Wine for New Years Eve 2025

I've got three highlights, one is the Tyrrell's episode, meeting Chris and Bruce. We had this moment outside after the interview, watching the sunset with Bruce, he was just observing the mountain range in the background and he just had this face of content and happiness. That was a magical moment. I feel like we were like arm in arm just overlooking the sunset, right? Just appreciating life, it was so good. It's New Year's Eve, 2025. It's time to celebrate with some wine. I'm Jason. And I'm Trent and we're here on an unfiltered, unapologetically, unprofessional wine journey. What are we saying here, Jase? Our saying is drink more, try more, learn more and don't forget to like, comment and subscribe. I can't believe another year has passed just like that, right? And our wine up journey, it's been going, it's skyrocketing is the way I would put it. Is that how you would put it? I'm like a rollercoaster, except the only way is up. Yeah, it's like a rocket. Very good example. Look, this episode is going to be a bit different. We're going to be asking each other some questions about the year that's passed, but also wanted to reflect on 2024, 12 months of the wind up, doing a fair bit of stuff. I brought a wine here to kind of talk over it and nothing's like a celebration other than a champagne. And the champagne we have here is Bollen C Blanc de Blancs Champagne. So I'm going to try this one, see how it goes, but I think it's something that would be ideal pairing as we kind of go through some of our questions as we look through the year. Just a bit about this wine, Bollen C established in 1853 in Reims, where all the champagne houses are. Blanc de Blancs means entirely from Chardonnay grapes, 100% Chardonnay from Montgauvin de Mise-Nil sur Auger, using only first-pressed juice from premium Chardonnay grapes and has five years on Lees. It's generally, I think it's about like two years or three years on Lees generally for other champagnes. This one's five years on Lees. That adds a bit more complexity to this wine. I had a taste a bit earlier. I did get that kind of bready toastiness to it, but the thing that I think it kind of called out to me is this kind of Japanese honey cake, this Castella cake, it kind of tastes like that. I've never had that. What's that taste like? It's a Castella cake. It's like this kind of like honey sponge cake, quite light, but this is exactly like that. It's not like a dense vintage champagne, but has that kind of lightness, freshness to it. Very clean. Yeah. Honey, I kind of get like this, it's like a lightly toasted caramel flavor. Maybe that's the honey scent that you're talking about, but it smells great. I can't stop sniffing this wine. I know, I love it. I love it. You can smell that. I hate to use that word, but complexity on it, right? But it does show that it has these different layers and this depth to it that just kind of calls out for you. Ball and... How do you pronounce that? Sea. Ball and sea. Absolutely give that a go. So ball is the family and sea is like company and co. So when I go like something and co, the French way is sea, so ball and sea. Awesome. And it's a great way to celebrate this year. Let's talk a bit about the year that's passed, a couple of key things that have gone through. Probably one of the biggest things which was great to see is we set out to be a finalist for the Wine Communicator Awards and that's what's happened. We actually set out to win, we're going to find out, but we are finalists. That was a big achievement, I'm pretty proud of that. Did you have a doubt ourselves? Did I ever? No, I didn't doubt. I was very hopeful, but I think it kind of reflects the work that you're doing, a lot of the team, a lot of our family has been putting in there, which was a great achievement. As I say, teamwork makes the dream work apparently. It does and the dream is working. Look, I did want to share a few stats very quickly with us. So we've done 44 full length episodes this year, 239 YouTube and TikTok videos, 317 Instagram posts. There's a bit of volume and output that's been coming out there. We've interviewed 14 winemakers and we've also won the Best Website Build of the Year for the Windup podcast website, windup.com.au, thewindup.com.au, get that right. Lots of great, interesting articles and also boutique wineries to see and find out. So that's a bit of the highlights. We're going to reflect on the year. You've got a few questions. As we do with everyone here, I like to ask the rapid fire questions, but kind of a slightly abridged version, I think, asking you, I would like to see how that's going to evolve through the year. So the first one is most memorable wine. Yeah. Most memorable wine is probably, you know what? I can't get over the Soerenberg Chardonnay. I really can't. And it's the thing that haunts me because we only had like half a glass or half a bottle or something like that. We didn't have much of it, but I