From somewhere near Adelaide, South Australia Its CLEAN-UP AUSTRALIA DAY!

Yesterday (Mar 2) was national 'Clean up Australia Day'. On telly, they've been banging on about it for weeks. So along all streets and across all parks in this fair and sunburnt land people were out in force today with their plastic bags. Quite impressive, really.

So, I and my energetic wine buyers, over here as usual to cherrypick the new vintage before anyone else, decided we today, we should do our bit to help. Here’s how:

Vintage 08 has begun here unexpectedly early. A sudden 'spike' of hot weather and the grapes suddenly accelerated to full ripeness... About two weeks early.
Causing no end of chaos.
Worse than usual problems of space in wineries.
So we had some fun going round today.

"Clean-up?," we said, wittily, "Can we help you chaps"? Maybe you'd like that pile of boxes with our name on, over there moved out EARLY - like now - on to this week's ship for Britain? You know; "Clean-Up Australia?"
They love a joke, do Aussies.
"Right....That'd be great, Tony".
"Well... If you forgot that price increase/cut off a few dollars more. Etc. maybe we really could" ?? ....
All fall about laughing. But we got the deals in the end.

Of course to avoid space problems in our own warehouse when this lot turns up in a couple of months we too must shift a few extra cases now.

So here’s the – shameless – salesy bit. Help us (and yourself!) by having a look at the tempting deals we’ve got on the Aussie wines in our cellars right now. I just had a spin through the rest of the site and noticed we’ve a 12-for-8 deal (if I read correctly, that’s four free bottles!) of Kelly Country Shiraz.

I’ve always been a big fan of this – has all the satisfying oomph we Aussie fans expect (no, demand!), but because it’s from cool-climate Victoria, there’s great elegance and a lovely white pepper edge here too. Same deal – four free bottles – on Warburn Estate Merlot – think Aussie Pomerol. Very chcocolaty, very moreish. That’s just a couple – plenty more to get you thirsty.

Do have a look – you’ll save the buyers and me from being criticised for over-enthusiastic buying – but more importantly you’ll drink very well and make some very tasty savings. Cheers!