Ever stood in the wine aisle and felt lost in a sea of wine bottles, then help is at hand in the form of Philip Laffer, legendary winemaker at Jacob's Creek. With so many wines to choose from, how do you make sure that you find the wine to suit your taste?

Internationally renowned winemaker Philip Laffer has been at the forefront of Australian winemaking for over 40 years. He heads up a 20 strong winemaking team, and oversees the process from vineyard to bottle, capturing the essence of Australia in every varietal produced. He is a true ambassador for fine wine the world over.

So whether you want to know how to choose the best wine to accompany that special meal, know more about Philip's winemaking philosophy or get a heads up on what's new in the wine industry, here's your chance to log on and chat with Philip Laffer to find out all you need to know about great Australian Wines.

Philip Laffer joins us live online at www.webchats.tv on Thursday 4th February at 3pm

For more information visit www.jacobscreek.com

H: Murray Norton, host
A: Philip Laffer, Jacob's Creek

H: Hello I'm Murray Norton - welcome to the Food and Drink Show. Now when it comes to choosing that perfect bottle of wine, we're often faced with so much choice that the whole process can be just a little bit daunting. From Somilian to Shiraz, from Grenache to Gewürztraminer, well there are hundreds of varieties to choose from and we're increasingly seeing more exciting great combinations emerging from the world class wineries. Joining me here today is one of the pioneers of the Australian wine industry, Philip Laffer, whose work on the iconic brand Jacob's Creek has helped serve to ensure Australian wines are seen on dinner tables the world over. Good to see you, thanks very much indeed for coming along

A: Nice to be here

H: And you know it's a real pleasure to have someone whose worked for what, almost half a century in the wine trade

A: Close to that, sometimes it shows too

H: Well it's good to have you with us. It must be such a great job to see something come from if you like the grape to the glass, and see it being so creative

A: Well its – being a winemaker is one of the greatest jobs in the world, because you work all day making wine and then you go home and enjoy it at the end of the day

H: Yes

A: And no two seasons are the same. Some seasons are similar so every year's an exciting year, every day's an exciting year, and the fascination of course is to see how wine has evolved over the past 50 years as has the Australian wine industry

H: And of course the market to go with it

A: Well exactly. It's quite fascinating, because wine tends to follow cuisine, and over the last 20 years in particular there's been a whole change in the sorts of food we eat, and I guess London's a good example where we're eating probably food with a greater Asian influence, people are eating lighter, fresher food and wines have had to change and evolve to remain contemporary to sit comfortably with those food styles

H: And of course you've been working in the new world industry, as your accent would give away in Australia

A: Does it, can you tell?

H: Just a little tad, just a little tad! So that has grown and changed over time, although it's been around a long time, people think new world, last 20 / 30 years, but it's been around an awful lot longer

A: Well Australia – when the first fleet arrived

H: Yes

A: A load of convicts, they bought with them grapevines, so our wine industry goes right back to the beginning, but in reality it's probably been in the last 150 years where it became serious, and it's really just been in the last 20 or 30 years where we became recognised as being a national wine maker. So in that scheme of things it's quite recent

H: Well we are live today, indeed and if there is a question that you would like to put to Phil then all you've got to do – I'm calling you Phil now, see we're getting really close now – if you've got a question to put to Philip all you've got to do is fill in the box on the bottom of the screen there and send them off, because we've had loads of questions so far, we'll do our best to get through as many as we possibly can in the limited time that we've got. Now the wine industry as we said, it's been changing – what's new in the industry now?

A: Well one of the things that's new is – are these modern styles of sparkling wine, and it goes down this, in line of what I was just saying about people seeking products that are more refreshing

H: Yes

A: United Kingdom's always been drinkers of a lot of sparkling wine, but people are looking for sparkling wines that are lighter and refreshing, and one of the reasons this wine' packed in a clear bottle is to help the perception that it immediately looks a little lighter –

H: It looks fresh -

A: than a heavy green bottle. It looks fresh. And then once you actually get the taste of it of course it lives up to what it looks like

H: Now when we're talking of sparkling wines, obviously it would be remiss of us to call this Champagne because we couldn't possibly do so because it's not from Champagne

A: It's not from Champagne and I have desire to go and live in a French jail

H: Well let's stay out of French jail in that case. Cheers. What's in this?