can't stop thinking about it. It just had this fantastic complexity around it that made me want to have more and more of that. Yeah. What about you? For me, it was Garnier Tyrrell's having 2006 Vat 1 Semi-On. That one kind of blew my mind, having that one. And the other one was the one that we had with the Chablis episode, the 2020 Eleni and Edouard Voucouret. Marc Loof recommended. Yes, absolutely. That was delicious. Oh, I love that one. That's delicious. Those are two highlights for me. Next question for you. What's the wine I still want to drink next year? Oh, gosh. Yeah. Everyone keeps talking about they want to have a DRC. It's kind of the consistent message that obviously we'd love to do that. I'm going to make it something that's probably a bit more affordable. Recently we had a chat to Liz Silkman and she talked about the Hatesbury. Yeah. From Vase Felix. Vase Felix? How do you pronounce it? Vase Felix. And I've never had it before. Right? But for Liz Silkman, who makes such fantastic Chardonnays, and I've got to say Chardonnay is probably the grape varietal or the wine varietal that I enjoy the most right now for whites. I want to try that. I want to try the Hatesbury. What about you? Chateau Ykem and Gay Time is what I'm looking forward to for the year. Favorite grape varietal. We kind of answered that already. Yeah, yeah. So for whites, definitely the Chardonnay. For reds, what is it turning into? I'm actually turning back into Pinot. The elegance of it and the complexity around it. What about you? I need to put down the grape varietal, which is Chardonnay, but if I put one onto the reds, it would be... It's a tough one. It depends on the day. So many that we've tried, right? I'm kind of thinking I want to get back to some good Cabernet or something like that. Yeah. It's kind of... Cabernet's fallen out of my rotation, which is interesting. Okay. Next one. Who do you want to have a bottle with, either past or present? Gosh. Okay. Who would I want to have a bottle with, past or present? You know what? We talked about this last year. Erin Larkin was kind of an inspiration for following the wine dream. She's probably someone in the present that I would like to have a chat with. In the past, a lot of people refer to Morris O'Shea, right? We're always doing these interviews, particularly with those in The Hunter, and they say, Morris O'Shea, who I think started Mount Pleasant, he'd be one I'd be keen to pick on. Not pick on, but pick his brain in regards to that. What about you? More family. So for me, it's more my grandpa. And then there was a wine that I bought for him, but we never had the chance to drink. It was 2006, in a black pepper Shiraz. So probably open that one up with him and finish that one off. Yeah. Good memories there. Next one. Best food and wine pairing for 2024? There was one recently that you did actually, you always win these ones. It was the donut kebab combo, which was super interesting. So donut kebab and sparkling Shiraz, I think it was the best Great Western. And I got to say that worked well, you came in with this theory that it's kind of replacing Coke. Correct. And I think it was the perfect combo. Yeah. What about you? For me, it was durian and sparkling Shannon. Yeah. Best. It's pretty up there. I like that one. Oh, yeah. One of those ones you want to have on a regular. Okay. Got it. Cool. That's it. That was rapid fire. Rapid fire. But there are some other questions. Unless you've got something for me. Yeah. I didn't have rapid fire questions. Before we jump to that, I didn't want to talk about champagne because there was something that you were saying earlier on, I thought it's useful to share with the audience, right? Earlier on, you were talking about mousse on the champagne. And another thing that I've been hearing about was, is it beads or pearling? What the hell are those two things? What's the mousse on the champagne? The beads. The bubbles. They come out. Right. And then what's the pearling? I don't know about the pearling. You've never heard of that. You've never heard about mousse and pearling. Okay. Better edit that part out. It might be something you do on a Friday night. Every time you pull out those beads, you kind of get a good sensation. Look, I did have a couple of questions. I know you've got a couple of questions. I do want to talk about for you, 2024, it's been a long year, 12 months dedicated to the winery. What's the highlight? What's the thing you look back on and go, that was a great memory? The highlights for me, I've got three highlights. One is the Tyrrell's episode, meeting Chris and Bruce Tyrrell. The other one was around the Martin Luther episodes and learning about wine faults. So that was eye-opening and very interesting as well. And the third highlight was going to the Reel Review Top 100 Wineries Masterclass and going and meeting the wineries, meeting Sarah Crow, being in that room where I felt just that I didn't belong at that point, but