By LINCOLN SILIAKUS

Now that I am Down Under, I will use the vernacular.
I got it arse-about.  I ballsed up.  OK.  I made a mistake.

He bought a bottle, which he kept hidden.
This one expresses a particular Australian terroir. Let’s see if you can get it.
Swirl, sniff, sip and gulp. To me, it was a Bordeaux, and I’d tasted quite a few just before leaving Paris. There was plenty of well integrated but not overpoweringly plumy fruit, lots of tobacco and woody spiciness, little pepper and no discernable trace of alcohol on the nose.
Well, it’s not a shiraz, anyway, I said.
Lindsay raised an eyebrow.
So, it’s probably from the Coonawarra, I blundered on, as that cool area near the sea in South Australia is where many of the Bordeaux-style wines come from.
He showed me the bottle. A shiraz from the Hunter valley. Ooops! (See Tyrells).
What a pleasure to balls it up with this wine. And what fun it is going to be trying to learn about what is really happening in Aussie wines

Lindsay and Joan enjoying the joke