The Best From Down Under:
An Australian Wine and Food Adventure
Continuing a much-loved tradition of regional wine dinners

Saturday, March 18, 2006 -- 5:30 to 9:00 p.m.
St. Demetrios Cultural Center, 2100 Boyer Ave. East, Seattle

Wine and Dine, The Aussie Way
By Helmut Stieglitz
Our upcoming Spring Event featuring Australian wines promises to be truly exciting. Your Society has pulled out all the plugs (or should we say, corks?) to ensure an evening to be remembered.

Australia’s wine production has come a long way. Today there are close to 1,700 wineries competing with each other. The result: the wines are getting better and more sophisticated all the time and are scoring high points in world competitions. The wines offered for the evening of March 18 have been hand picked to complement some fantastic culinary fare.

Once our fabulous menu was chosen, we had the enviable job of selecting wines to pair with each course. We chose the Brokenwood Cricket Pitch White from South Australia, made from a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, to start the evening off. With elegant aromas of fruit, it is a crisp, medium-bodied dry wine. Then we picked the RockBare Chardonnay, a medium- to full-bodied wine with a fruit style, to pair with the appetizers and salad. It's also from the south, and scored 91 points in the Wine Advocate.

Since diners have a choice of three entrées, we selected two different reds to accompany the main course. The Nepenthe Charleston Pinot Noir, which hails from the Adelaide Hills and is regarded by many as one of the finest Australian Pinots, is soft, round, medium-bodied and charming. For a dense, dark and equally delicious alternative we also offer Australia's signature grape, the 2-up Shiraz (yes, that's the name: 2 up) crafted with grapes from highly prized local vineyards.

Finally, to accompany our heavenly dessert, diners will chose one of two dessert wines - a Campbells Muscat with its sweet, caramelized, raisiny character and notes of plum, or the Tokay, with a full-bodied sweetness that is beautifully balanced by acidity.

Every table of eight will receive a bottle of each of the dinner wines to share as they enjoy each course. In the center of the room we will be pouring the additional 20 wines, available to sample with scrip. All attendees receive three scrip and more can be purchased for a dollar each. Mix and match - discover your own favorite pairings!

Some of the wines you will be tasting are rather hard to find as they are only offered to a handful of specialty wine shops in western Washington. And remember, you can buy these wines that night at very competitive prices. But only if you attend our Best From Down Under event. Make your reservations today!

A Taste of History — The Foods and Wines of Australia
By Sandy Schumacher
When James Busby left Bordeaux and emigrated to Australia, he created the foundation of that country’s wine industry. Mr. Busby ran the Agricultural School which specialized in viticulture, and he personally transported the first cask produced to England in 1830. It was deemed “very promising.” He then went to France and Spain, returning to Australia with more than 500 vine cuttings, and started them in Sydney’s Botanic Garden, Victoria and South Australia. Although the first vines arrived in 1788 in the west, it was Mr. Busby’s cuttings that produced some of the country’s earliest and best known wines.

The gold rush of the 1850s provided an increased population, with additional personal resources. At this time large vineyards were developed in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Some of the world’s oldest vines are now in Australia, as they escaped the phylloxera epidemic that destroyed many of Europe’s ancient vines in the 1800s.

Until the 1980s, much of the wine produced in Australia was for the domestic market. But as the wines improved, the industry began to expand. An early export success was Chardonnay, quickly joined by the richly-flavored Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Today the whole world recognizes Australian Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling and Muscat, all produced from Mr. Busby’s cuttings. The history of the Australian wine industry leads us right to our Spring Event scheduled for March 18.

We will be pouring a wonderful selection of wines to sample throughout the evening. Dinner will be prepared by Teresa Carew of On Safari Foods, caterer for our South African event last spring. She won rave reviews at that program and her Australian menu promises to delight your palates again. Attendees will enjoy three generous appetizers, salad, and a choice of herb-crusted lamb, marinated game hen or vegetarian roulade. This will be followed by cheese with fig preserve and Pavlova, a lighter-than-air meringue dessert from a recipe created by Herbert Sachse in 1935 in Perth, to celebrate the visit of the great Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova.

We invite you to come and celebrate the fine foods and world-class wines of Australia.