Highly Irregular Stone Cottage Wines

A cool and pretty wet finish to growing thanks to La Nina, though I recall reducing the newly adopted vineyard canopy in January in Darwin levels of humidity- challenging. Yields were down on previous years.

All the wines seem to like some breathing, decant with lots of air mixing an hour or so before. They seem to evolve over days if you can, which to me is remarkable given the low sulphuring but tells you how much oxygen is required for all the chemistry to finish.

Côte Fresh Syrah#1 unfiltered

No roasting here- like most of the region, we just coolly edged into 12deg baume. 

Shiraz 75% Vinelea vineyard 450m and 25% Weeping grass 350m

The only non-wild wild ferment of the 2022 mob; a Rhone yeast used that took off, almost leaving the tracks. It’s settled into itself and has a wonderful white pepper introduction and has pinot-like forest floor vibe. It is maturing into a grown up, and early on seems to really benefit from some air.

Côte Fresh Syrah#2

Shiraz Madman’s Gully Vineyard 80% Picked 9.4.22 & 16.4.22

Vinelea and weeping grass 15/5%

~15% stemmed

Wild ferment, extended maceration- pressed 19.5.22. Neutral French oak 9mo. 20micron filter

On the nose wild soft fruits, white pepper and rhubarb. There’s a satisfying mouth feel, subtle warm spices evolve with a savoury edge.

Dos Altos- Cabernet Sauvignon 596 bottles

55% Weeping grass (Wooragee), 350m- picked 27.3.22. Open wild ferment hand basket pressed to neutral oak 14.4.22

45% Fighting gully road, 650m- Picked 26.4.22. Open wild ferment, pressed to neutral oak 14/6/22

Aged on lees, pH 3.93 molecular SO2 aim 30ppm.

WG had a very pretty almost floral nose whereas the FGR just had this lovely mouth feel and length- so a wine of two altitudes was made.

NQC 2022 350bottles

A Bordeaux blend that is reminiscent of a softly spoken cru Bordelais; not quite claret, but close…..

Medium bodied with purple, cassis, leafy autumn fruit, warm spice, and antique wood. There is an immediate happy mouthfeel with a savoury finish that is delicious alone and with food.

Cabernet Sauvignon 60% 27.3.22 350m Weeping Grass Wooragee and Petit Verdot 30% 24.3.22 350m in French oak

Cabernet franc 10% 26.4.22 650m Fighting Gully Rd Vineyard(Glass demijohn)

Spontaneous ferment in open vat, extended maceration and hand pressed into neutral French oak for 9 months. Minimal sulphur. 

The very fine butchers of Katherine ‘Eat beef ya bastard’ fame has some zany produce, not least litre containers of pigs blood. Now, when I bought this, I also bought some back fat with the plan to make some black pudding, something as yet unexplored. Cut to about 2 years later……

There is a bit of a lack of fine black stuff round these parts, so when needs must, refer to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Now I have to say I love Hugh a great deal, but his quantities for black pudding seemed a bit awry- 2litres of blood and 500g EACH of pearl barley and oatmeal, and 1kg of back fat, and 1kg of onions.

I have to say I I didn’t weigh a thing. I soaked a cup of pinhead oatmeal overnight and then de-skinned the back fat, possibly 250-300g, and it looked about right. In it all went with a tablespoon of salt, a big grind of white and black pepper and a line of allspice (snort).

This is where it got a bit like a bad resus- pour in the blood. It’s interesting what the sight of a lot of blood does- I did warn my son, and I wish I hadn’t  fed him the line, but he wasn’t keen. He did take about 30 photos of me wrestling with the stuff though.

After clogging up one funnel I created one out of a Ginger cordial bottle, chopped off to make a cone, which worked pretty bloody well (there I go again). After tying one end of the casings up, it filled up like a dream to produce the coiled black hole- no light was coming out of this. Amazing. It was a bit fiddly to get rid of the air, which I didn’t succeed at 100%, but 95%…..

Now, one tip from Hugh was to gently poach them, but more importantly, when they burst, a little bit of you dies…..

So, bring on the gadget, yes, the sous vide. How about 80C- why not, that should clot the blood.

Lo and behold it worked- by the time the temperature was back up to 80C, they felt pretty solid, so out they came.

