Woongooroo Estate is a family owned boutique vineyard and wine operation. The property has been in the family for around 30 years.
Woongooroo Estate lies within the picturesque and prosperous region of Kilcoy – situated in the Somerset Region. The vineyard is situated at the base of Mount Archer. The rich volcanic soil provides the perfect setting for the production of quality wine grapes.
Woongooroo Estate is bordered by the perennial flowing Neurum Creek from which vines are selectively drip irrigated to ensure maximum benefit to the developing complexities within the grape and resultant wine. The 16.4 hectare (40 acre) property is approximately one hour’s drive from Brisbane and 45 minutes from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
As well as the established 5000 vine vineyard, a small olive grove has also been established with equal numbers of Manzanillo and Frantoio (Paragon) varieties. Grape plantings began in 1997 and nine vintages up to and including 2008.
The wines created from these vintages offer a fresh and exciting award-winning taste within the burgeoning Queensland wine industry. To date the Estate has been awarded and recognised with one Gold Trophy, 6 Silver Medals and 23 Bronze Medals/Awards.
Wine descriptions
Somerset Red 2005
This semi sweet has been created from the smoothness and soft tannins of the Merlot grape. This semi sweet Merlot is full of sweet cherries, on the nose and palate. It is the perfect accompaniment to the Queensland lifestyle – a classy veranda/barbecue wine, one that’s equally at home with pizza/pasta. Sweet yet a faint hint of spice. A sweeter style of Merlot.
Somerset White 2007
This semi sweet wine has been crafted from Semillon grapes. Serve chilled on any occasion either with food or stand alone. Absolutely superb with soft cheeses, curries and Asian cuisine, especially Thai. Starts sweet with a wonderfully refreshing lemon/limey citrus finish. A sweeter style of Semillon.
Somerset Deja Blue 2005
A blue wine? Yes a blue wine! This sweet Chardonnay is tinted blue to provide a touch of tropical Queensland to its refreshing taste. In Queensland we have blue skies, blue water and now a refreshing blue wine. Enjoy this wine with a cheese/tropical fruit and nut platter. Serve icy cold.
Try “Blue Max” – take a long glass of crushed ice and add equal parts of Deja Blue and lemonade. Perfect for that hot Queensland day, by the pool or wherever you are having fun – very refreshing!
Doyles Shiraz Vintage 2005
This port has been boosted with the addition of brandy spirit making it a little drier. It is smooth and silky on the palate with flavour that is full and soft, with no lingering sweetness.
Cabernet Sauvignon/Franc Bin 19 2007
This blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc provides a perfect partnership of taste and finesse. The ageing in French Oak has imparted a rounded softness with a generous berry nose. The wine is most generous and intriguing on the palate and will continue to develop enhanced characteristics should it be cellared.
Oaklea Verdelho 2007
This wine has sensational fruit, crispness and great length on the palate. The varietal characteristics make this award winning wine a perfect accompaniment to lighter cuisine. Exhibiting passionfruit and a myriad of tropical fruit aromas and flavours, with a most satisfying acid zing on the palate. As with all great Verdelhos, this wine is very chillable and sippable.
Archer Dew – White Port 2008
This white port has been made from Semillon grapes grown at our Estate. You will enjoy its warm semi sweet unique honeyish flavour.
Personalised labelling
Corporate Wine
We can arrange for your company/organisation to have your own label on any of the
Woongooroo Estate bottles of wine. (With Compliments, Christmas Wishes, etc). These are an ideal gift for clients and/or staff as thank you gifts, Christmas wishes, etc... Alternatively, a personalised bottle of wine would be an excellent gift from a real estate agent to congratulate the vendors and/or purchasers of new homes. Talk to us about a label design and your company’s requirements.
If you are having a special function/event, then a commemorative Port may be just the perfect memento of the occasion. Please ring or
email for a quotation as the cost is very affordable.
Personalised Wine
We can also produce personalised wine labels for couples getting married, birthday, parties, anniversaries, sporting groups, social clubs etc – the list is endless. If you have the occasion , then we can arrange to produce your own individual labelled commemorative wine.
Contact us with your details and we will give an obligation free quotation.
Wine tasting
Tasting wine is entirely different to drinking/quaffing wine. Both drinking and tasting wine should be fun and uncomplicated. When you taste wine, you must slow down and pay attention. This is the main difference between “analytical’ tasting and ‘hedonistic’ tasting or quaffing. You must take your time to enjoy and analyse the wine using the below four steps:
1. Look at the wine
2. Nose the wine
3. Taste the wine
4. Collate your impressions of the wine
Once you have ‘tasted’, the next time you drink that wine, it should be more pleasurable and rewarding. You can quaff with the knowledge that you ‘know’ and ‘understand’ what you are drinking.
You may wine taste alone or with a friend to share the experience. Be in the mood for winetasting, for it should be a most enjoyable learning experience indeed – whether you like the wine or not.
Mood, location, noise, company, state of mental and physical health all can affect your ability to taste wines eg tasting wines in a crowded, busy and noisy railway station would be an entirely different experience to tasting wine in the comfort and privacy of your own home.
Your tasting glass should be absolutely clean with the opening narrower than the maximum circumference of the glass, so as to concentrate aromas which enable you to ‘taste’ the wine more easily and effectively. Consider purchasing a proper tasting glass.
Look at the wine
- Hold the wine up, preferably with a white background e.g. a serviette/A4 paper etc. Look for clarity and colour. Is the wine clear or cloudy? Are there any ‘chunks’ or particles floating in it? Does the wine look clean? Does it look inviting? You are looking for a clear and crisp looking wine. These days, it is hard to find colour/clarity faults with most wines.