then tasting some fantastic wines and yeah, it was an amazing experience. For me, it was pretty similar. I just want to elaborate on two of those items. One, the Tyrrell's interview, hey, that was fantastic. When would we think that we'd ever have an opportunity to meet Chris and Bruce Tyrrell? We had this moment outside after the interview, watching the sunset with Bruce initially. He was just observing the mountain range in the background and he just had this face of content and happiness. And we were kind of just with him in a circle watching it and he goes, looking, appreciating this view. That was a magical moment. A, it was fantastic scenery. B, we're there with Bruce Tyrrell. Chris also joined us as well. That's one of the very distinct memories of us, like how does that even happen? I feel like we were like arm in arm, just overlooking the sunset, right? Just appreciating life. It was so good. The other one, the real review one, you mentioned Sarah Crow. That was, yeah, I think I had the same feeling where it's, we're in the room and I felt like, how did I get in here? Did I bypass the bouncer accidentally and was secretly here and they want to kick us out? But Sarah was fantastic. She was open to our questions. We were sharing, I think, a glass of gin as well with her. It was just one of those surreal moments. And I think through our wind-up journey, surreal is the word that I always use, like this, how is this possible? It's been fantastic. Looking to the past, also looking to the future, what are you looking forward to in the future in 2025? Yeah, 2025. So, last year we did this episode and we said, what are we going to do in the future? And I said, we're going to go to New Zealand and we didn't go to New Zealand. So, I'm going to say that again. Looking forward to going to New Zealand and trying the wines from our closest neighbour is probably that. Our closest neighbour is Tasmania, though, isn't it? Oh, that's the same country. That doesn't make sense. That's probably one of the highlights that I'm keen to see. What about Beechworth? Yeah. Beechworth trip, that's what I'm looking forward to as well. Yeah, that's going to be awesome. That's going to be awesome. I agree. I didn't disregard that. It's a big goal. The other one is winning our Wine Communicators Award. And the third one is just continuing building connections and memories with the winemakers over the year. I think we've just, like one of my goals or our goals over the last year was really hanging up more people from the industry, more winemakers on the podcast, which is what we've done. Let's kind of grow that a bit more as well to get, you know, more names, more people understand how those winemakers tick as well and how that kind of gets represented in the wines that they create. Yeah, it's been fantastic. And a lot of people that we've been chatting to, like having a chat to the winemaker of the year, Liz Silkman, again, it's one of those surreal moments, but learning from them and their experiences just helps us with our body of knowledge and what the industry needs to battle with. Let's talk about things that you've learnt. So, we've gone through this journey and one of the objectives that we did want to get is drink more, learn more. What's the other one? Drink more, try more. Try more. Learn more is in the middle there. So, what do you think you've learnt? What's some of the things that you've learnt this year? I've learnt so much. Like, I'm thinking like, it's not one thing that I think I've learnt this year. I think it's just about increasing that breadth of your palate. Again, learning more, tasting more is what I think I've done. And then also how your palate evolves, you start to like and try different wines. You might go full circle, like you might like Shiraz's first, but you might then come back around to Shiraz's, but of a different nature as well. But you have a growing appreciation of the winemaking that's required to create those different wines. And the other thing, you know, I think I've learnt is that, I don't know, it's just me being more philosophical, just there's so much more to it. It's not just the glass of wine, but the people behind it that I'd like to just delve into. Yeah, the stories in why they want to create the wine, how do they get to the point is really intriguing. Yeah, I agree. What about you? Yeah, I think we've learnt a lot. I think there's probably two things that I've been thinking about. One, just again, we've done another 12 months of this, it's been two years, and, you know, we went out there thinking there's a lot of idiots out there within the wine world, lots of snobs, and another 12 months have gone by, and I've got to say, I haven't met one, I haven't met many, there's probably one I'm thinking about, that I just think that everyone in the community is so nice, so open, just willing to share. And it's not what people think. It's just like two years have gone by, and it's really