Katnook Estate 2013 Odyssey: a special wine that deserved to be cellared

There are couple of reasons that make the new-release Katnook Estate 2013 Odyssey special. 

The first is that this is the 20th vintage release of the Coonawarra flagship, the second that it was the last Odyssey made to completion by founding winemaker Wayne Stehbens, who sadly died last year. 

The multiple-award-winning cabernet sauvignon is made only in outstanding vintages from specific rows of terra rossa soil. 

The 1991 Odyssey was the inaugural vintage, released in 1996 to commemorate the centenary of the first vintage made at Katnook’s woolshed in 1896. 

The name Odyssey reflected the ongoing journey of Katnook with its roots in the past and sights on the future. The aim was to make a timeless Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, one that would stand alongside the world’s best.

The 2013, from a warm vintage, is a wine that offers intense fruit married to powerful French and American oak. It is all about richness and concentration and, ideally, it needs several years in the cellar. 

Stehbens made Katnook's first vintage and headed the winemaking team until his sudden death, making him one of Australia’s longest-serving winemakers. He was just 63 but had been Katnook winemaker for 37 years.
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The $110 price tag underlines that this wine is something special; one 1 of just 53 wines listed in the 'Outstanding' category of the Langton's Classification of Australian Wine. 

For details visit www.katnookestate.com.au

Flight delayed by "emotional support squirrel"

A few months ago an airline flight in the United States was delayed when a woman tried to board with her pet peacock.

This week, passengers were held up for over two hours while a woman demanding to fly with an "emotional support squirrel" was removed from a plane at Orlando International Airport in Florida, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The woman had noted on her reservation with Frontier Airlines that she was flying with an emotional support animal but did not say it was a squirrel, local media reported.

“Rodents, including squirrels, are not allowed on Frontier flights,” the airline said in a statement.

The flight to Cleveland was delayed when the woman, who had boarded, refused to leave the plane with her animal, which airline workers told her was not allowed.

Other passengers then were asked to get off the plane and police were called. Officers then escorted the woman and her squirrel off the airline.

Officers had all passengers get off the plane so they could "deal with the passenger," the airline said.

A spokesperson for Orlando Police Department said the woman, identified as wheelchair-user Cindy Torok, co-operated when police arrived and no arrest was made.

The emotional support squirrel is apparently called Daisy. Torok caught a later flight without her rodential companion. 

Viognier making its mark in Heathcote

Tellurian Wines was founded on a love of Rhone reds and a desire to create outstanding Heathcote shiraz.

Within a year of the first release from the 2008 vintage, however, the Central Victorian winery released its first white wine - the 2009 Tellurian Viognier.

Fast forward a decade or so and the 2017 Tellurian Viognier won the trophy for the best white at the 2018 Heathcote Wine Show.

Championed in Australia by Yalumba in the Eden Valley, who make a range of styles, viognier originates from the Rhone Valley and is well suited to the growing conditions in Heathcote.

Medium in style with floral and stone fruit aromatics and soft, round texture, the 2017 Tellurian ($28) is a standout with a fresh, crisp acid finish.

Tellurian winemaker Tobias Ansted spent a vintage in the Northern Rhone working at Domaine Yves Cuilleron at Chavanay, and fell in love with viognier, which is grown largely in the tiny Condrieu appellation.

While Ansted and Tellurian principals Ian and Daniel Hopkins acknowledge that viognier isn’t likely to shift from obscure to mainstream in the near future, they firmly believe this "expressive and textural variety" deserves a place on wine lists.

I tried the wine over two nights, with roast chicken and an Asian stir-fry, and it shone with both.

“It is critical to pick viognier ripe," says Ansted. "You want those rich apricot and orange blossom characters that only develop in later in the season with full ripeness; picking early defeats the purpose.

"Our 2017 Tellurian viognier offers these typical stone fruit, orange blossom notes enlivened by acid freshness and enriched by creamy, yeasty complexity from aging on lees and barrel fermentation in seasoned oak."

That said, this has no "canned apricot" characters. Ansted has used a deft touch. 

Tellurian's white plantings included viognier, marsanne and riesling. In 2014, roussanne and fiano were planted and most recently grenache gris vines. Tellurian hopes to be certified organic in November.

Tokyo the favourite overseas city for American tourists

Tokyo has been chosen as the world’s best big city outside the United States for the third year in a row, leading US travel magazine Conde Nast Traveler reports.

Readers of the magazine cast more than 420,000 votes for their favorite cities in the 2018 poll, the magazine said, with the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto climbing the rankings to second from third the previous year.

“Topping our list of world cities yet again, Tokyo continues to thrill with its contradictions: ultramodern, neon-lit skyscrapers and tranquil temples, unmatchable street style and centuries-old etiquette,” the magazine said, adding that the Japanese capital is also “one of the world’s best food destinations”.

The magazine said Kyoto is “still one of the most well-preserved cities in Japan”. A third Japanese city, Osaka, finished 12th.

Melbourne in Australia, was third, followed by Vienna, Austria, and Hamburg in Germany. Then came Sydney, Singapore, Paris, Barcelona and Vancouver.

