Food & Drink

Murray and Philip try two whites the first of which is Semillon Sauvignon Blanc. It's a blend of the two varieties Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc and they're two varieties which really do compliment each other beautifully. The wine is made as a very fresh and very flavoursome style, very good with seafood particularly. It's a wine which has not had the influence of any oak maturation. It's just a pure expression of grapes and these two varieties give the impression of almost lemon citrusy characters. They're very fresh, citrus flavours, acid flavours on the palate and goes great with food.

Philip explains that when tasting wine, first of all have a look at the wine in the glass and the wine should look glossy. It should be absolutely bright and have a nice shine to the wine. It shouldn't have any cloudiness or any deposit in there so the wine should look correct. This is classed as the appearance. Then in order to get the best aromas or bouquet, or the smell, give the glass a swirl, throw some wine around the glass to give it more surface area so you then get more of the aromas coming out. Then sniff it! That's when all the senses then create the flavours that are about to come in the tasting of the wine, so again it just takes you through the appearance and the aroma and then the taste. It's really what wine is all about.

Don?t hold round the actual glass itself as then you you tend to warm the wine up, and you get actually a better swirling action when you hold the stem.

The second wine that Philip and Murray try is a blend of Semillon and Chardonnay, so here we're now moving into a different spectrum of wine flavour. We're looking to more the full bodied style because this particular wine, the Chardonnay fraction has spent some time matured in oak, so straight away that changes the flavour spectrum of the wine, the oak enriches the wine and gives it more flavours which you don't normally see, and in this instance, the colour is much more golden, that is the effect from being stored in oak barrels.

If you want to get the best value out of the wine and you're interested in getting all those secondary flavours, then slurp on it, draw air through the wine while it's in your mouth and allow the wine to roll around your palate.

This blend is about 60-70% Semillon. The Chardonnay then just fills out that wine beautifully and it doesn't dominate with oak so you're not getting that, what some people complain about, woody flavour, and a bitter flavour. What Philip tries to do with the McWilliams wine is produce softness in the wine but fruit flavour.