Tonic@Millthrope, NSW

In between Bathurst and Orange is a really cozy restaurant called Tonic. Millthrope is a really small town. When I say small, I mean it's more like a village. SMH gave this restaurant a good rating, 14/20. I personally had a very good experience here. There were 12 people here that night and only one waitress which was sufficient. I saw three chefs at the kitchen. The restaurant plays jazz tunes and I noticed some were sang by Rod Stewart.

The empty table

Starter

Cauliflower and white truffle soup soup :
Succulent smell of cauliflower and cream, Frothy and well textured Not excessively cauliflowered. A savoury broth to it. Tasty.

Entrée

Lamb shank tortellini w pan fried sweetbreads & consommé:

Delicious shanks. Juicy and fatty drippings which complements the light broth. Texture is chewy yet like baby fat but not like bubblegum. It melts in the mouth. Very typical lamb shank taste in the pasta. The star here is the shank fats where all the juices were so focused.

The wine that I had with my Entrée was a Swinging bridge 2008 Chardonnay, 13.8% alch from Canowindra. The colour was pale straw yellow with aromas of peaches, stonefruit and slight mineral notes. Other aromas I thought I detected were melon, nuts, nectarines and a slight leesiness to it. On the palate was more nuts, lees, walnuts and a medium body, There was a slight bitter finish at the end but not excessive. The nice thing about this wine is that there are hints of honey from the beginning to the end as well as grapefruit. There is a bite to it but these nutty flavours seem a little overwhelming for me.

The flavours of the shanks were so concentrated but the Chardonnay killed them. I preferred the meal without the Chardonnay. The broth is very light and not salty at all, adding a savoury dimension to the dish.

Main

Roasted Blayney pork rack w rillette, cabbage & horseradish cream:

The mash potato had a creamy texture with sufficient salt. The cabbage was salty, which I felt was intentional to complement the pork shred and spinach. The dish had a slightly bitter and salty theme to it.

The sauce went well with the pork and it was cooked tenderly. Soft to chew though not squishy. Served with it was a simple salad with garlic and a sweet sauce.


The wine tasted with this dish was an Angullong 2008 Sangiovese, 14% alch from Orange. The wine had a deep dark purple core fading to ruby rims. On the nose were cherries, vanilla, blackberries, a slight spicy edge balanced with oak, sweet fruit, cinnamon. It also smelt a little stalky. On the palate is a dry, medium to full bodied wine with cherries, spice, leathery tannins. I felt the stalkiness there as well.

The wine went well with the pork, neutralizing the bitterness and saltiness of the pork. I tried some of the leftover Chardonnay with the pork and I can say that oaked Chardonnay and pork are not one of my favourite combinations.

Dessert

Strawberry sorbet and vanilla bean ice-cream:

Simple flavor combination. A delicious pairing. They made their own ice-cream too.

Banana soufflé w chocolate ice cream:

The essence of the banana was in the soufflé. It paired well with the chocolate. The dish was soft, almost fluffy with the egg whites but banana-dominated.

The wine I drank with this was a Campbell's liquid gold tokay, 17% alch from Rutherglen. The colour was brown fading to amber rims with visible legs. Aromas of dried fruit, orange peel, honey, raisins, cold tea, liquorice. On the palate, it was sweet, raisiny, honeyed, caramel, dried fruit, slight toffee flavours and full bodied. The finish was vanilla.

The wine I chose didn't match the dessert as it was too overpowering.

The entire meal added up to A$101. Quite a good price for all the dishes and the wines together.

For anyone who is interested, visit http://www.tonicmillthorpe.com.au/.

Updates #1 and Personal Thoughts

I will be churning out a few articles in a week's time. The articles will be about a short restaurant review, write-up of two wineries, and much more.
I am thinking of doing a series of postings on this website once every 3 weeks like a newsletter format. I will just be flexible about it.

I would also like to say that my interest has always been to promote small wineries, and to write educational stuff about wine for people to read. My aim is to be able to make people more aware about the hard work that others have put in to make what they drink or eat. Aside from this, I also hope that people will come out more knowledgeable about wine. I would like people to get value from the information on this website by being able to identify what they like or don't like so that they would be able to choose and evaluate wines confidently for themselves, instead of relying solely on what the critics say.

