret River region, I’m a big fan of wine. Like most people, I started on sweet white wines before my palate developed and now I’m a solid red drinker, with forays back into white and rose usually weather dependent. (I loved seeing the hashtag #summerwater as a reference to rose over the Northern Summer. Such a cute name!) And whilst I really enjoy my wine, and I’ve reached a point where although I am fussy about drinking bad wines…I’m certainly no expert. So when Lance and I decided to host some wine tasting parties, I knew it would have to be a little bit different to the usual.
My first experience with wine tasting events was as a white wine only drinker in my early 20s. There was a group at my workplace who met after work once every few months with a wine seller who would bring wines to taste and snacks to eat and we’d sample away. The more experienced wine drinkers of the group would discuss all of the technical aspects of the wine – the tannins, the length, the flavours. The two of us youngens would discuss the wine in terms of how we’d drink it. This red feels like you’d be wearing a smoking jacket, sitting in front of the fire. This white feels like a summer lunch, flash-fried prawns and crispy greens. And that remains to this day the way that I approach wine tasting at cellar doors, or just generally out and about. That helped broaden my taste in wines and introduced me to the wonders of reds.
I’ve spoken of my love of Cape Naturaliste Winery before. Many times. One of the wines Lance and I fell in love with and bought on our first trip here (on our honeymoon) was the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. We bought (a few of) both the reserve and non-reserve and decided we would drink them side-by-side to compare them. Then have a lovely meal to go with it. So into the “cellar” it went, ready for that special occasion. Then we bought the 2010 Cab Sauv, so that one was going to become part of the tasting. And then we bought the reserve and non-reserve 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon. 5 wines - all the same, but different. That was going to require us enlisting some help to taste and drink! A wine tasting party it was!

Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting PartyEntertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party

Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party

We decided to host it as a blind tasting. We put all of the bottles in brown paper bags and numbered them at random. We’d taste them blindly, making notes and then taste them again, knowing which one was which. We had plain water crackers for cleansing the palate – you don’t want anything with heavy flavours as a snack between wines or it will affect the taste.
The 5 of us at the tasting were all seasoned Cape Naturaliste drinkers – we often take a little picnic and have a glass or two on Jen’s balcony watching the vineyard – but none of us are wine experts. So the tasting notes page Lance and I designed looked a little different. We had the usual spaces for the flavours and smells we could discern. We even printed out a little sheet with terms that might spurn on ideas. We had a little space for the mouthfeel. Lance suggested we had a place for a breakdown of the drinking process. What was the “first bite”, when you held it in your mouth, what it was like to swallow, the aftertaste. These are all things that we have noted whilst drinking that can greatly vary and influence your overall experience of a wine. But the think that set ours apart was the experiential questions. Is it a food wine? What would you eat with it? What’s the ideal day/occasion for it. Does it evoke any particular memories?

Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party
Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party
Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting PartyEntertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party


Whilst it might be obvious because of how many shared memories our group had with each other and with wine, I was still surprised at how similar our experiential tasting notes were. One wine we all said would be best drunk on a crisp afternoon down south “Luxury Fishing” (for reference, luxury fishing is everyone with a line in the water in the river, deck-chairs, a cheese platter and some wine while Lance baits our lines and does all the other dirty jobs. I then handfeed him cheese crackers so his baity grossness doesn’t mean he can’t eat). We also all imagined eating with a variation of fresh bread, olive oil and dukkah. And although I was biased because I knew what was coming, it didn’t stop 3 of us thinking that the same wine would go particularly well with sticky ribs.

Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party - HamburgerEntertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party - Hamburger

We finished up the wine tasting with a DIY Hamburger lunch, then continued listening to music, chatting and finishing off the bottles. Basically just creating more shared wine memories for the next tasting day. Being a hostess-with-the-mostest, in our admittedly “happy” state by the end of the night, I made sure there was a good dinner. There were no photos by that point, but I previously slow-cooked some pork in the cherry ribs sauce (good thing we left the 2011 Reserve til last!!) and re-heated that and served it with some freshly steamed buns and cucumber and radish slices. This is such a good party option as all the hard work is done before-hand. We stood around the kitchen island and assembled them as each batch of buns came out of the steamer.


We've also used the same approach with three 2013 Sauvignon Blancs from the Margaret River region (Cape Naturaliste, Leeuwin Estate and Cullen) and one $5 2013 Sauvignon Blanc from South Australia and the cheap bottle was unquestionably the least liked.


Have you held a wine tasting party? I’d love to hear how you do it, or if you like our approach to it.


Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party
Entertaining with the Skamp - Wine Tasting Party

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car

Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup

Late last year, my husband was involved in a car accident. Beyond a little whiplash, he was fine. His car, however, was not. It was deemed ‘uneconomical to repair’, and promptly taken away for scrap. Which given all of the experiences we’ve had in that car, was more than a little sad. Now, I’m not a car person. And Lance is not a car person. We don’t even have a his car/her car set-up. We need two cars, but both cars are ‘ours’. So when it came to buying a vehicle, practicality is the only thing that entered our reasoning. The last time either of us had bought a car was over 10 years ago, so we didn’t really even know what was out there, let alone what we wanted to buy! So we went to car yards. Dozens of them. And looked at cars. Hundreds of them.


Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup

We already own a small car, which is perfect for driving to work, and around the place. Our new car had to be a big car, like the recently departed old Fairmont. We needed boot space. Lots of it. For grocery shopping (boxes and boxes of fresh produce from The Nanna Shop. For trips down south. For crabbing and fishing and kayaking. And we needed a decently sized back-seat. We frequently ferry around 5 adults and we’re nice enough to want those adults squished in the backseat to be comfortable. Honestly, those were the two main factors we considered. Then we looked at the more serious things like fuel economy. We eventually settled on the Mistubishi Outlander (or the Mitsubishi Zoolander as we have been calling it). And I am so stoked with it! One of the things that sold us on the Outlander being the car for us was the salesman, Jayke at Southside Mitsubishi. Every car we looked at, we immediately opened the boot, before looking at anything else. It actually seemed to freak out a lot of car salesmen! Jayke asked what sort of things we’d be transporting, that the boot was such a concern. My husband joked, ‘Bodies’. Without missing a beat, Jayke climbed in to show how many people would fit! Now, that is service!
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Taken from the back row, with the middle seats folded down
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
It's not often your kilometres match how hot the day is!


We decided to take the car down for a trip to Molloy Island very soon after buying it. We bought the 7 seat option, which means that we can have less designated drivers in the Margaret River Wine Region. Perfect, right? Especially when I don’t have to be the designated driver!


Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup

Our trip consisted of driving down after work on Friday night. 5 people, 5 people's luggage. We wanted to make sure there was enough space to bring home wine! The next morning we stopped for a coffee at Yahava and browsed through the Vasse Virgin store. I absolutely love their Chamomile and Lavender balm. My skin has a tendency towards dryness and irritation with a lot of products, but this moisturiser made from olive oil is beautiful. 

From there, we drove on to Woody Nook for wine tasting and lunch. I'm quite a fan of the Nookery Cafe. Their meals are sort of more "old-fashioned" than a lot of restaurants. The dishes are well made, with lots of fresh local produce, but they haven't bothered jumping on the whatever's trendy bandwagon. They provide classic dishes, at very reasonable prices. The location is lovely too, but I would recommend sitting outside in this weather. It was quite stuffy inside when you order. One of the wines I always find myself buying here is their Velvet Rose. The label is quite fun, as the rose changes colour from white to red, to show that the wine is cold enough to drink! But it's not just a gimmick, the rose is actually a lovely lightly sweet wine that paired well with my ginger duck, Lance's salmon and Justin's ricotta cannelloni.




Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Woody Nook
Velvet Rose
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Woody Nook
Fish of the Day - Salmon with Baby Chat Potatoes and Asparagus
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Woody Nook
Duck with Plum and Ginger Sauce with Polenta Cake and Sauteed Vegetables
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Woody Nook
Garlic Prawns and Steamed Calamari stuffed with Salmon Mousse on Couscous
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Woody Nook
Pasta of the Day - Vegetarian Cannelloni with salad and fries
The five of us then drove on to Cape Naturaliste Winery. I don't think I need to remind you of how much I love the wines here. We brought along some cheese, venison chorizo, crackers and bought a few wines by the glass to sit on the verandah and watch the sun set. We were mainly drinking the 2013 Sauvignon Blanc - a zesty, passionfruity and very summery wine, before switching to 2011 Torpedo Rocks Shiraz - full-flavoured but still light enough to enjoy on a summer's afternoon. By the time we finished drinking and chatting, our dinner options were severely limited. So we hit Dunsborough for fish and chips, then watched a bride-to-be wrestle her friends to the floor at a Hen's Party at the Dunsborough tavern.


Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cape Naturaliste
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup



The next morning, we slept in and had a leisurely pack and drive home. We stopped in at the Blackwood Meadery. I particularly like their lemon mead - perfect for afternoon sipping over ice. And then we hit Cheeky Monkey Brewery for lunch. The vibe of this brewery is so laidback and chill. It's always a relaxing experience. The food can be a little hit and miss for me. It goes from incredible to just good. I've never had a bad meal here, but sometimes it's been not as good as it should be. This trip, it was good, though. Lance's ribs were covered in lovely sticky BBQ sauce (nothing irks me more than sauce-less ribs), although the switch from normal chips to corn chips is a little disappointing. Wiping up all the sauce with chips is part of the rib experience! And my Char Sui Pork Salad was overflowing with delicious saucy pork and the crispy shallots topped it off perfectly. The live music was cherry on the top experience. We stopped in to Ferngrove/Killerby Wines on our way out and ended up with another carton of wine.


Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cheeky Monkey
Pork Ribs in Cheeky Monkey BBQ sauce with Coleslaw and Corn Chips
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cheeky Monkey
Char Sui Pork Salad with egg noodles, mixed leaves, crispy shallots and sweet soy dressing
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup - Cheeky Monkey

At this point, we had put our new car's space to the test. We started off with 5 people and 5 people's luggage. We now had 5 people, 5 people's luggage and 7 cartons of wine. How did it fit? Very, very well. Lance is a bit of an expert at packing Tetris, but he packed the car such that we had all that gear and STILL had 6 seats available. We didn't need 6 seats, but we had them! So the drive home had one in the back, two in the middle with the arm rest/drink holder down and two in the front. No complaints about being squished at all.


Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup

The Zoolander definitely passed our Molloy test. Lance and I are both so stoked with our decision!



Weekend Away - Skamp's New Car -Mitsubishi Outlander goes to Molloy Island, Margaret River and Yallingup
Our car even knew it was on the ferry!