Wine Ambassador Karen McWilliam of McWilliam’s wine offers advice on selecting, buying and drinking wine with confidence…

Wine is one of those subjects that should be straightforward yet isn’t always. Whether it’s a crisp Chardonnay or full-bodied Merlot, we usually just want something right for us that doesn’t cost the earth. Yet from the old world to the new, we’re spoilt for choice and always seem to be faced with a bewildering dictionary of wine related jargon.

Is it really necessary to swirl, sniff, slurp and spit to find out if it is the wine for you? Can you really get a good bottle for under a tenner? Do regions and vintages actually matter? When do you drink certain varieties and what do they go with?

To answer all of these questions and any others you might think of we’ve got Karen McWilliam, Family Ambassador for McWilliam’s Wines joining us in the studio to guide us through the world of wine. The advice Karen will be offering up won’t just serve you well at dinner parties. It will de-mystify the whole wine buying process and give you the opportunity to start buying and drinking wine with confidence – finally!

Karen McWilliam Family Ambassador, McWilliam’s Wines joins us on Thursday 6th March at 3:30pm.

H: Murray Norton, Host
K: Karen McWilliam, McWilliam’s wines

H: Hello and welcome to the Food and Drink show, I’m Murray Norton. Now whether it’s a crisp Chardonnay or a full-bodied Merlot, when it comes to choosing your wine, we usually want something familiar, something that tastes good and doesn’t burn a hole in your wallet when it comes to that. Yet from the old to the new worlds of wines it seems we’re faced with a bewildering dictionary of related jargon. To demystify the confusion and also to answer any questions that you may have, I’m delighted to say we’re joined by Karen McWilliam whose the family ambassador for McWilliam’s wines, Karen thanks for coming along, it’s good to see you

K: Thank you Murray.

H: Whether we’re staying in or whether we’re going out it does seem that there’s a lot of wine snobbery out there, there’s a lot of wines to remember, a lot of grape varieties to remember and so it can be a little bit confusing for people, and I guess it’s quite natural that we stick to what we know, we don’t try something new – that’s pretty normal isn’t it?

K: It is. I mean when you walk into a bottle shop or into the super market, you’re faced with shelves just full of different products, so it is quite confrontational and it’s ok to go with what you know, but we’re hoping that people will start to experiment a little bit more and just through further drinking of wines, that’s how you gain more education in this area

H: Sure. There is this thing about old world, new world – old world I guess is referring to the old world producing countries – France, Spain – Europe basically

K: Yes

H: Italy. And then you’ve got what we call new world wines, Australia, New Zealand, America, South America. Interesting Australia’s been producing wines for centuries

K: Well yes we have, the first vines were planted in the 1820s and my family’s company, we actually started in 1877 so we’re now 6 generations of wine making. 131 years old, I don’t know how you can say that that’s new, and we actually have some of the oldest vines in the world today

H: Yes. Interesting that when half of the vines were wiped out across France, they had to take cuttings from Australia and send them back

K: Send them back, yes

H: So al ot of the old world wines are actually new world old world wines! It gets confusing. The McWilliam’s – it must be great for you being a McWilliam and having McWilliam’s on these labels and knowing that it was – was it your great grandfather?

K: It was actually my great, great, great grandfather

H: Wow that’s going back quite a few years

K: When it started yes he started the family business. So we like to think we know what we’re doing by now!

H: Sure

K: And I think it’s proven by all of our show results. We’re one of the most awarded Australian wine companies today, so I’ve brought in today some of our selection from our range, it’s our McWilliam’s Hanwood estate, and there are 6 varieties within this particular range, and this is a really good range to introduce people into different varieties available from Australia and show what Australians can actually do with table wine

H: It is a very wide variety as well, isn’t it? I mean if you take the tastes – and we’re going to taste some of these in just a few moments – the varieties – extraordinary differences right across here

K: Yes and I mean that’s one of the marvellous things about wine, is every bottle can be different and so it’s a great way of depending on what you feel like, what your emotions are of the day, what you’re eating as well, there’s always going to be a wine out there that will suit your tastes and your mood

H: I’m going to start with something that’s nearest to me, because I was really intrigued by this, and let’s just mention this very, very quickly – we’re not going to taste this one but we’ll have a look at it, this is the Riesling, now what I remember Riesling is a German wine, predominantly as they were, or Yugoslavian I think they used to produce in Yugoslavia as well and Bulgaria, places like that. The Riesling was quite a sweet, white wine, and it was – it was one that was in fashion I guess in the ‘70s and then went out of fashion again. I’m delighted to see it back.