A: This is made from Chardonnay, in fact the similarity between Australian sparkling wine and Champagne is we obviously use a common bottle

H: Right

A: And the grape varieties tend to be the same. Everything else is different. This is Chardonnay grown in Australia, it's grown in a different way, and we're not trying to make Champagne, we're trying to make Australian sparkling wine, light, refreshing, with quite a focus on the varietal characteristic of the wine rather than some of the artefacts that go into making it. So what we're smelling is light, bright, fresh Chardonnay

H: Super

A: And notice when you swallow it, count to five, all the flavour's gone, you've got a lovely, clean sensation in your mouth. Now theoretically it's meant to make you hungry

H: Yes

A: That's just one of the –

H: We'll have to go on and eat afterwards

A: One of the attributes

H: The taste of it, yes, we could talk about all the different things that you get out of this but I am getting sort of light, tropical fruit –

A: Tropical flavour, things like a melon-like character. People talk about ripe peaches, but to me the beauty is the way those flavours disappear very quickly. They're not clawing and hanging around in your mouth. They've got this lovely refreshing sensation in your mouth

H: It's a pallet cleanser isn't it?

A: It's a pallet cleanser, it's a great social drink, if you just want to have a glass of wine, it's a great drink. If you want to have something before a meal it's also wonderful.

H: And actually not as dry and crisp as I thought it might be. It's got the dry crispness –

A: But it's soft

H: It's soft – it's almost got a sweet aftertaste to it

A: Well yes that's the fruit. That's the fruit of Chardonnay. It's not sugar sweetness it's a fruit sweetness

H: Very, very enjoyable

A: Thank you

H: And again just the - the image and the look of it, it makes you want – I mean I'm thinking summer's day already, but whatever time of the year, this is a real sociable drink isn't it?

A: You're trying to convince me that it's sunny outside aren't you?

H: It's beautiful. It's always beautiful – this side of the world it's always great, always great. Ok now that's our first one that we've tried, we've got some questions that we're going to take as well, and we also have our own Somelier waiter, Willy the Waiter is with us today, and I know he'll be clearing these away very shortly, so we're going to let those go because I know we've got some more to try in just a second. As much as I'd like to stay with these, you know we will have to take these and swap glasses very shortly I'm afraid

A: That's alright

H: But that's a great wine –

A: Variety is the spice of life

H: Indeed. And in this one, this is solely Chardonnay or have we got other grapes –

A: It's only Chardonnay and that's part of the attraction, that what you're tasting is Chardonnay, not - I mean there are sparkling wines that do have other varieties and that's done for a different purpose. Here we really want the varietal flavour to come through – pure Chardonnay

H: Ok

A: And Chardonnay has a wonderful flavour

H: That's a good way of drinking Chardonnay, I like it sparkling. We've got questions coming up, as a complete beginner says Jess, thank you Jess for your question – "what one tip could you give me to help me make a better choice when I'm choosing wine in a restaurant?" Now if wine in a supermarket's complicated, wine in a restaurant when you've got the waiter hanging over you waiting, you know that's even more complicated isn't it?

A: Well it can be a bit sort of frightening because everyone's always – myself included – frightened of making a fool of yourself. There's one very simple and effective rule in selecting wine to match with food. Now inevitably people are going to decide what they want to eat first of all, so having decided what you want to eat, think about the amount of flavour you anticipate from that dish. Almost like sort of volume, what's the volume of flavour, and then think of a wine of roughly similar volume, because matching food and wine is not so much about is it red or is it white, it's about the degree of flavour because you don't want the wine to overwhelm the dish, you'll enjoy the wine, but what am I eating? Conversely if the food overpowers the wine, well I may as well have a glass of water. So get those flavours roughly in balance and you're bound to have a success. So it's not all that complicated, just think about matching volumes of flavour and you really won't go wrong

H: Ok. It's a broad question and obviously what we're going to be doing in tasting the wines now will probably answer some of these questions anyway. More questions in just a second. Yes, Will the waiter can come in and we'll get rid of those. You're doing a fine job there Will, well done. We'll get those out of the way to start off with. We'll keep that there just in case and we'll bring in some Rosé which is what we're going to move onto next. So Rosé glasses are on the way in. Whilst we're doing all of that, what's a great all-round, bound to appeal to all, be it eating or social? Should it be red or should it be white? You know it's difficult to say isn't it really?

