BOTTLE STOP
I’m beginning to eat a lot like it’s Christmas.
The first fruit-mince pie of the season passed my lips this week. Along with stollen, gingerbread Santas, Christmas cake and pudding, these indulgences cry out for proper drinking partnerships.
It’s a time for old faithfuls; the muscats and topaques of Rutherglen, the old tawnies of Seppeltsfield. To sink soporifically into the couch with a little sweet treat in your hand and what might seem a surprising, but delightfully pertinent, Cascade stout with its faintly bitter coffee-dark chocolate spectrum of flavours.
There’s nothing more Australian than a glass of sparkling shiraz – that strange, dark, mid-sweet purple fizz no one else in the world makes or even understands.
Or you may find yourself needing something a little more persuasive. A neat drop of Lark single malt perhaps, or a Hellyers Road Single Malt (Pinot Finish) for its spicier notes. Or slower still, a glorious Angove brandy. The St Agnes 15-Year-Old XO Brandy ($111) is exceptional, first for its good bottle looks, and after for its fine, aged characters – candied citrus, dried apricot, spiced orange marmalade and that distinctive note of spirit-soaked oak.
If your wallet allows, try the St Agnes XO Imperial 20-Year-Old Brandy at $200, and the ultimate St Agnes XO Grand Reserve 40-Year-Old at $750, each with more intense and aged senses, from cacao to dark-toasted nuts and macerated fruitcake fruits. It makes sense: that’s what you might nibble on while sipping.
Another way to go is the fabulous Morris Old Premium Rare Liqueur Rutherglen Topaque ($70/500ml), one of the finest of the oldest Rutherglen fortifieds, and trophy winner at this year’s Royal Melbourne Wine Awards for best fortified wine.
There’s something incredibly special about its old-world aged characters that come from the flavour and texture intensification imposed during 20 years’ average barrel maturation.
It has dark coffee and chicory essence colours with telltale aged material edges that swirl in the glass. And do swirl, as you’ll sense then its imminent viscous richness. That coffee and aniseed follows, too, like old Egyptian cough syrup ingrained with dark spices, reminiscent of old leather-bound volumes in oak bookcases: smooth, grandfatherly, yet sprung with a light and bright lift of refreshed acidity. It’s a stunner worth a hundred slices of Christmas cake for the end of each December day.