I have been asked to write reviews and attach points to the wines I drink. I don't believe in giving marks to a wine before I know the amount of work that has been put into the wine. Neither will I grade a wine unless I have a panel of people with me to counter-check and hold me accountable to what I grade. I don't have any intentions of influencing people's decisions to buy something. They will have decide for themselves what is up to their tastebuds. If a wine is good, the tastebuds won't lie though they may not be able to describe it. Many times, I have read reviews and I usually skip pass the wines with low points to read the descriptions of wines with high points. I don't think it's very fair to the low point winemakers especially when we haven't tasted their wines and are relying on reviewers who have different tastebuds and preferences from us. So no, I won't be grading my wines anytime soon in the near future. I will stick to writing about winemakers and educational stuff for the layman to read.

The Basics of Lees

Lees are one of the many fascinating things about wine that many people do not know the significance about. Sometimes, there are phrases on the label of a bottle that says, "aged on lees" or "stirred on its lees". I thought it would be fun to do some explanation on what this means.

Lees are basically sediments that end up at the bottom of a barrel or stainless steel tanks after fermentation or aging the wine. They are made up of stuff like grape pulp, seeds, dead yeast cells and other particles remaining in the wine after fermentation. What happens during the winemaking process is that the wines are being separated from the lees to avoid yeast autolysis. This separation is usually done by racking the wines into another storage vessel. We will get to what is yeast autolysis later on. However, there are occasions when the winemaker decides to add some complexity and mouthfeel to the wines. That is when they decide to leave the wines on some of the lees and this is called lees contact. The French call it "sur lie". This practice of wine making has been done since the days of the Romans and is usually followed by what is called bâtonnage by the French or lees stirring. This is an additional and optional practice by winemakers. Both practices enhances the mouthfeel of the wine by releasing mannoproteins, which binds with proteins to make the wine less astringent.

Both practices are done mostly on white wines especially for Chardonnay and Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine sur Lie (also known as Melon de Bourgogne), but not so much for red wines unless the winemakers intend to make their reds go through malolactic fermentation or MLF in short. I will get to MLF later on as well. Burgundy and other wine-producing countries are known for using these practices for their Chardonnay. The final product usually results in a creamier Chardonnay with flavours such as cheese, bread, toast, vegemite, custard and custard. Some people would describe the combination of these characters as leesy.

Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine sur Lie is a wine that is most famous in the Loire for being light, fresh, crisp and mostly neutral in flavor. The wine is served cold and goes wonderfully with oysters. The wine is bottled from the tank of cask after being on its lees all winter, developing more body and yeasty character to it. Some of the best Muscadets are bottled directly from the barrels without any racking or filtration, leaving behind some of the lees in the bottle. The lees act as natural antioxidants which give the wine its freshness.

Although sur lie is a method used by winemakers to make their wines more complex, they are not without potential problems. When wines are left on a thick layer of lees at the bottom of the storage vessel for more than a week, the wine starts to develop unpleasant smells caused by sulfide. This happens because the dead yeasts in the lees start to "eat themselves up" and consume oxygen in the process. The same lees that gives Muscadet its freshness by consuming oxygen gives the wine an off-odour as well. That is why some Muscadet smells like rotten eggs or stale. Racking the wine is important to prevent the lees level from becoming too thick.

Bâtonnage is often used when the white wines are to go through fermentation in the barrel. The stirring is done by a stick. The purpose of lees stirring is to prevent the formation of the thick layer of lees at the bottom of the barrel so that sulphur won't develop into hydrogen sulfide from the lack of oxygen. Stirring up the lees also allows the lees to act as a partial barrier between the wine and the wood to prevent the wines from extracting too much tannins from the oak into the wine.

Now we are getting to the part about autolysis. This takes place when the dead yeast cells digest itself by its own enzymes. Autolysis is something which winemakers try to avoid in their wines except for sparkling wines. The dead lees are left in the sparkling wine after its second fermentation in the bottle that produces the CO2 gas that we all love. This aging on lees in the bottle can sometimes go up to five years or maybe more, improving the mouthfeel and imparting flavor characteristics such as flowers, biscuit bread and other complex aromas.

Lees also provides for micro-nutrients to lactic bacteria so that MLF can take place in the wine. MLF is a process in which lactic bacteria converts the sharper malic acid into the soft, rounder lactic acid. The wine becomes less crisp and more creamy. Many Chardonnays go through MLF in the barrel so as to get extra complex flavours such as caramel, butter or butterscotch. Winemakers tend to be careful about excessive MLF as they do not want to produce too much diacetyl, the component which imparts the buttery aromas.

So next time when you come across this terms, at least you can tell your mates about what it means. Hopefully, by knowing a little more each day, you become a smarter drinker and a smarter consumer.