The Weekly Review

Humility and knowledge are the keys to being a successful sommelier, according to one of the best.

You might not know it now, but there’s a loyal legion out there unfailingly extolling the virtues of the sorts of wines hitherto forgotten by mainstream drinkers, but that are slowly making a public comeback. Yep, fortified wines.

Cast your mind back to the joys of cracking the cardboard on a cask of wine in your early undergraduate days. For a long time that was my impression of the Riverina wine region.

It’s one of the classic images of winemaking – a picture of someone standing waist-deep in a vat of fermenting grapes stomping in the middle of juice bubbling away – but have you ever wondered why they do it?

With their cute half-bottles and bright golden colour, there’s something about dessert wines that makes them easy to scoff at. Over the years I’ve found that people quickly change their tune to the polar opposite as soon as they taste them.