BYO Favs & Pizza
Excuses out of the way first: I'd originally intended to use this site as a means of documenting and sharing what I was drinking. I failed. The posts may be more sporadic than originally intended, but I am hopeful that an experience had on Friday 13th August may well contribute to the ongoing presence of this site.
The background: a dinner held in Brisbane by Stewart Noble of WineWithoutBS forged some initial relationships with some keen foodies and winos in the Brisbane area. Stew then held a Winter Reds dinner in South Australia at which some of the Brisbane attendees also attended (the author was not one of them).
Stay with me here....I feel context is very important.....One of the attendees at the SA dinner was David Bowley, winemaker at Vinteloper Wines (you can see David's lofty presence in the photo on the WineWithoutBS page) and David's wines were also tasted at the dinner, making quite an impression. Suffice to say, the Brisbane attendees at the SA dinner purchased some of the Winteloper wines and were kind enough to offer to share them with a group of avid consumers.....
The BYO Favs & Pizza Dinner
The BYO Favs & Pizza Dinner was held at Vespa Pizza in Merthyr Road, New Farm on August 13th. The attendees were all known in some way to each other, but mainly these were relationships forged through a shared love of the good drop and food, and underpinned by a fairly active presence on the social networking site Twitter.
The Dinner was a fairly simple concept, each attendee was to bring a bottle of a favourite wine, around the $25-30 mark. The wine was to be presented anonymously - covered in a brown paper bag - introduced by the individual who had brought it along and then enjoyed. There was no scoring, there was a little discussion, but the prime goal was to share and enjoy.
The Wines
There were eight attendees in total, meaning eight wines. Some initial discussion took place beforehand in order to place the eight wines into a logical drinking order that would hopefully assist in the appreciation of the wines.
Wine 4: Rockford Moppa Springs GSM 2002
Wine 7: Tahbilk Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
Wine 8: Vinteloper Shiraz 2008
Bonus Wine courtesy of one attendee with the foresight to bring an extra bottle - props to that man - you know who you are: Samuel's Gorge McLaren Vale Grenache 2006
There are no tasting notes. This evening was about sharing good wine with some new friends; whilst the relationships may have been formed through 21st Century means like twitter, there was something very old fashioned in the sharing of the food and wine around a table that reinforces such friendships.
