What's On…
Two events dominate thinking this time of year (a dark and pleasantly wet winter!).
The first is the annual Mudgee Food and Wine Festival at Balmoral – scheduled for Sunday 8th August.
All readers are urged to make it from 10am till 4pm to experience our region's wide range of wines, olive products and (in our case) fig and grape products as well. We are able to sell wine by the bottle at the event, and will deliver without charge any half case or case purchases.
The second event is the annual Mudgee Wine Celebration, which commences on Friday 3rd September and runs through to Sunday 26th.
The Mudgee Grape Growers site www.mudgeewine.com.au has a diary of the 'hot ticket' events during the month. For our part, di Lusso is offering the following events
- Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th September – Winetasting Lunches at the Winery.
- Wednesday 8th to Friday 10th September – Vnoi e Cibo Part 1, where you get to learn about Italian varietal wines, where they grow, what makes them match food so well and receive instruction in preparing and cooking some classic regional dishes.
- Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th September – more Winetasting Lunches, but with live music on Sunday from 12 noon to 3 pm.
- Wednesday 15th to Saturday 18th September – a season of Italian Film, where we match a three course regional menu and the wine to the region of the film.
- Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th September – Vini e Cibo Part 2.
- Saturday 25th September – di Lusso Estate's first ever Vertical Winetasting Dinner, held in the winery. Accompanied by wave after wave of spuntini ('small plates") of Italian antipasti – some well known and some quite rare even in their own regions, we'll indulge ourselves in a feast of talking, tasting and relaxing while we wend our way through eight years of our wines. A great occasion for fans of both food and wine.
- Sunday 26th September – a Winetasting Lunch, accompanied by easy listening live music.
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Vintage is now with us…
…and in between the seasonal tasks of pruning, bottling and general maintenance (and the seasonal pleasure of travelling in Europe!), Luanne and I been busy completing the next phase of our cellar door and hospitality project. This has entailed extending our al fresco section – involving landscaping and building a beautiful and functional event area on Lago di Lusso, building and installing a casual outside kitchen – big enough to house a grill built in the original 18th Century Tuscan style as well as to house intimate cooking classes (accompanied by wine, of course!), and finally equipping the cellar door with a fine new timber entrance.
And last but by no means least! Having admired and envied the astonishing range and quality of Italian and French market produce. One of the great features of travel in those countries - our next project is to build the capacity on the Estate to supply through our restaurant Cucina di Lusso a wide range of ' exotic' seasonal vegetables, herbs and spices. Zucca a Tromba, Cardo Bianco, Ravanello, a whole new world of Cicoria not seen in this country, and so on – ready for spring, with a launch sometime in November.
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And the olives…
We think we’ll harvest about four tons of olives in early May this year – about twice last season’s rather miserable outcome. Not enough, I think, to produce table olives. One day…….! |
And the figs…
Di Lusso Estate figs are also ‘living in interesting times’ with hot and cold spells, wet and dry. But figs are a lot smarter than grapes (and a little smarter than olives) and continue to produce great quality fruit once they receive a couple of days of warmish, dry weather.
We’re busy on a range of fig products – our annual production of vinaigrette has been bottled, and we’re adding more dried and whole-fruit products this year.
Bottom line is, we’re back in the fig business! |
And saffron?
It's a bit of a habit of mine to produce ‘out of the ordinary’ things. My latest fetish is the exotic and highly symbolic saffron. I've planted 2000 corms, which will start producing the crocus (from which are extracted the stigma that are the strands of saffron) in late April.
Given careful propagation, we could be using a little of our own saffron – a popular ingredient in Sicilian regional cooking – infused in butter, mayonnaise or aioli – by mid-winter.
My saffron crop hasn’t shown any signs of life above ground yet. But with all the rain over recent weeks, it’s been almost a full time job keeping the khaki weed and kikuyu grass away. (What am I doing?) |
Upcoming Events
April marks the beginning of the ‘wine touring season’, and we’re celebrating the start of the ‘busy cellar door’ time of the year with our traditional Cinema di Lusso three night season of films.
I enjoy these immensely; given a chance to cook as well as join in with both Mudgee friends and those from further afield.
April 22 (a Thursday) through to Saturday 24 are the dates, and the format is antipasti under the pergola, followed by a main dish from a region that matches the movie, accompanied by di Lusso Estate wine – and we break halfway through the movie for dessert and another glass of wine. All for $45 a person.
As for the movies themselves? Research is ongoing and I’ll have the details by the end of March, details will be posted on the web site. |
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