K: Well our particular style of Riesling is – it’s drier, it’s not a big sweet wine that most people associate Riesling with. It’s actually really light and refreshing, it’s quite zesty and there’s some lovely citrus flavours coming through in the particular Riesling there. Wonderful on a summer’s afternoon

H: Right I was going to say when would be the appropriate time for this?

K: Appropriate time – well you could have it before dinner. You could actually have it during your evening meal, probably goes best with a lot of Asian food

H: Yes

K: So those lovely citrus characters that come through like the lemongrass that you’ll have in Thai foods

H: Sure

K: And it actually has a really lovely level of acidity, which basically means it’ll cleanse your palette, so you’re not going to have this heavy build-up of food stuck in your mouth there

H: That’s a lovely looking wine and again it’s great to see it back on the agenda

K: Yes

H: Because it’s been hidden for an awful long time and I’m hoping that people are really going to get back to a wine like that

K: It’s one of my favourite wines, Riesling

H: That’s as good a reason for drinking it as any! Now this is a live show so if you are watching this and you’re thinking there’s a question I’m dying to ask about wine, Karen is here to answer your questions so now is the time. There’s a little box at the bottom there, just type in your question, press the send button and it’s off to us here, it’ll come up on the screen here in front of us. I’ve got questions actually in front of us right now so let’s go to one of those straight away. Get yours in as quickly as possible though. Liz from North London wants to know “I simply love red wine but I’m trying to experiment more. Whenever I’m out with the girls I go for a Pinot Grigio but I don’t find it that easy to drink. What are the other white wine options out there that you could compare up against a Pinot Grigio

K: Pinot Grigio. Definitely a Chardonnay, I know a lot of people instantly say oh no

H: See they went through the whole Chardonnay phase and then that was out of fashion again wasn’t it?

K: Absolutely so we’ve actually developed a new style of Chardonnay which we’re trying to bring back people into the Chardonnay drinking

H: Good

K: It’s called our Crisp Chardonnay, that we have here

H: It’s this one here?

K: That one there. So what’s -

H: It looks much lighter, it looks paler doesn’t it?

K: It is, well it is quite a light and refreshing zesty Chardonnay. It still has some of those similar Chardonnay characteristics but doesn’t touch any oak, and it also is lovely with food as well, so as an alternative to Pinot Grigio I would suggest a crisp Chardonnay

H: Can we try one of those, which one -

K: We can – that is actually the one that is on your right

H: ok, ok. Now when it comes to wine tasting here, I mean we can make all sorts of awful noises and have spit buckets, we’re not going to try any of that today are we?

K: No

H: Just normal drinking

K: No just normal drinking. See it’s got a lovely aroma to it

H: Yes it’s very light

K: There’s some lovely lychee flavours coming through. People shouldn’t actually be turned off by people talking about the characteristics of wine because it is very individualistic, what you taste could be completely different to what I taste

H: Melons, lychees, that sort of soft fruit, soft, mild fruit

K: Absolutely. So shall we have a taste?

H: Yes let’s have a taste of that.

K: So you see that’s lovely and light, very easy to drink

H: That is such a nice wine. That is such a lovely wine. That wine, I’m just going to put that one – that is just such a – I can’t tell you how delicious that wine is, that is one of the most pleasant wines I’ve tasted in a long time

K: It definitely is, it’s this new style, as the name suggests – it’s crisp, it’s zesty, it’s available across the UK in Tesco and it’s quite reasonably priced as well

H: Oh that’s a lovely – that’s summer’s day wine

K: It is

H: That’s got summer’s day written all over it – with or without food.