reinforced that perception around a lot of wine snobs out there, it's not around, and talking to the winemakers, absolutely not the case. The other thing is, I've just, I've learnt about is, you don't really need to drink everything. I think very early on in the journey, I was drinking it all, and not spitting it out, not really appreciating, as best as I could, or really thinking about it, the wines itself, but it's fun actually spitting it out. It's fun letting it go through its journey over 40 minutes or so, just seeing it change, like there's something about that, where you can see something evolve over time, and appreciate it, where you, it's actually really enjoyable. So those are probably two of the key things that I've learnt. Yeah, definitely. Look, what I tend to do when I do Reflections, we kind of call it, in the Agile world, retros. What we do is like, what should we start, what should we stop, and what should we continue? So I'll ask those questions to you, first one. What should we start? Anything that we should start doing for the new year? What should we start? These are hard. I'll kick off first. I think that we should start doing more blind tasting. Yeah, 100% agree with that one. I think if anything that we've learnt, not being influenced by price, region, label, et cetera, and just purely trying to taste it on its own has got great merit. Anything else? To me, I kind of feel like I'd like to get outside the realm of just the podcast. I think we've come in and we've gone very structured in terms of what we want to talk about, and there's a set piece there. It'd be good to see things that we're experiencing on the fly a bit more, and I know we've started that. I think a lot more of that, introducing what we're seeing, what we're tasting at a certain point in time, and just sharing that with the community is something that I'm keen to do. Yeah, it almost feels like there's so much more we want to do, but not enough time, and time seems to be the big factor in everything these days in terms of we don't have enough time, but we're trying to squeeze as much as we can from the time that we have. Yeah, yeah. The other one, I'm going to the next one. What should we stop? Anything that we should stop doing? What should we stop doing? Ooh. Yeah, you go first. I'll go first. I hate watching myself on the podcast, and one thing that really annoys me is the ums and the ahs. If I could stop doing that, that's the one thing I want to try and stop doing. I go, oh my god. You start to kind of self-bash yourself around. Oh, you're doing well, mate. I think if you'd look at our earlier podcast, it's changed a fair bit, so don't bash yourself too much in regards to that, but I get it. There are some pauses and some ums that both of us do, but that's us. We're unprofessional, unfiltered. That's how it works. Things to stop, it's a hard one. You know what's been crossing my mind. If we're looking at wine pairings, I think I should just stop. I think I should just end it because every single time I'm like, oh, it's not really that good, but at least I'm learning what doesn't work. I don't necessarily think it's a stop on that. It just got to lift my game, I think is all it is. What should we continue? Everything about the wine up. You know what I love? I love the fact that we get to hang out, our families, you as my mate, us talking to people in the wine industry. Without this, we would never be able to do any of that, and we'd probably see each other every six months or something. I know, you're really poor at that, aren't you? That's right. All right. This is kind of fantastic in terms of bringing us together. I totally want to continue that, I think that's a good thing. Similar, continue to have the awesome people on each of the episodes as we kind of do it. More winemakers, more people in the industry, and also just creating new and engaging content as well, but also staying true to ourselves. We're not here for the purpose just to create content, it's to create content that you guys like, that you guys engage with, and also that we have fun with as well. That's what I want to try and keep on continuing to do. Yeah, completely. We get to learn a lot from that. That's it from me. Anything from you? That's the retro. God, retros are hard. Usually we conduct them on a fortnightly basis, but I didn't realize, I haven't done it in a while. No, that's good. Other questions I had. Look, I wanted to know, there's two questions that I still had to have. Top value wine, like bang for buck. What is the top value wine in your mind? Well, I think bang for buck, I think about Aldi, I think of the Freya Jewels Riesling. It was like $10 or something like that. Yes. And the real review gave it like a silver or a gold classification. Yeah, that was a cracker. That was a banger. Yeah. Not the Aldi Malbec? Not the one that we had? I prefer the Riesling. I'm more of a Riesling person than a Malbec person. Yeah. The one that I thought was great, bang for buck, and I should have done a bit more research on it, but I'm pretty sure the price is right. We did one of the events with the real review, and we had a Ricard Chardonnay. Yeah, with a Ricard bell. And I think it was about $30, I was looking through the notes to find that out. But I think that's one of those hidden Chardonnays that are just like fantastic value and worth a try. That's one thing I do want to do, delve into orange wines a lot more. We've done Hunter, I want to do orange as well. That's the one thing I want to do. Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like we gave it a crack in our first year. It's worth a visit, and it's certainly evolving over time. So we need to head back after New Zealand, after Sorenberg, and yeah, we'll give that a go. I think the only other thing I wanted to ask was, how have you seen me evolve over time through this journey? And I think that's a hard question. So I might talk to you how I've seen you first. Is that all right? You want to go first? You go, you go. I wanted to say that I think what's happened is I've always known that you obviously appreciate your wine and you're great at working out what you can pick up and what works and what's good quality. I think the great thing I've seen is the affirmation from the industry on what you can taste and pick up. Often, I'd sit back and just watch you during interviews, kind of tasting a wine and describing the structure or the flavor profile that you're getting. And people, the winemakers will say, yes, that's fantastic. That's exactly what I wanted you to experience, right? I've heard people say, I love the way that you've described your structure within the notes itself, because I don't want to hear people talking about the profile, I want to talk about the wine structure. And you've described it perfectly. And I think just that affirmation has been fantastic in kind of reaffirming what you already know. So I think there's been great confidence in regards to that and picking that up. Yeah. One thing is what I know, but also what I think I know as well, which is a difference. Sometimes I think I know, but then also I'm not completely confident. But as I've grown, it's just like, just have a crack, have a crack, say what you want. For you, I think you've grown in terms of, you're the, like, I think we kind of bounce off each other quite well. You know, I'm the wine person, you're more the people person. You go into so much detail, like your preparedness in terms of everything that we do. I know how much focus you put into it. Yeah. I've seen that kind of go through from, you know, the research you put behind everything in terms of the people, even like the setup, the audio, the visual, the content, the engagement and everything. You're kind of thinking about all that all the time. Even with, you know, the three kids, work and everything as well. It's like, you know, that focus and determinism around, you know, what we want to get out of it and objectives around what we're trying to get out of the podcast. It's just very, you know, hats off to you. Thank you, man. Thank you. Appreciate that. I feel like I need to top your glass off. You don't have enough there. Yeah. What are you thinking about this champagne? I love it. That's probably a good wrap up of questions around 2024, the past 12 months. Did you have any more on your list that you wanted to go through? No, there's no more questions from me. It's probably more just a bounce off the community in terms of what else do you guys want to see us kind of grow into for the new year? What do you want to see more of? What do you want to see less of as well? We take your feedback as well in terms of how we should grow and evolve on this journey. I wanted to thank everyone involved. I wanted to thank you. Like you said, there's a lot of effort and you're doing this as a side gig, but you know, you've got your day job, you've got your family, you've got your kids that are trying to manage and yet you're still able to produce all of these great reflections online. So thank you. I wanted to thank our producers who do an amazing job. We're only the people on the camera here, but there's a lot of work that's happening behind the scenes, organizing where we're going to go, who we're going to talk to. That's not easy, linking up with everyone on the social media. There's a lot of effort in there, putting out the website and the newsletters. Thank you to everyone there and to our family and the kids. It's like having them listen to us record. They want their own podcast is what I keep hearing. But to go through that, it's just amazing. So thank you to everyone there and thank you to the community. Creating memories, mate. Creating memories. And this is creating another memory for New Year's Eve, mate. Cheers to that. Happy New Year's. Happy New Year to you. Happy New Year's. As we like to say here, drink more, try more, learn more. Thanks all.