Beast 2 is keen, but no1, despite his liking for it as a toddler wasn’t quite so enamered. Steve and I enjoyed a post MTB ride snack, shown, Fresh bread, big coffee, marmalade, OJ and Worcester sauce. Wow.

So next time? May s few onions and perhaps a French style boudin with lots of cream? Or Spanish style with rice a smoked paprika?? Getting hungry just thinking about this……

I could post this on my work medical blog, but it’s work, and I may get into trouble, so I’ll post on my food blog. Because I can.

There has been a re-emergence of the Cricoidgate scandal of 2014, whereupon a most prolific and upstanding proponent of the FOAM world, Dr Cliff Reid wrote a brief discourse around his views of the continued use of cricoid pressure in emergency airway management arena. He used the acronym R.E.T.A.R.D to summarise this. I can’t even recall the exact expansion of this, but people were OFFENDED. Essentially, the equally prolific and wonderful Dr Minh Le Cong was not pleased as he was a proponent of it’s use based on current expert practice from our gaseous colleagues.

There was a lot of talk about being offended. I tweeted a Stephen Fry interview in there, and I believe Dr Nicholas Chrimes later suggested this ‘offensive’ discourse was ‘just semantics’. Or something like that.

Well, I would like to explore this a little further.

Nicholas has now ended up feeling the offensive wrath of EMS_junkie, who has shown equal disdain for his use of the word ‘zealot’.

Now, a quick disclaimer- my other half (SB) is a philosophy graduate, and we’ve spent 20+ years ‘discussing’. Incidentally, she’s irritatingly rather good at biostatistics, and I need to thank her for the romantic pillow talk on this very topic.

I’ll just pick a bone about ‘just semantics’, as Dr Chrimes has used it again in the recent twitter dialogue. I would suggest that phrase just semantics’ doesn’t make sense, given that (linguistic) semantics is about meaning, as well as other branches in psychology and computer science. I might need my French speaking philosophy other half to assist with the rest of the wikipedia entry.

Anyway, back to Stephen Fry’s comment, that the statement “I am offended by that” is essentially a whine; a statement with no meaning.

Here’s a situation we considered from an actual occurrence. A meal with a number of friends and colleagues, and someone at the table cracks a joke about paedophiles/ paedophilia. Where are we now on the Fry ‘offense is meaningless’ position?

SB raised the idea that really it is an emotional reaction. Being offended as an emotional reaction? So to deny that is as logical as to deny someone isn’t sad, or angry etc. I think this is a useful concept. We may not really understand the reason for the ‘offense’ but it is there. What about the dinner party case? Or indeed the casually racist remark in a hospital meeting, or a member of staff in an open area in the department, or a patient who states ‘I’m glad I’ve got you doc, at least you speak English?’.

The offence may indeed stem from anger, but here it is not really the anger of being offended, it is the anger of someone stating something you feel to be morally wrong, (to open a whole new can of philosphical worms).

And this emotional reaction should be considered distinct from the message of the argument, in the case of Cricoidgate, that the application of cricoid pressure is perhaps a position of dogma, but even worse, it is a position that is potentially doing harm. It is therefore understandable that to get the point across, to draw attention to the other persons seemingly contradictory  point of view, an offensive strategy might be required. Perhaps, to go on the offensive?

Of course it then reminds us of the military or sporting connotation, which is one of attack. And this was SBs point again, it can be (or perceived to be) an attack on a person.

And this where doctors might feel this differently to say a scientist, who might feel somewhat less invested in a certain ‘practice’. When that practice is critiqued, it is perhaps more likely to cause some kind of emotional reaction. In fact I bristled at a skull X-ray I ordered being critiqued the other day. Personally I feel there is a role, and it’s a well thought and logical decision process to me, so I reacted to this. We all do.

So what to do in the case of the racist remark at work, or the paedophile joke at the dinner table. I think the former is easier, unless you’re colleagues are drunk. But an immediate comment stating that is not a reasonable thing to say, possibly with an apology, is probably required, without the emotion.

The dinner table guest should probably get the same swift unemotional comment and not be invited again.

And the blog post/ Twitter comment?

Well, now we are in new territory, as the instant thought, witty cutback, etc etc becomes essentially irreversible and re-tweetable with countless edits and mis-contexts as woeful as an ABC radio news edit.

Let’s just have a chat over a pint……..