The Wine Depot Toast Club and the New World Hotel, Makati were offering an eight course dinner with matching wines, and the opportunity to meet a plethora of winemakers from Australia and New Zealand, Chile and America, Germany, France and Spain. It was irresistible! With the help of a good friend who has an innate skill for organizing events, we were able to book two full tables, each hosted by a visiting Australian winemaker: Geoff Grosset from Polish Hill in the Clare Valley and Nikki Palun from de Bortoli’s in the Yarra Valley.
After hors d’oeuvres and pre-dinner bubbles, we were escorted to the ballroom for the main event. For some extraordinary reason, a huge screen played old black and white silent movies throughout the evening. I was never able to discern why. A far noisier event next door generously shared their ridiculously loud music with us. Apparently it was impossible to turn it down. Apart from these unnecessary distractions however, we had a full house of wine lovers keen to chat with the winemakers and work through the impressive menu.
Eight courses and fifteen wines probably sounds a little daunting, and you would be right. It was. Each course was accompanied by two wines, and we were soon drowning under a deluge of wine glasses, trying desperately to keep up with our over-enthusiastic wine waiters. A quick word encouraged them to clear some away so we could at least focus on the ones we were supposed to be matching with the plate in front of us. It was a great opportunity to try a wide range of wines, but someone needs to teach those waiter’s to pour ‘tasting glass’ amounts, not ‘entire-goldfish-bowls’ of wine – or at least provide spittoons.
I could work through the menu with you, but quite honestly, I was no more than three courses in before I lost track. Don’t judge! Even if you are only sipping, that was a lot of wine. But it was certainly a feast for the senses. The first course was a colourful platter of dips served with crispy bread: smoked eggplant, lemon and tomato salsa and kasseri, a soft, feta-like Greek cheese. There was a creamy, perfectly grilled scallop and a pork loin with a toffee sauce, reminiscent of America’s infamous bacon with maple syrup – that is even available as an icecream in Manila. The US beef tenderloin served with potato gratin melted in the mouth, but I found myself (12 glasses down) getting quite lippy and loud about the chocolate sauce on the perfectly cooked lamb which I decided, in my disheveled wisdom, was an insult to our national dish. However, the operatic display of chocolate in the foyer was breath-taking and the chocolates tasted sublime.
It was a thoroughly entertaining evening and a great opportunity to hear such an international bunch of winemakers discuss my favourite beverage. I was particularly interested in Grosset’s Polish Hill Riesling and its creator, Jeffrey Grosset. 
So you can imagine my delight when not only was Mr. Grosset’s 2012 Polish Hill Riesling the first wine poured – delighted because I was still lucid enough to appreciate it – but I found myself sitting right next to him! At the risk of sounding like a groupie, it was undoubtedly my favourite white wine that night – and from my favourite Australian wine region. The Clare Valley is about 100 kilometres north of Adelaide, just past the Barossa Valley. Jeffrey Grosset has been making wine there for 32 years. This long established – for Australia – wine region is renowned for its Rieslings, and Grosset’s Winery has turned out many of Australia’s best examples of this dry white. Grosset is an unassuming, quietly spoken gentleman, but with no false modesty. He talked fondly of his wine, quietly proud that it rates up there with Grange Hermitage as one of Australia’s iconic wines.
And the critics agree. Jeffrey Grosset was voted the inaugural Australian Winemaker of the Year by Gourmet Traveller WINE in 1998. He has been designated one of the top ten white wine makers, and one of the industry’s most influential. In fact every critic you read waxes lyrical about this man’s glorious wines. According to Cracka Review, you will find his wines in many of Australia’s finest restaurants. Grosset’s Riesling in particular is renowned for its consistent excellence and its ability to age well. I love Grosset Winery’s own website description and could not begin to write anything so sumptuously loquacious, so here it is verbatim:
The 2012 Grosset Polish Hill Riesling has all the hallmarks of greatness: it’s tightly constrained, uber-concentrated, steely, and zingy. There are lemon blossom and white flower aromatics, vibrant lemon pith and lime zest flavours with shaley minerality, taut and tightly coiled, before a long, ultra-dry finish featuring refreshing natural acidity. It is pristine, seamless, wonderfully detailed, and has great line and length.
Don’t you just love the way wine connoisseurs express themselves so poetically? I wish I had half their skill – and a teaspoon of their flowery vocabulary.
Multi-award winning wine writer Tyson Stelzer gave the 2012 Riesling 98 points and said it had “refined poise” and “devastating purity.” He went into transports of delight at the “flow of fruit precision on the palate [that] is an epiphany, every bit as hauntingly perfumed as the bouquet.” Apparently we should not miss “this crucial chapter in Australian Riesling history.” We didn’t. We even went back for seconds.
Thank you to all the other winemakers for contributing your time and your wine to this mouth-watering event. I know I have selfishly focussed on my favourite, but that’s not to say I didn’t try – and enjoy – the rest. I am sad there wasn’t time to chat with all the winemakers that night, but I left quite satisfied at having had the opportunity to meet Jeff Grosset, and to quote Bridget Jones, “with, let’s face it, a bit of a crush now, actually.”