About this site
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I love wine. More precisely, I love tasting wine. No, that was not a mistake. I do honestly prefer tasting over drinking. That is not a lie and my nose isn't getting longer. This website is maintained by the namesake as a means of sharing my personal tasting notes and opinions of Australian wines, with some French and Germans blended in. I am based in Melbourne, Australia which does limit my international tasting experiences due to the relatively high alcohol taxes impacting on the general affordability of imported wines. I travel regularly to the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Mornington Peninsula to taste through the barrels about 6 months after harvest, while regular tastings conducted at various wine stores around Melbourne afford me the opportunity to expand my horizons. My interest in wine is not limited to the final drop and extends to regional microclimates, soil composition of the vineyards, water treatment and approaches to ferments, barrel treatment and maturation time. I constantly draw parallels between viticulture and oenology with my day job which delves into gene-environment interactions of the human brain. As distinct as my work may seem from the indulgence of drinking fine wine, both are remarkably similar. I find it amazing how cuttings and clones of different vines (notable ones being pinot noir and shiraz) from single regions in France have since sunk their roots across the globe, into American and Australian soil, and yet despite common geographical and evolutionary origins yield amazingly different wines embodying the characteristics of locality and climate of the vineyard. That in my mind, is a perfect analogy of gene-environment interactions which was the backbone of my PhD. Well, that's my well-thought out scientific sounding excuse for verticals and horizontals! I'm never one to turn down a good offer for a drink or a bite, so feel free to pester me with hand-typed (mouth, foot whatever) and original spam. |
This is my site where I show off that I do in the scant abundance of spare time that I have back in my apartment. The views expressed on this page are exclusively my own, unless otherwise stated. An offence caused is regretted, and will be retracted if, after discussion, is deemed reasonable. If you want to pass any snide comments or insults, bring it on!