Recipe of the Month

Dina Grilli's quick and easy recipe for delicious Linguine al Vongole is now on our recipe page.  For a taste of Venice at home click here

10/11/2011 at 5:43 PM Permalink

'Intensely flavoured and incredibly drinkable' 94 points for Zamberlan

Tony Love's Top 100 wines gives our 2009 Primo Estate Zamberlan Cabernet Sangiovese 94 points describing it as:

'A waft of oak to begin, with dark chocolate and black fruits, this was passed over dried out skins of the famed JOSEPH Moda in the ripasso method. Beautifully textured, intensely flavoured and incredibly drinkable, finishing with savoury tannins yet a lightness of being.'

Tony recommends pairing Zamberlan with rosemary lamb and we agree!

Click here now and order your 2009 Zamberlan - FREE delivery and Primo Estate extra virgin olive oil with each case

09/11/2011 at 5:43 PM Permalink

'Summer in a bottle' 03 Points for La Biondina

This weekend's Top 100 Wines gives our 2011 Primo Estate La Biondina Colombard a wonderful write-up in 'Great Buys for $20 and Under'. Tony Love writes:

'Primo's colombard-based white is summer in a bottle. This is its 30th consecutive bottling expressing electric freshness, lime, mint and sweet lifts of pine-lime splice. Crunchy as ever and crying out for shellfish.'

Buy your 2011 Primo Estate La Biondina Colombard today - click here
FREE delivery and Primo Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil with every case

09/11/2011 at 5:21 PM Permalink

'Superb' 94 Points for JOSEPH d'Elena

Tony Love has chosen our JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio as his 'Editor's Pick' in this year's Top 100 Wines. Tony writes:

'One of the variety's Australian benchmarks working fruit mostly from McLaren Vale's eastern hills sub-region of Clarendon into a crisp, correct grigio style, tidily steered with subtle florals, poise and balance and an engaging minerality beside classic white skinner pear, apple and citrus flavours. Superb.'

Click here to buy 2011 JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio.
FREE delivery and FREE Primo Estate extra virgin olive oil with each case.

09/11/2011 at 5:12 PM Permalink

Meet the Tuscan

Meet The Tuscan Pizza Lunch - SOLD OUT

Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th December 2011
12noon - 3pm at our McMurtrie Road Cellar Door, McLaren Vale

The ultimate Italy vs Australia taste test as the new vintage of Primo & Co The Tuscan Shiraz Sangiovese is poured alongside its Australian 'twin' Primo Estate Il Briccone Shiraz Sangiovese. It's new vs old world with two great Shiraz Sangiovese blends, both made by Joe but one is Italian and one is Australian. Will Italy or Australia get your vote?

Starting with a glass of the JOSEPH Sparkling Red served in the courtyard with Tuscan style pork skewers followed by a selection of pizzas fresh from the woodoven as Il Briccone and The Tuscan are poured side by side for you to compare. Relax and unwind over a selection of Italian and Australian cheeses as you sample our Primo Estate Zamberlan and finish off with refreshing watermelon slices. A great day of Italian style food and wine in the heart of McLaren Vale wine country.

Just $50 per person including food and all wines. This event has now sold out, please email cellardoor@primoestate.com.au to add your name to the waiting list. Make sure you are a member of our Amici Primo mailing list and be the first to know about our calendar of celebration days.

02/11/2011 at 8:00 PM Permalink

Primo Secco Carnevale

Thursday, 27 October 2011 03:36

Sunday 20th November
from 3pm
The Crown & Sceptre Hotel, Adelaide

Celebrating the launch of our Italian style sparkler Primo Secco with a Venetian Carnevale in the heart of Adelaide. Complementary glass of Primo Secco for the first 100 Amici Primo, Italian nibbles, relaxed house music in the beer garden and winemaker Daniel Zuzolo introducing Primo Secco plus Primo Secco cocktails starting at $8. Come and join the fun, FREE entry for the first 100 Amici Primo to bring this printed page, $10 for non-Amici.

27/10/2011 at 8:36 PM Permalink

JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio does it again

Tony Love has reviewed the new 2011 JOSPEH d'Elena Pinot Grigio on www.taste.com.au.  Tony's review is printed in the Adelaide Advertiser, Melbourne Herald Sun, Sydney Daily Telegraph, Brisbane Courier Mail, Hobary Mercury and The West Australian, so every corner of the land now appreciates what our Amici Primo have known all along!

Tony writes:

The Primo Estate crew has done it again with this PG, now one of the variety's Australian benchmarks, working fruit mostly from McLaren Vale's eastern hills sub-region of Clarendon into a crisp, correct grigio style, tidily steered with subtle florals, poise and balance, and an engaging minerality beside classic white skinned pear, apple and citrus flavours. Superb.

