Our Go-Tos for Balance and Contentment

Would you pay AU$16,560 for just one sip of the world’s most expensive wine? There are few people who could drink the whole 750ml Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1945 – which Sotheby’s sold for AU$828,000 in 2018 – without worrying about our resulting bank balance (or debt, let's be honest). But here’s the fascinating secret to expensive wines. According to the latest research in wine psychology, it’s only individuals with wine training who can produce a positive correlation between price and enjoyment in blind tastings. For everyone else, they could enjoy a AU$10 bottle of any old red from Woolworths just as much as a...

‘Cane cut’, ‘cordon cut’, ‘cut cane’ – have you ever been curious about what these wine terms mean? The good news is the three wine terms above all refer to the same style of wine. Even better news for Australian readers is they refer to a unique winemaking tradition that produces sweet wines bursting with rich bouquets of candied fruits, honey, caramel, vanilla and toffee. Cane cut wines are without a doubt the most distinctly Australian dessert wine. Below, we’ll dig in the history, the winemaking process, the wine profile and give wine pairing examples with our very own UMAMU...

Sometimes, a wine pairing seems to bend all the rules. With a chocolate producer close to our wine stand at an event, I had to explore and decided to nibble on some dark chocolate to see if it paired with our wines. It was a delight to discover that it pairs well with our UMAMU Estate Shiraz from the Margaret River! It surprised me because of the ‘sweeter than sweet rule’ of wine pairing. Which is, your wine should always be sweeter than the food you’re pairing it with. Our Shiraz from the Margaret River is dry; but the chocolate I...

The difference between Syrah and Shiraz is of unique importance to us. Syrah and Shiraz wines are typically differentiated like so: If it’s an Australian wine, it’s a Shiraz (shi-raz) If it’s a French wine, it’s a Syrah (si-rah) But UMAMU Estate is located in Margaret River, on the southwestern tip of Australia, and famous throughout the world as a cooler Mediterranean wine region. One could argue that our Margaret River Shiraz wines should, in fact, be a Syrah. Confused much? Let’s get into the difference between Syrah and Shiraz. Shiraz is a style, not a grape The difference between...

When nine of France’s wine elite sat down for a blind tasting that pitted the best of French Châteaux with unknown North American blends in May of 1976, only one journalist bothered to even show up. Time magazine’s Paris correspondent George Taber arrived, admittedly, as a favour to the organisers. But little did he know he was about to get the story of his career. Jaws dropped as the top scores went not to France’s grand cru varietals but to a Californinan white and red – a 1973 Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena and a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag’s leap...

We could name you Margaret River’s best wines in just this first sentence. However, our opinion is bound to slip in. UMAMU Estate is just one of over 200 wineries producing stunning vintages in the Margaret River wine region – and so many of us deserve a special mention. In this article we will take you in broad strokes through Margaret River’s best wines. Once you’ve got a better understanding of the types of wine the Margaret River is best known for, then the rest really is up to you. If you’re still new to Margaret River wines, we envy...