The peoples' democratic blog of Matt Hayward

Been collecting wine for a while? In the market for a wine fridge? Well there’s a few things you should think about first. A friend asked me the other day and I’m by no means an expert, but I thought I’d share my experience with a wider audience .
Firstly wine fridges are cool. They [...]

For a special occaision, I decided to succumb to The Age’s Epicure to guide my gastronomic destiny. Nothing like going blind and putting all your money on black. Frankly it didn’t work out too well. Sotano is at the Hilton, that is the new Hilton, which is in the new part of Melbourne – the [...]

In a recent press Johannesburg press conference, Jeremy Clarkson was asked what he thought about South African wine. His comment, ‘well it’s better than Australian wine’. Given that the poms love to go Aussie bashing, it was to be expected. But it got me thinking, has the average Aussie tried a South African wine? [...]

In my travels in Arequipa Peru, we decided to venture out of tourist town into Normalville. In our travels, we came across a bottle shop, so I took a look.
Wouldn’t you know it, booze is pretty cheap in Peru. A bottle of local rum is about 15 Soles ($5 AUD), Johnny Walker Red 30 Soles [...]

When you think Asian beer garden, you might think outdoor furniture, random chaos, icy cold beer and great hawker food. Hot and stinky, yet the patrons wouldn’t have it any other way. Not so at Cho Gao. Take all the bad things about a swanky, pretentious inner city bar, mixed with all the bad things [...]

This year it was a big call for what to match to the Christmas turkey. There were a few cherryish pinots from the Yarra Valley which i’ve grown fond of, but they’re nowhere near ready yet. There are big cab savs, but you’d need a really old one that had a bit of grace about [...]

Hey Funkstas, more wine news! Over the summer break, the guys from the Eat It crew couldn’t be arsed and gave some other blokes a chance. Their show was called Plonk, and unlike Eat It, they deprecated the restaurants, fine dining and cooking and got to the heart of the matter: good vino!
For better or [...]

After my third bottle of this over a few months, this is a dead set bloody winner. It’s not cheap, it’s not expensive (probably about $28 if you can find it), it’s just really, really, really good. I seldom mention wines on the old blog, but this is now my undivided favourite red.
Wrattonbully is a [...]

Australian Wine Region Maps has been around for about 6 weeks now. About 350 wineries in 40 regions have been marked. Thanks to our mate Darby at Vinodiversity.com and a few wine forums, we’re getting there to our initial target of 500 wineries by March. But we need more help!
So far finding wineries within regions [...]