Australian Wine Vintages 2008; Gold Book; Gold Book

'Wine is curious stuff. Unlike beer, baked beans, B.H.P. shares, old porcelain or anything else that people drink, manufacture, invest in or collect, wine has a birth, a childhood, a maturity, as seility and a death. It can be pretty or ugly, subtle or coarse, complex or obvious, brash or backward. It changes every year of vineyard, with every different grape variety from which it is made, every time a new winemaker is employed (or every time an old winemaker tries new tricks), and every time a different food accompaniment emphasizes a specific component of its taste. It beguiles, intoxicates, soothes, excites and relaxes. It can inflame the young lover and provide solace for his grandfather; it can render conversation unnecessary, and yet seduce a wine writer into the kind of intemperate verbal excesses such as this paragraph. It is an essential ingredient of life, as complex as life, and as varying as humanity.'