David, the son of our mutual friend John, from Sydney brought two wonderful bottles of wine over the other day. We had them with a beautiful meal for Saturday lunch. With the spicy clam pasta we enjoyed a bottle of 2006 Sauvignon Blanc from Shaw and Smith from the Adelaide Hills (www.shawandsmith.com), a cool climate region in South Australia where my wife comes from. Grapes where planted there as early as 1839 and today there are about 60 wine labels with over 3,000 ha of vineyards planted. This young Sauvignon Blanc is a wine to my taste: fruity (with passionfruit and guava flavours), grassy-herbaceous, flinty and well rounded with a long finish. The wine is unwooded and James Halliday gave it 94 points. Very enjoyable in a tropical climate such as Jakarta.
McLaren Vale with vineyards, sea view in the distance
The second bottle we drank with the main dish, a vegetable stew, came from Mitolo Wines (www.mitolowines.com.au), a family owned winery situated in the most southern tip of the McLaren Vale region. I will write more about McLaren Vale in one of the next entries, because we visited the region in 2005 and had a wonderful time visiting some of its vineyards. We drank a 2004 Jester Shriaz. The wine had a deep purple colour. The nose showed intense blackberry, plum and chocolate aromas of rich black fruit. The wine has a good structure, is well rounded and has a long finish. Of course it should have been cellared for 4-5 more years but we could not wait. Both wines made our day which we spent sitting on the terrace and discussing the pleasures of life in general and life in Indonesia in particular. Come and visit us one day.
Vineyard view in McLaren Vale
The Man from Mosel River 
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