K: Bottled Australian sunshine. Right there

H: With or without food. You could quite happily have that without food. If you were having that with food, any of the lighter, I’m guessing the salmon dishes, those sorts of things would go well

K: Absolutely. It would also go well with this stir-fried prawn dish in front of us here

H: Yes

K: So and I mean even matches well with the chicken

H: Sure

K: I’d probably suggest the normal Chardonnay

H: Ok I wanted to talk about because this is very contemporary, this one we’ve just tried – the crisp Chardonnay, the new one that you’ve got out, very contemporary, very refreshing – I can see this being an instant winner. However there are those that are traditionalists when you come to Chardonnay

K: Yes

H: And there are varying degrees of oak and non-oaked Chardonnay right across that range, so Chardonnay can really go from what we’ve just had – crisp and very light and zesty – to very buttery and lemony, can’t it?

K: Yes it can. With our McWilliam’s Hanwood Chardonnay we’re actually sitting in the middle of the spectrum there

H: Right, ok

K: It’s slightly oaked but very approachable and very easy to drink. Pairs really well with these chicken dishes, even the salmon as well so

H: So this is the middle one? Now this is somewhere in the middle group of that?

K: Yes

H: We’ve just been discussing the Chardonnay, so this is going to taste different from the previous one?

K: It definitely will. It will smell different as well and it will taste different

H:Yes it does, I mean it’s much more buttery, you can get that straight away

K: So it has some of those distinct Chardonnay characteristics but they’re not over-powering. It’s actually quite a -

H: I’m making all those noises again, I’m loving it. Very balanced. Again with the chicken dish I can see this going very well with this

K: Absolutely now

H:Very well

K: The chicken dish actually has like a slightly creamy sauce on top of it as well, so this is where the lovely buttery textures will come into play from the Chardonnay

H: And there’s obviously still a need to produce both sides of this Chardonnay spectrum because people have different tastes

K: Absolutely yes I mean this is as I said earlier the marvellous thing about wines, there’s something for everybody and for everyone’s moods so -

H: Yes. But again we were talking about fashions earlier on, Michelle’s got a question here “is it true Chardonnay grapes are used in Champagne? Does that make Chardonnay the best white wine out there?”

K: It is true that Chardonnay grapes are used in Champagne, there are also two other varieties that are normally used in the making of Champagne, so people may not realise but there’s Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier and basically Chardonnay will tend to be the dominant characteristic in the champagnes, but it depends on the wine maker and the region

H: Sure and the whole blend of it

K: Yes

H: They tend- there is the blend of the 3 though, or the two of the three of them

K: Yes. When I say Pinot Noir people might think but they’re not red? What actually happens is they’ll crush the grapes and they will remove the skin straight away so that – because the colour of red wine is actually derived from the skins

H: Yes, big news for people there, when you crush a red grape, white wine comes out of it!

K: Yes I know

H: Shock, horror yes! So we’re going to move to the red wines in just a second but those two Chardonnays are both absolutely fantastic. Now, earlier on you were telling – we’ve got some more questions coming through

K: Ok

H: But before that you were telling everyone about your great, great

K: Great

H: Grandfather who set up the McWilliam’s wines all those years ago 1877

K: Yes

H: And it would be worth us having a look back and just reliving some of that and having a look at some of the areas which his home for you

K: Absolutely

H: Yes. Let’s take the story

Video footage

“For over 120 years since my great grandfather, Samuel McWilliam planted his first vines in 1877, successive generations of the McWilliam’s family have been making fine wines bearing the McWilliam’s name. The traditions of quality and bottle ageing still endure at McWilliam’s while at the same time younger, contemporary wine styles have taken McWilliam’s to the forefront of current wine trends. Along with the traditional wine growing areas in the Riveina, Hanwood and the Hunter Valley, Mount Pleasant, new cool climate vineyards have come into the McWilliam’s repertoire from Coonawarra brands the Yarra valley, the Lydall vineyards and the Hilltops Region, Barwang. Wines are also crafted from grapes grown in other premium wine-growing regions within Australia, creating the McWilliam’s regional collection”

H: Ooh, you catch me sipping again! Fascinating to find out all of that and to see such a great sense of history from what – as we said before – was a new world wine. I’m still drinking the crisp Chardonnay, which is almost not a Chardonnay