A: Well I mean it's horses for courses. It's like somebody saying to me "what's your favourite wine?" Well it depends time of day, season of the year, whom I'm with, a whole lot of things. I probably have 10 favourite wines. So you know if we're talking about summer time you're going to be thinking in terms of Rosé and light wine, something that you drink chilled. Now chilled red wine isn't all that much fun. If you're talking about winter time then you want something that's a little bit warming so it's logically red wine, or again perhaps Rosé, so you think about, as I was saying with foods, think about the volume of – think about the environment, the atmosphere you're in. If it's warm and hot and sunny then you want something cool and refreshing. If it's cold and chilly you want to be warmed up, so that's a slot for –

H: Ok well if I was impressed with the sparkling, we should really be impressed with – and this feels nice and chilled as well, the bottle's been chilled nicely

A: Wonderful

H: So just about grape. So we're going to go to the Rosé – oh we'll do the Rosé in a second, I'm sorry, we're going to do the white first –

A: Why don't we start with the white

H: Alright

A: And build up in terms of flavour

H: So white first and then into the Rosé. Tell us about this bottle, because this – before we start talking about what's inside it, let's just talk about the bottle. This feels smaller and lighter than the other bottles

A: Well it's an interesting concept, this is I think here you call it 50cl, in Australia we would call it 500ml, but either way –

H: We'd probably call it half a litre but that would just be wrong!

A: Well they probably do that. But it's two thirds of a normal bottle of wine, and the thinking behind it is that very often if you're dining in a restaurant, two people, you don't want one whole large bottle of wine, particularly if you want to have a glass of white and a glass of red. Now this is ideal to be shared between two people, so you can sit down, you can have a glass of white each and then have another bottle of red and a glass of red each, so it's about coming up with a convenient size – it happens also to be a very attractive bit of packaging

H: It does look really – the other thing is when people were ordering in the dark, old days, the half bottle of wine, the bottle of wine was never enough. A full bottle of wine was too much -

A: Too much

H: And this –

A: This fits the boat entirely

H: That seems to work perfectly well. And of course you could order half a bottle of red and half a bottle of white couldn't you?

A: You could, you could

H: 50 / 50. Alright, the screw cap's taken off

A: Screw cap off. The wine itself is an interesting blend. It's a blend of three varieties, now the concept behind Jacob's Creek three vines and you'll see these three little berries that's to let you know it's got three different varieties in it. Is to take what would be recognised, traditional, Australian double blends so Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Cabernet, and in this case with the Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, add a third variety but a variety of the non-fruity characteristic. Most of the variety is grown in Australia which is Northern European to do with where we came from in the first place, tend to be varieties that have a lot of fruit, whereas some of the southern European varieties are more savoury. So Semillon Sauvignon Blanc has a lot of fruit to it

H: Right

A: By blending in a small amount of Viognier we've changed the whole flavour profile and turns a great drink into a great food wine, so concept here –

H: Perfect

A: Is making wine specifically to be drunk with food. Now if you're tempted to drink it without food I'm not going to sort of blame you, but the idea really is to drink this with food because – when we smell it we'll get Semillon, we'll get Sauvignon Blanc but there's something else there, this lovely –

H: It's actually toned it down a little bit hasn't it?

A: It tones down the fruitiness

H: Yes

A: But it brings in this other dimension, greater depth to the wine –

H: I would have to say, just in looking at it, it looks so shiny, it looks a really bright, fresh, vibrant glass of wine doesn't it?