Adelaide (super zone), SA, $28

Rating: ****
4.5 out of 5 stars - A cut above
Value: Top shelf and fine
Food: Flathead with butter sauce

Click here to order the 2011 JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio today

12/10/2011 at 8:21 PM Permalink

La Biondina 2011 Review

Paddy Kendler has reviewed the 2011 Primo Estate La Biondina Colombard in the September issue of AEU magazine.  Paddy writes:

Absolutely delightful, bursting with fresh and lively passionfruit and citrus aromas and flavours.  Make a point of searching out this current vintage, not older ones.

Click here to order the current 2011 La Biondina Colombard

29/09/2011 at 11:05 PM Permalink

JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio review

David Bray has reviewed the 2011 JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio in the September 2011 issue of QHA Review.

STYLISH GRIGIO

JOSEPH d'Elena Grigio is Joe Grilli's tribute to his daughter; grapes planted in the same week she was born in 1998, now producing a lovely savoury style with minerality and elegance.

Click here to order the 2011 JOSEPH d'Elena Pinot Grigio

23/09/2011 at 7:21 PM Permalink

Oz Clarke rates Primo in his top 250 Wines

Renowned UK wine critic and star of Oz and James wine adventures has reviewed the following wines in his newly released 2012 Best 250 wines book.

No. 5 2010 Primo Estate La Biondina Colombard

"This is one of Australia's Most remarkable white wines. Born in the unheralded dusty plains north of Adelaide from a patch of the decidedly untrendy colombard grapes, it seems to change and get better with every vintage and throws up endless arrays of unlikely flavour variations. This year it somehow mixes the passionfruit's thrillingly sharp yet scented personality with the crispness of a green apple and the crunchiness of cos lettuce. But it's not finished. The texture is as the glistening blade of a rapier, yet there's some savoury warmth like polished leather and a nip of persimmon bitterness. Where did all that come from? It'll be different next vintage.

No. 15 2009 Primo Estate Il Briccone Shiraz Sangiovese

Joe Grilli is one of very few people to match Sangiovese with Shiraz - but it makes absolute sense. In McLaren Vale, the Shiraz can get just a bit too ripe and chunky, but the Sangiovese holds onto its acidity and grippy herb scent as though its life depends on it. The Shiraz dominates, with its lush, ripe blackcurrants, its chocolate and its Jersey cream gooiness, but the Sangiovese throws in a leaner streak of dry, chewy fruit. Savoury scent and menthol bite that makes for a great, original drink

No. 26 2009 Primo Estate Joseph Moda

Remarkable wine, a thrilling hybrid of old Italian habits and modern Australian know-how. Joe Grilli is one of South Australia's most talented winemakers, and he's of Italian descent. Here he uses an old north-east Italian method of drying the grapes before fermenting them. This reduces the volume, increases the sugar and density of flavour, but also adds a brilliant kind of sweet-sour uncertainty, which means every vintage of Moda ages quite differently to the one before - but they do all age, superbly. This is still earthy, with a grape-skin graininess and bitter black chocolate depth, with the fruit showing as dates, dried figs and prunes. For a thonking great mouthful, drink it now; but keep it for 10 years and it will emerge as one of Australia's greatest red wine experiences.

SPARKLING

Primo Estate Primo Secco NV

New from one of Australia's winemaking greats - and as usual from Joe Grilli of Primo Estate, it overdelivers. It's only 11.5% alcohol but it bursts with fresh ripe flavours - apple blossom and blackcurrant leaf aromas, ripe apple flesh fruit and the gentle acid reminder of boiled lemons, all transformed into happy juice by a cascade of soft-edged foam.

Primo Estate Joseph Sparkling Red NV (disgorged 2010)

Here it is. The modern history of Australian red wine in a single bottle. There's Shiraz from every vintage since the 1980's, a random selection of early 1960s and 1970s Australian red wines, all piled in with a big barrel of Moda Cabernet-Merlot to make the mother of all base wines. It is then liquered with old Australian fortified wines - so much age, so much history, so many good and bad times, wines fatigued, wines supernaturally bright. This shouldn't fizz, it shouldn't foam; most of these flavours should be slumbering in the cobwebbed gloom of a forgotten cellar, tasting of leather aprons and smoke and the sweaty sparks of the blacksmith's forge. They shouldn't be in a fresh, young bottle and, dammit, they shouldn't foam, it's not respectful. This mixes old Burgundian decay, old toffee-prune Shiraz, the withered cream of old Grenache and Mataro, the distant memory of blackberry and blackcurrant when the wines were young and hopeful. All thrown together in this last-chance cauldron, this writing, foaming medley of old and very old, renewed to laughter and delight by the magic of bubbles.

Cheers, Oz

Click here to order Primo Estate and JOSEPH wines online

20/09/2011 at 7:16 PM Permalink