K: No exactly

H: So different it’s almost not

K: Yes it’s amazing when you don’t tell someone what the wine is and they’re so surprised when they’re told it’s a Chardonnay

H: They’d be hard pushed to identify this

K: Yes it’s a lovely aromatic style, it’s very similar it a Sauvignon Blanc actually if people want an idea on what it tastes like

H:Yes it’s almost Sauvignon Blanc but it’s not got that bit that makes you go a little bit funny – Sauvignon Blanc’s a bit sharp

K: Yes that’s right

H: That’s a great wine. We wanted to move to the red wines, you’ve got a whole selection here, we’re going to try one of them here. Now red wines and Australia – they’ve have a terrific good run, I mean Shiraz when we think about that and the syrah grape as we would know it in Europe

K: Yes

H: But the Shiraz grape, the same grape basically

K: Yes

H: It just goes by different names. But I always felt that Australian wines have always been very, very clever in that they’ve taken the embarrassment factor out of asking for wines because they’re always easy to say, the labels always look pretty straightforward and the whole complicatedness of being able to pronounce something in a foreign language doesn’t happen, so it’s good for the English isn’t it?

K: Absolutely. With the range that we have here today we actually have tried to simplify it for the consumer even more with het packaging

H: Yes

K: So you will actually notice on the Merlot and the Shiraz the colours of the label are quite similar with the flavours and the characteristics that you’ll get coming out in those particular wines

H: Ok that’s smart

K: So it’s a way that consumer can recognise that if I’m going to be drinking the Shiraz, what am I expecting and it’ll be some of these red fruit characters such as raspberries, plums coming through in there

H: Hence the reason you’ve got a sort of raspberry, plum flavoured -

K: Exactly

H: Label

K: Yes and similarly

H: Doesn’t smell like it but it looks like it

K: Similarly with the Merlot with the blue, people tend to associate blueberry characteristics with it as well so it makes it a lot easier to choose on the shelves when you know what you’re expecting from that particular style of wine

H: That’s just a clever way of doing it. TC Whitman has got a question in here, from Woodbridge, wants to know “I’m always amazed that New World wines are so cheap” – good point – “I find Shiraz too powerful for my palette and I’m not a massive fan of white wines”, so if the Shiraz is a little bit too powerful, what would you suggest?

K: I’d definitely suggest the Merlot, it’s a little bit softer

H: Yes

K: The grape itself is actually softer as well so the Shiraz probably – the characteristics that coming through is a bit too powerful might be the spicy peppery characteristics

H: Yes

K: Not everybody is a fan of that and I completely understand as well. The Merlot tends to be a lot softer, a lot smoother and a bit more fruitier I suppose, rather than spicy

H: If you’d got the Merlot or the Shiraz would they go with the same foods or would you be able to differentiate and say well Shiraz with one style and Merlot with another?

K: I would probably always take a Shiraz to a barbecue

H: Yes

K: Grilled meat goes wonderfully with the pepperiness of the Shiraz

H: Yes

K: With the Merlot perhaps some of the slower cooked meat dishes, casseroles, also some of the like say the Indian meat curry

H: Yes yes

K: They’d be perfect with that

H: Yes ok so there’s a good differential – thank you very much indeed for your questions incidentally. We’ve got a red wine here which we haven’t tried yet, which one have we got to try?

K: This is the Cabernet that we’re actually trying here. The reason why we’re going to be trying this is because we have with us a steak today, and perfect, perfect mix – Cabernet and a steak together, you can have it pan fried, also with sauces, some people like mushroom sauce or a pepper sauce

H: This is a marriage made in heaven isn’t it really?

K: It is so let’s have a try. So there’s some lovely sort of blackcurrant, blackberry flavours coming through

H: Yes you could actually get a glass almost of blackcurrant juice and you can get that right across the top can’t you?