A: That green tinge is essential, if anybody - and this is a weeny bit of advice – if you ever get a glass of white wine that doesn't have this green tinge, then you know that somewhere along the wine-making process, vineyard to winery, bottling, that duration – something's gone wrong

H: Right

A: Green is the guarantee that it's the way wine-maker wanted it – j

H: Just a little hint

A: Just a hint

H: Very nice, very nice

A: So, all those varieties are sort of contributing to a rather complex flavour. It's a little richer, it really is designed to go with food. So there's quite a range of foods –

H: And with this you'd have – seafood would be great

A: I'd have seafood, I'd have chook-chook chicken, I'd have poultry. I wouldn't go as far – and lamb. And lamb, but I wouldn't get in the area of casseroles, I wouldn't get into the area of Italian dishes where you've got some really strong flavours coming through, but for the rest it's very versatile

H: Very versatile wine, liking that a great deal. Whilst we've got this one in hand we will go to some more questions in just a second, I'm just going to pop that there just on the side. A question in from Louise that says "I like Rosé wine and – but sometime there are only one or two options on the menu, but a lot of white or red. I find red too heavy and white too acidic. Can you suggest a red or a white that I might like?" Well I think we're probably looking at them and we're probably going to come to them now aren't we?

A: We certainly are

H: Certainly the white, that white is not acidic is it?

A: It's soft and round but there's no sugar in this wine, but the varieties are giving it this lovely soft round flavour, and it's not giving you a sort of gut-burning acid effect

H: Yes. That's easily drinkable

A: Yes there's a lot of these varieties about – modern day Chardonnay. Chardonnay's gone off the boil in terms of what people want to drink nowadays, but the modern Chardonnay's that are coming out of Australia are much softer than what people might have had two or three years ago. So there's a lot of white wine nowadays which is just – red wines, slightly different thing because part of the attraction of most red wines as you know of course is the tannin profile, so in answer to that question, it's probably quite easy to find a white wine to fit that profile. With reds you need to think a bit further and we'll be tasting a red in a moment, which for the same reason that the white's been modified, so has the red and it makes it an easy drinking red wine with food

H: Alright. I've enjoyed the white, very much indeed, I know Willy the Waiter's going to come and take those away from us, before we enjoy them far too much, maybe I'll come back to them later, and we will move to the Rosé. Again this is part of this three vines collection that you've got, just talk us through this one

A: Well again, typical blend of - Rosé in Australia is Shiraz and Grenache

H: Yes

A: Now here we've added Sangiovese an Italian variety, 20% goes in and it's enough to take away the sweetness that comes from Grenache, tone down a bit of the spiciness that comes from Shiraz and give it a lovely, savoury sensation. It turns – for me – a great drink – into a great food wine

H: Yes. Sangiovese's a great food wine anyway

A: Precisely

H: And super – I mean most – you won't go to a good Italian restaurant anywhere without a good Sangiovese being on there somewhere. Normally it's a red though

A: As a red. In this case, the – I mean all 3 varieties are red varieties so –

H: Right

A: So it's not as if we've taken a white wine and put a dash of red in it to turn it into Rosé, it's a genuine Rosé – it's red grapes where we've taken the juice away from the skins quickly enough just to retain this wonderful pink colour –

H: That is an important thing –

A: That's where the flavour comes through

H: For – and I still see people jaw-dropped when they see red wine grapes being crushed and clear liquid coming out

A: And out comes white juice

H: Yes. There is no red liquid that comes from red grapes, its' just from the skins

A: It's all in the skins

H: Oh this has got a meatiness to it

A: You've got a wonderful spiciness on the nose, that's coming from the Shiraz. Behind that, there's a strong perfume, that's coming from the Grenache

H: Yes

A: And the Sangiovese, we're really going to get on the pallet when we taste it. So all those sweet things now are put into the background and the sensation on our mouth and on our pallet is of a savouryness. So a great drinking wine has now become a great food wine

H: It is – it is so – so much between what I would expect from a Rosé and the follow-through texture you get from a very soft red

A: Exactly

H: That's amazing

A: It works remarkable well

H: Do you have a lot of fun when you're coming to create these?

