Below are my notes on the second batch of wines that I have been lucky enough to taste so far in March 2016.

From this batch my favourites are the:

• 1991 Lindermans Limestone Ridge Shiraz Cabernet
• 2007 Grosset Gaia Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Franc Merlot
• 2007 Penfolds Bin A Chardonnay

The Wine:

Oz’s Wine Reviews

The Options Game:

In addition to great wine another Australian contribution to the World of Wine is the Options Game. Len Evans, the Godfather of Australian Wine, is the person who invented it.

The Rules:

• Each participant brings a bottle of wine, ensuring that it is either decanted out of sight of the participants or that it is sufficiently disguised so that the others cannot determine what it is
• The person presenting the wine then asks around five multiple choice questions, the objective of the questions is to identify the wine, so if you are going to try this, a bit of planning is a good idea.
• Each question is to include up to three options to choose from, one of the options must be correct (sounds like someone bent the rules at some stage, guess that a lawyer or two were involved in the honing of the rules)
  • Not sure I am a fan of the three option limitation.
  • There are two exceptions to this the four major communes of Bordeaux and the communes of Haut Medoc.
  • I believe that there may be other times when four options could be a good idea as there may be an obscure region that if added to the options would be easily identified, where if you throw in a couple it could increase the difficulty in identifying the wine. Just my opinion!!
• Only two questions can be asked about the vintage
• No restriction on the number of questions about the variety, region and / or maker

Options to the Options

The size of the group and knowledge (plus patience and or interest) of people participating may mean that you need to tailor the way you ask the answers, a few ideas are below, the first option is the traditional way, we use the third option usually at our dinners.

1. If you are attending an event where there are a number of people who are going to participate the idea is to ask each person a couple of questions and then progress to the next person and so on until all of the questions are asked and then the entire group are asked to identify the wine
2. With a large group another option is to make it a “knock-out” competition ask each question and “knock-out” the people who have answered incorrectly until there is only one left!
3. A more casual style, which is what we do at dinners, is to ask the entire table all of the questions, providing the answers as you go.

Options Game Example Questions

1. Old World or New World? A: Old World, B: New World
2. Where is this wine from? A: Australia, B: South America, C: US
3. Is it a blend or single varietal? A: Blend, B: Single
4. What is the secondary varietal? A: Cabernet, B: Cabernet Franc, C: Merlot
5. Which region of Australia is this from? A: Coonawarra, B: Great Southern, C: Clare Valley
6. Which Vintage? A: 1997, B: 2003, C: 2007?

Answer: 2007 Grosset Gaia Clare Valley, South Australia, Cabernet Sauvignon (75%), Cabernet Franc (20%) Merlot (5%)

Have you played this or a variation of the Options Game?

Cheers!