Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/552044
52 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015 { milestone tasting } SIX SOMMELIERS GATHERED IN THE BRITISH Colonial–style Manhattan Cricket Club, a suitable setting for tasting the heritage and prestige behind Australia's first family of wines. On the heels of his West Coast seminar, Yalumba proprietor Robert Hill- Smith landed in Manhattan for a tasting he described as a tour through history. Hill-Smith gave a brief narrative of Australia's his - toric pre-phylloxera vineyards and the blending tradi- tion, with its nod to Bordeaux. In Australia, however, he noted the local winemakers didn't have the same French varieties—Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot—to round out Cabernet Sauvignon. "That's how that tradition started—many walked away from it, but we as a company hung in with it and liken it now as a Yalumba tradition and part of an Australian tradition," he said. "These are the styles we're starting to put in front of people, and [trying] understand what we've ignored, to our chagrin, over the last few decades." New York City sommeliers and wine buyers got their game on at the members-only Manhattan Cricket Club, where Yalumba wines were in play. Left to right: Natalie Tapken, Mercer Street Hospitality Group; Michaël Engelmann, MS, The Modern; Christy Frank of Frankly Wines; Michael Madrigale, Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud; Michelle Biscieglia, Blue Hill Farm; Pascaline Lepeltier, Rouge Tomate (not pictured). "The Signature": Old and New in New York City by Lana Bortolot / photos by Doug Young Yalumba's Robert Hill-Smith addressed the NYC somms: "This is about tasting in context—it's not a beauty competition," he said. "It's about where we were as a winemaking country—as winemakers and [with] the different conditions winemakers really had to deal with in the '60s versus how they deal with making wine today." PHOTO: JOHN CURLEY