A: Precisely, I mean that's why – I mean I know I look 45, but I'm approaching 70 –

H: You're not that old. You're not that old - you're not 45

A: But – and I mean, I've g to years ahead of me making wine because it's one of those things you never actually retire from, it's a passion that's in your blood. I'm sure there are lots of young blokes trying to elbow me out – and girls elbowing me out of the way, but it's – it's enormous fun because you can be extremely creative

H: Doesn't this almost start ripping up the rule book though, where – because you know there was always that – every 5 or 6 years there seems to be a rule book and we all get settled in what we think we know about wine

A: Yes

H: Isn't it really fun to just move the goal posts a little bit

A: And I mean people often talk about what's the difference between old world and new world, not a lot actually because we work with the same varieties. The big difference is that the new world has a degree in freedom that unfortunately in many cases the old world hasn't had, because they set rules and regulations which made an awful lot of sense 100 years ago, and many countries, old world, are not trying to give themselves a bit more freedom to experiment because we're a different world of consumers, people are looking for differences, they're looking for things that are novel. The new world has the freedom to do that and providing we describe quite accurately on the label what we're doing, then we're encouraged to do it

H: It's interesting, there's a question that came in from Jeremy which was about this very subject, and he was saying there's a lot of wine snobbery between old world and new world, particularly from the Francophiles out there

A: Yes, yes

H: And yet you know surely a good wine is a good wine, doesn't matter where it comes from?

A: Precisely. It's interesting because in Australia we make much, much better Australian wines than they ever make in France, but France makes much better French wines than we can make in Australia – if you get my drift?

H: Yes

A: That's it's horses – our climate's different, our soil's different, but the common thing around the world is the variety, that you know Cabernet Sauvignon's grown around the world Chardonnay, but the terroir, the soil, the climate – has an enormous impact on the flavour and it's just adding variety, that the winemaking techniques – the actual techniques of making wine – hasn't changed for 3000 years, so wine-makers are winemakers, we have winemakers who work with us who'll do a vintage in France, they'll do a vintage in Australia, they'll do vintage in Spain – the techniques are the same. The difference is the flavour in the fruit which is a function of where it's grown

H: Yes. Let's have a question from – actually from someone or some people called High Spirits. Their impression of Australian wine was very much volume was pretty high on these – you're talking 14.5/15% -

A: Alcohol

H: Kind of heavy, yep. Is that still true or has that been reigned in as well?

A: I mean it's a valid question, because sometimes in the search of flavour the fruit can get very ripe. Now we're lucky in Australia because we never have to pick because it's going to rain and we might lose the crop – it's dry and sunny, and there's been a temptation sometimes to let the flavours develop to a stage which was lovely but in the process the sugar's crept up and that converts to higher alcohol, and quite clearly people today I think are not looking for low alcohol wines but they're looking for lower alcohol wines. There's a place for a 15% red wine and it's the middle of winter and it's one or two glasses. But in reality we want to drink wines around 11/ 11 ½, 12%. So we're being a lot more careful in Australia now to make sure that we're getting ripeness at a lower sugar level, and that can be done by how you manage the vine, the canopy to make wines at lower – they're much more pleasant to drink – normally. So you'll find – the question's good because Australia did go through this phase of 14 / 14 ½%, 15% - one's particularly were Shiraz

H: Yes

A: But we're coming back

H: Alright. I'm going to have one more – one more little sip of this, because this Rosé – I really urge you to try it, it's fabulous, really is a great wine

A: I thought you promised to provide the food?

H: Afterwards. Banquet. Banquet. Banquet afterwards but that is – that is a super wine

A: Thanks Murray that's very kind of you

H: Put that over there for Will the Waiter to take away, and we will then be moving on to our red wine. Now I would like to say that we have got loads and loads of questions, we are going to try and get through as many as we can but it's so difficult to do that and to get on with the wine-tasting at the same time, so we're onto the red, and I know that red wine glasses will be on their way. I'll just put that to one side. This Shiraz, a Cabernet and a Tempranillo which is – I normally associate with Spain and with the Spanish old and new world

A: Exactly but it comes back to what I said – traditional – the traditional red wine blend was Shiraz and Cabernet