K: Yes

H: Oh that’s a lovely, rich wine

K: Yes so it’s not too over-bearing though, not too powerful

H: You could actually drink this on its own, as away from – and a lot of red wines you can’t say that about

K: No you can’t so the style of the entire range here today is so that you can drink it on its own or it’s perfect with food as well

H: Sure

K: It’s just to make it quite approachable for anybody to try whether they just feel like a drink after work or they actually want to sit down with their family dinner and enjoy a nice glass of red

H: That’s -

K: An Australian red at that!

H: That’s an extremely good glass of McWilliam’s Cabernet Sauvignon. Again that’s –I’ve noticed the labels on them but the other thing I’ve noticed is all of these here have got screw tops on. Now at one time people would have been horrified at screw tops, but now they’re an industry standard and people should not associate screw top with a lesser value of wine

K: Absolutely

H: Actually it’s a lot better for the wine isn’t it?

K: It definitely is and our preference is for the screw cap to maintain the high quality of the wine, of the product that’s actually within the bottle

H: What’s the reason for that, is that to do with the cork sometimes not being completely airtight?

K: Exactly I mean cork is a natural product; it’s going to breathe, so it does have a tendency to let in a lot more oxygen. With these screw caps it actually makes it a lot easier for storing your wine as well because you can have it standing up

H: Yes of course because you have to have wines lying down in order to -

K: Yes so that you’ve got the cork up against the wine to keep it sealed tight

H: Keep it airtight yes. This is a great way of being able to do that and not having to have everything in rows so you can’t see them

K: Yes

H: And there’s no harm in having wine standing up is there?

K: Not at all, no

H: Question here from I think it’s Jemima, yes it’s Jemima who wants to know about a robust red – “I like a robust red which has a berry palette” – I think we’ve already mentioned some of these. What would you recommend from the selection here?”

K: The Cabernet, I would definitely go for the Cabernet. Probably in ascending order of boldness for our particular range you’d start with the Merlot as your softer red, move on to your Shiraz, medium bodied but it does have those peppery characteristics to it, that some people may not like, so if you really want your big, bold berry red I’d go here for the Cabernet, definitely

H: That’s the one. In terms of experimenting with wines, we said right at the beginning it’s something we don’t actually do as much as we probably should, now we’re lucky here today and I’m very, very lucky here today because not only have I got an expert telling me what I can pick out in wine, but I’ve also got wines here when I can compare one against another

K: Yes

H: We don’t tend to do that at home do we, we drink a bottle of wine and then we may not open another bottle of wine until the next night or the weekend or whatever, and so we’ve forgotten what the first one tasted like by the time we get to the second one. We need to experiment more

K: We do but actually one thing that I recommend to my friends, if they actually really like a wine, just note it down, just jot down a few points about it

H: See that was the sort of thing that wine people used to do years ago

K: But now I think it’s totally acceptable and it’s a good way to remind yourself as well what you actually preferred and as we were talking about earlier, you walk into a bottle shop and there’s thousands of products on the shelf

H: Yes

K: This is an easy way of remembering you’ve actually jotted it down somewhere and

H: Yes keep a little wine diary

K: Absolutely or alternatively just try a few different sorts of wines and

H: Try the different ones you’ve got. You mentioned that most of these are available in Tescos which is among many of the other places that are down there, what I do like about the crisp wines here is they’re – this wine is so light and so crisp I thought it was about 8% but it’s 13%, that’s a good value wine

K: It is yes so

H: Sorry I keep going back to that one, it is my favourite by a long way

K: Well it is in the lighter style and it’s also, it is slightly lower in alcohol than what most people are used to, so that you don’t have to worry about perhaps doing too much damage to yourself so -

H: Yes I mean I suspect with everybody we all encourage sensible drinking anyway

K: Absolutely yes

H: There is a website where people can get more information on all this, and this is mcwilliams.co.uk

K: That’s correct

H: Which is as simple as any, so log on to mcwilliams.co.uk find out more about the wine there, go and experiment and do enjoy some more of this. Karen thank you very much indeed for coming in

K: My pleasure

H: It’s been great to see you. I’m going to chink glasses

K: Cheers

H: Because I think we should, it’s been great to meet you thank you very much

K: Thank you Murray

H: And thank you to everyone else who’s joined us as well, cheers to you and please join us again next time

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