Chalmers The Spirit

10 June

Chalmers The Spirit
$140 per 500ml, 47% alcohol, screwcap, Heathcote Victoria.

In the words of Chalmers themselves, this is a “white spirit that defies categorisation, a love child of Grappa, Schnapps and Eau de Vie, guided through the process by our assistant winemaker at the time, experienced distiller Megan Hume. The end result is an unadulterated pure expression of (the) Moscato Giallo (grape).”
It’s pretty full on. It smells and tastes of chamomile, which sounds soft and gentle but this is anything but. This is a force of alcohol, scent and flavour, the alcohol kicking like a mule, the mid palate of barley and hay and scorched flowers and spice doing its best in the face of alcohol-fuelled fire. It’s both boundary-pushing and not for the feint-hearted.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, founder of The Winefront and mattinson, and former chief editor of Halliday.

When you pick up a wine book and see thousands of top-scoring wines, it’s hard to know which wine to choose. Mattinson guides you through this maze, giving you an honest view of the best Australian wines, the best wine stories, the best wine producers, the best value wines and simply, the best tasting wines. Importantly, Mattinson will tell you about the top-rated wines and also about the underrated wines. In short, Mattinson knows Australian wines inside and out.

Mattinson has been a photo-journalist since 1987. For the past 25 years he’s been a voice that you can trust when you’re looking for the best wines. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award, and is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter. He’s not afraid to put a score beside a wine. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com

Chalmers The Spirit

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