H: Yes

A: Cabernet used to dilute back the Shiraz flavour. But it created a wine which was reasonably fruit-flavoured. Putting in Tempranillo – and again sort of 25 / 20% takes that sweet edge off. You still, as we'll find, taste Shiraz, still taste Cabernet, but on the pallet the lovely drying effect of Tempranillo comes through. The other interesting thing about Tempranillo given the previous question about alcohol levels, Tempranillo ripens at a lower sugar level than Shiraz and Cabernet, so having a significant proportion of Tempranillo in there helps bring the alcohol content down and gives the wine some lightness. If we look at it, at the colour and I'm not sure whether we can pick that up, but this is much lighter in colour than you would expect from a normal Australian Shiraz or Cabernet, and that's the sort of lightening and levelling effect that we're getting from Tempranillo. So the Tempranillo is providing a whole lot of benefits in this wine, not the least we're about to discover when we taste it. It still smells like Shiraz but not strongly. On the pallet there's some light plums coming from Shiraz, and then there's this wonderful drying, savoury sensation comes in. It's light and you can just think about lamb or steak –

H: I was going to say it's lamb or steak isn't it, all the way? Probably actually even a cheese dish – a blue cheese dish, something like that

A: No you're probably right. Once again where's the food?

H: Certainly lamb or steak.

A: You know you're talking about these things –

H: You know it's all part of this six course banquet that we're going to have any minute. Any minute

A: Alright

H: Off camera

A: The other interesting thing is that it tells you a lot about the value of blending. There's been a bit of a misconception amongst some consumers that wines that – real wine has to be a single variety, that it's important that you only drink Chardonnay or Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon. If you think about it of course, some of the most famous wines of the world – Bordeaux, invariably blends of 2, 3 sometimes 4 varieties. Now the label doesn't tell you that but they are. Champagne. THE perhaps greatest wine in the world is invariably a blend of different varieties

H: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, whatever

A: Yes. So don't be frightened of blends, people blend, not to make the wine go further but the weakness – every variety has its strength and weaknesses and the skill is to pick a series of varieties where the strength of one makes up for the weakness of the other, and in this case one plus one plus one doesn't equal 3 it probably equals 4 or 5

H: Yes you get – they're actually enhancing each other aren't they?

A: Precisely.

H: That's just a tremendous wine again

A: That's what blending is all about

H: Elegant wines but again in the 50cl there you know people will be able to enjoy two glasses – two decent – two 50ml glasses of wine and not have an annoying amount left in the bottom which by tomorrow is not going to taste as good

A: Yes exactly

H: So I mean presumably there's a lot of research that went into 50 – because you don't see many –

A: Presumably, I mean I've –

H: You know

A: I have to give this – my skills are more in winemaking than determining bottle sizes but I'm sure you're right, a lot of serious research went into it

H: They wouldn't have done it otherwise. Got a question here, someone says "I love Tempranillo – or Tempranille, and I didn't know you grew it in Australia." So that's the first part of the question

A: Yes and that's a valid question because until quite recently we didn't I won't go into the history but there was an embargo on bringing planting material into Australia from the 1880s until quite recently because of a disease called Phyllopertha which Australia doesn't have. T here are now ways that you can bring varieties in that are guaranteed to be clean. So something like Tempranillo is quite new in Australia, most of the Tempranillo vineyards would be planted in the last 10-15 years. So the frank answer is we're still really learning where the best parts of Australia to grow Tempranillo – and this is part of the fun, because we've got Tempranillo not Jacob's Creek – but Australia generally planted in 20 different regions and over the next five years we'll start to learn a lot more about where's the best place for Tempranillo. Same thing with Sangiovese, didn't exist in Australia until recently. So we're experimenting

H: There's always something new coming out

A: Always

H: Always. Philip thank you so much for taking us trhough – in a brief amount of time – through what turns out to be at the end of the day, what 9, 10 different grape varieties within 4 bottles

A: You're right yes

H: That's - you know you don't get to taste that much normally, that's fantastic. Thank you for your time, it's great to learn from a man with such great experience

A: Thank you Murray

H: I won't break the glass as we go. Thank you very much indeed for joining us as well. If we didn't get around to your question I'm really sorry, we did run out of time trying to put as many questions that were the same together. And you enjoy your wine, we'll enjoy ours and if you want more information then you can get online to jacobscreek.com. Cheers

A: Good cheer. Good cheer

H: Cheers

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