On the Road with the Grape Guy

Report from: Australia's First Families of Wine

04 Aug 2015

(May 26, 2015) ... Every time I get the invite to the Australian First Families of Wine, I'm always reminded of the Godfather movies and the "Five Families".  But the Australian First Families are a group of 12 families that are making wine over 16 regions and between them they have some 5000 hectares of vineyards. They span 48 generations and 1200 years of winemaking experience - pretty impressive really.

They are "The custodians of some of Australia's finest vineyards, most famous wine names and some irreplaceable history" and surely names you recognize: Brown Brothers, Campbells, D'Arenberg, De Bortoli Wines, Henschke, Howard Park, Jim Barry Wines, McWilliam's, Tahblik, Tyrrell's Wines, Wakefield and Yalumba (only Campbells was not in attendance today).

Today's tasting was structured as a speed dating event, each group had 10 minutes with each winery representative (it may have been 5 minutes, felt like it anyway) and tasted two wines, gleaning as much information as could be imparted in that short period of time.  Of the 22 wines poured here were the best of the best ...

Click here to meet the personalities and the wines that make up the First Families of Australia

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