That Sydney should finish sixth is amazing given the city core is a complete building site and its public transport is an absolute shambles.

Massive man-made reef aims to revive wild oyster populaton

Parts of the artificial reef

The final construction stage of the largest man-made oyster reef system outside the United States has been completed in South Australia.

The 20-hectare reef in the waters of Gulf St Vincent in South Australia is the first of what is hoped to be five major reef projects in the state to revive wild populations of the almost extinct Ostrea angasi native mud oyster.

The four-hectare stage one of the Windara Reef project was completed in June 2017 and 30,000 adult native oysters were embedded across the 15 limestone structures in January this year.

Work on stage two began in late August and was completed last week. It involved placing almost 10,000 tonnes of limestone boulders, each about the size of a soccer ball, to form 144 reefs across the remaining 16-hectare area.

The final part of the project will include seeding the stage two section with seven million one-month-old native oyster spat in December.

The project, about a kilometre off the coast of Ardrossan on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, aims to increase fish stocks for recreational anglers, improve water quality and biodiversity and revive the oyster in the Gulf.

Oyster reefs are considered the temperate water equivalent to coral reefs in tropical waters. Australia’s southern coastline was home to thousands of kilometres of oyster reefs before European settlement but dredging to remove substrate for lime production and the harvesting of oysters for food wiped out all the reefs except for one off the coast of Tasmania.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been involved in dozens of shellfish reef restoration projects, chiefly in the United States and is considered a global expert on their establishment.

TNC project manager Anita Nedosyko said the first dives to measure the environmental benefits on water quality, fish production and biodiversity of stage one were conducted in May and June as part of a six-year study into the success of the project.

She said while the reef system was dominated by turfing algae, the adult oysters placed on the reef were surviving and a number of wild oyster spat had also found its way to the reef, which was an unexpected bonus.

The seven million one-month-old native oyster larvae will be attached at a hatchery near Port Lincoln to 12 tonnes of oyster shells that will be used to host the spat so it can be easily seeded onto the reef, which is in 8-10 metres of water.

The 144 limestone boulder reefs in stage two are roughly four metres wide and 700mm high with lengths varying from 10 metres to 35 metres and are distributed evenly across the area to form one large reef system.

Nedosyko said the individual reef clumps were designed to be close enough together so that native oyster larvae could move across the reef system through tidal flow.

“A successful reef for us will be one where oysters are surviving, spawning and producing new recruits and we’re also starting to see some additional biodiversity,” she said.

Adult native oysters can filter more than 100 litres of water a day and excrete a mucus-like substance that is rich in nutrients and provides food for small shellfish that in turn provide food for larger fish.

Nedosyko said the ability to provide to clean water and provide a food source for small organisms gave native oyster reefs the ability to drive greater fish production than artificial reefs alone.

She said it was hoped the Windara Reef would eventually lead to increased fish production of 5000 tonnes per hectare a year including recreational fishing favourites such as snapper and King George whiting.

“It’s like a well-stocked fridge – it’s really attractive to fish coming in because they can stop, get fed and move on or decide to be residents.”

The Nature Conservancy is working with the South Australian Government to raise additional funds to be able to undertake restoration projects in other South Australian locations including Kangaroo Island, the metropolitan Adelaide coast, Spencer Gulf and the far West Coast.

“This is definitely an important site for us to be able to test the success of the ecological progression of the reef and also to test and trial the construction and deployment methods,” Nedosyko said.

“We’re confident that by building native oyster reefs we’re going to achieve oyster survival but also greater biodiversity and therefore higher fish numbers at these sites.”

Come and visit us, say the good people of Christmas Island

Most of us associate Christmas Island with an immigration detention centre of immense cruelty that cost $400 million of Australian taxpayers' money to build. 

But now, after decade of being associated with Australian Government behaviour that shocked the international community, Christmas Island's tourism industry finally has the opportunity to shine.

This week, the island's Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), which opened its doors in 2008, will scale back to 'hot contingency' status, which means it will be closed to detainees, and only become operational should the need arise.

Tourism operators on the tropical island, located 2600 kilometres north-west of Perth off the coast of Indonesia, hope this change in status of the centre means the spotlight can once again be shone on the island's natural wonders.

“Our industry has had to endure many challenges during the past 10 years,” says Lisa Preston, chair of the Christmas Island Tourism Association, adding “it's great to be able to finally start getting our positive messages out into our markets”.

Earlier this week, the tropical island celebrated its 60th anniversary as an Australian territory.

“The closure of the IDC is the ultimate birthday present”, says Preston. "We are now poised to start developing our island's long-term vision for the future, which means embracing tourism and the new opportunities that it will bring for all."

The closure of the IDC is especially welcomes by several recent tourism developments on the island, including Swell Lodge, a luxury cabin perched atop a sea cliff that is attracting visitors from as far as Europe, and Extra Divers, a global diving conglomerate which recently opened its first Australian dive centre on the island.

Christmas Island hopes to soon become better known for its marine life (you can swim, snorkel and scuba dive with whale sharks), deserted beaches and wildlife than its detainees. 

For more information please visit www.christmas.net.au