Geelong - The Wandering Palate

Paradise IV is a small, five acre vineyard planted to Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon (with small plantings of other varieties) established by Graham and Ruth Bonney in 1988. It sits on a northeast facing slope, sheltered from the hotter extremes of the Moorabool valley, at Bates ford, just a few kilometres west of Geelong. The soils are decomposed granite over limestone and deep clay. Read More >

Profiled Wineries | Related to: Australia, Geelong, Paradise IV |

This is a new label created by David Fesq of the well-known Sydney wine family, and the wines are made at Lethbridge Estate in the Geelong region from locally grown grapes. Read More >

Buying Wine | Related to: Australia, Between Five Bells, Geelong |

From a lost play by Eubulos, (c.405 BC - c.335 BC)
‘For sensible men I prepare only three kraters (large vase used to mix wine): one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home.

The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.’

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new.”

As uttered by the vitriolic restaurant critic Anton Ego, in the film “Ratatouille”, after his epiphany.