- With white wine, generally speaking, a darker colour can indicate an older wine. White wines may go from pale straw, to straw, deep straw, pale gold, gold etc. A brownish edge at the meniscus could indicate some oxidization.
- Young reds look vibrantly violet/red, whereas older reds are usually of a darker brick or duller red hue.
Nose the wine
Wine is composed of many different compounds, so the ‘nose’ or smell of the wine is usually quite complex and may invoke many smells that remind you of several things at the same time. (Our nose can detect over 10,000 different smells and can detect a concentration of any one smell as low as one part in 10,000).
- Swirl the wine around in your glass to aerate it. This releases the wine’s volatile compounds/aromas etc. Notice how the wine ‘clings’ to the side of the glass. This ‘clinginess’ is known as the wine’s legs. Should you initially not be confident of swirling, place the base of the glass on a flat surface and swirl this way.
- Put your nose into the glass and take a good .... long ... sniff. Do this perhaps only twice. Your nose may be your strongest sense, but it tires quickly. As we age, our sense of smell declines less rapidly than our sense of taste. Smell is our most important sense when winetasting.
- What good things do you smell about the wine? Is there a smell that does not appeal to you? What is it? What do the various smells remind you of? This is a most important step. The wine should smell fresh and clean, not musty and stale.
- Initially think of one smell (descriptor) that the wine reminds you of. Is it fruit? What sort? Is it flowers or berries? Remember these smells for when you next nose this wine or varieties like it. These ‘smell sensations’ may vary from person to person, yet some wines are universally unmistakable eg the intense passionfruit and tropical fruit aromas contained within Verdelho. It is generally agreed that aroma is the smell of the grape variety in the wine, whereas bouquet is the overall smell for all that has happened to the wine during its creation eg type of oak used, etc.
- The nose is part of your palate, so once you have nosed a wine, then you taste. Your palate (mouth) should confirm what your nose has told you. (Remember, when you have a cold, you cannot taste properly. This is not because the cold has overtly affected you tastebuds, but rather that your retronasal passages have been affected by the cold. As these are used in conjunction with your tastebuds when you utilize your sense of taste, having a cold lessons your ability to taste.
Taste the wine
- Take a sip of the wine and move it around to all parts of your mouth and tongue. Roll it thoroughly around. Draw in air through pursed lips to once again aerate the wine to release the volatile compounds. Noise is okay! Only sip a small amount of wine in this step. Keep moving around the mouth.
- How does the wine feel in your mouth? Is it thin or watery? Does it have a bit of thickness, body or weight? This is the mouthfeel of the wine. How does it taste? Can you taste fruit,etc? Can you taste alcohol? What else?
- Swallow/spit the wine once it has been through this third stage (between 8 and 15 seconds as a guide).
- Continue to experience the wine after swallowing/spitting to gauge its finish or lingering qualities – long or short finish? Savour the finish! Move your tongue around your mouth. Smack your lips together.
- Do the above Step 3 two or three times to get to ‘know’ the wine.
Collate your impressions
Now you must evaluate the wine. You will soon learn to do this while you are progressing through the previous three steps. You may omit the first step of looking at the wine unless you wish to reconfirm some aspect of its colour or clarity.
- In your assessment of the wine, think of all you have experienced through the different steps in context with the following four aspects – F.A.A.S.
- Fruit – Could you taste any fruit in the wine? This is desirable. What was it? Remember wine does not smell like the grapes it is made from (Muscat wines aside).
- Alcohol – Could you taste the alcohol, or was it well integrated and balanced with the fruit?
- Acid – Did the wine taste crisp, perhaps zingy or prickly in the case of some dry white wines, or was it flat and unexciting in your mouth? In the case of a red wine, could you feel any tannins coating your cheeks and tongue etc? (Tannins are derived from the skins and seeds of the red grapes during initial fermentation. Drink a cup of strong black tea and you’ll also experience tannins).
- Sweetness – How sweet was the wine - or was it dry? (opposite of sweet in wine lingo). We don’t usually use bitter or sour when describing sweetness/ non-sweetness of wine. Wines are usually classified as dry, medium dry, semi sweet and sweet.
Some points to ponder while drinking wine
1. Wine tasting is more exacting when the wine is relatively warm. Consider the following:
- Put an apple in the fridge and one on the fridge. Come back in an hour. The apple that refreshes the most is the cold apple, but the one which has the most taste/flavour is the one that was sitting on the fridge.
- Once we put cold wine into our mouth, our mouth automatically warms up the wine and this enables the release and greater intensity and propensity of flavours.
- When you are putting your nightly ’Chardonnay’ in the fridge for dinner, uncork/unscrew and wine taste a small amount of the warm wine and remember. Once you have your chilled wine with dinner, compare the two tastes. The differences can be quite amazing.
2. Buy six bottles or so of your favourite tipple and drink no other wine but these wines with food, without food etc, but pay attention to the wine at all times. When the bottles of wine are finished, purchase a bottle of the same variety of wine but from a different maker and taste. Your palate will haven ‘gotten used to’ the first wine and you will be surprised at the differences you will discover – a great way to educate your palate.
3. Buy three bottles of your favourite wine – same variety, say ’Chardonnay’, but three different brands. Invite a few friends over to wine taste, not quaff (well initially anyway!). Your palate will not become as overburdened or confused as if you were tasting several varieties of whites and reds. This comparison when tasting one variety of grapes/wine can be most beneficial to your armoury of wine tasting skills – lots of fun too!
4. Tasting wine after food should be a much more pleasurable experience if you ‘know’ the wine. Be aware of both the wine and food to gauge if they compliment each other. There are no real hard and fast rules – if it works for you, great! Keep experimenting and the ‘greatness’ will get better and better.
