Seeing as it’s the season of good tidings and joy, I thought I’d give Full Pour the gift of more modern software and, if you can see this post, it means I’ve been successful in my efforts. Hopefully, migrating the site to WordPress will mean easier commenting, a more readable format and generally more awesomeness.

As ever, the site remains more about words than “look,” though I hope over the coming weeks and months it will gradually evolve in structure and appearance. In particular, I’m working my way through older posts to ensure correct formatting. Stay tuned for further tweaks.

A very happy new year to you all!

Dear readers,

We’ve just migrated Full Pour to a new hosting account, which should increase the site’s performance and general awesomeness. Nothing should have changed otherwise, but if you do notice strange behaviour, please drop me a line!

I’m struggling with a cold at the moment, so tasting hasn’t been on the agenda. Hope to be back into it soon, though.

Love,Julian.

I (Julian) am currently in the enormous Goulburn Valley region — Dookie to be exact — kicking off what I hope will be an interesting part-time course of study (wine-related, of course). Forgive me if posts are few and far between these couple of weeks. On the plus side, some interesting wines are being tasted, including a most unexpected Semillon, made from fruit grown at the Dookie campus vineyard, twenty three years old and still singing.

A rich egg yolk yellow in the glass…

The other day, the Courier Mail newspaper’s lovely food writer, Natascha Mirosch, asked Jeremy Pringle (of Wine Will Eat Itself) and I if we might provide a list of ten wines under $20 we thought to be suitable for consumption on Christmas day. As a normal, well-balanced person, I imagine Natascha was expecting a straightforward list plus, perhaps, a concise introduction.
Ah, but neither life, nor wine, is that simple. In response, we produced a dialogue fit to try anyone’s patience. To my great delight, Natascha has most generously published our missive in its entirety on her blog.
Jingle bells, jingle bells…

Look, I know you’re not really supposed to age Zinfandel, but I have a slight problem: Ridge keeps sending it, I keep not getting around to it, and years later I find myself opening a bottle that’s two or three years past its release date. Is that so wrong? Me, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to wait so long, at least not with this particular wine.The nose smells simple to me: warm, jammy red fruits and not much else save for a very faint dill pickle note. Spice? Yeah, that too, but one of the lighter ones; bay leaf and allspice. In the mouth, it seems unexceptional: a little bit warm, slightly sweet in the alcoholic sense, with a straightforward finish of warm mulberry jam.Thankfully, however, I set the glass down, walked away, and came back to it an hour later – and that has made all the difference. With some time, the smells have coalesced into a very warm, Christmas pudding with overtones of hazelnut and allspice. Although the mid-palate is still frankly odd, with a spritziness that might be due to some VA here, it’s fairly good wine, certainly characterful, with a slow finish of warm red spicy fruit and surprising acidity. On the whole, this is far from my favorite Ridge wine, though, and I’m disappointed; I’ve had this one before, only younger, and was more impressed to then.Note to self: In the future, drink up, don’t hold.Ridge
Price: $28
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

A very worthwhile cause (and some incredible prizes). Buy your tickets now.