Review – Beer .v. Wine Degustation Dinner
Imagine you’re just arrived in picturesque Tanunda on a perfectly sunny day, having left the intensity of the city’s bogan-fuelled Clipsal behind you, and you sit down on the decking to have a complimentary welcome drink placed in your hand. Now imagine this is no ordinary drink, but the Barossa Valley Brewing company’s cheekily named prototype “Threesome”, a wheat beer blended with Riesling and Semillon in collaboration with Maverick and David Franz wines. Yeah, that’s right, I think I’ve found my new happy place too.
And from there the night really does just take off. Barossa Valley Brewing have joined with the aforementioned local wineries Maverick and David Franz, as well as Thorn Clark, to create a degustation dinner with a difference. Each of the divine five courses is paired with both a wine and a beer, with the question put to the diners: which beverage really compliments the course the best? And it really was a tough challenge.
Long has wine ruled the dinner table and been matched with gastronomic courses, where as we have a history of matching beer with cricket or footy. Brewery owner Denham D’Silva and chief brewer James really try to challenge these preconceptions and suggest that beer can equally be matched with beautiful food. The staff at BV Brewing were superb, and Denham provided tasting notes on all his beers, whilst Ronald Brown from Maverick wines was his grape offsider, offering his counter argument on behalf of the wine makers.
From the onset, as a bit of a wannabe wine snob, I thought that the wine would have to win this contest hands down. However, more times than I would have thought, I found myself going back to the beer. I’d like to say the winner here is the Barossa Valley, and the passionate people who make it something special, but the real winners are those who manage to get a ticket to this event – enjoy!
A final tip – the Fringe website lists this show as 2 hour duration, but in reality it was closer to 4.5! Do yourself a favour and book into the Tanunda caravan park, which is situated directly across the road. That way you can fully enjoy your two alcoholic beverages per course!
