COQ AU RIESLING
Ingredients
• 2 x 15ml tablespoons garlic oil
• 150g bacon, thinly sliced (lardons)
• 1 leek, finely sliced
• 12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 3 bay leaves
• 300g oyster mushrooms, torn into strips
• 1 x 75cl bottle Riesling
• double cream (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill to serve
Method
Serves: 6
1. Heat the oil in a casserole or large, wide pan and fry the lardons until crisp.
2. Add the sliced leek and soften it with the lardons for a minute or so.
3. Cut chicken thighs into 2 or 3 pieces each, tip them into the pan with the bay leaves, torn mushrooms and wine.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste and bring to the boil, cover the pan and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes, stirring in the double cream for the last couple of minutes if you want. Like all stews, this tastes its mellowest best if you let it get cold and then reheat the next day. But it's no hardship to eat straight off. Whichever, serve sprinkled with dill and together with some buttered noodles.
Nigella.com

Ever wonder how many grapes it takes to produce 1 bottle of wine? Let’s start in the vineyard with an average of 3 tons per acre, or 3000 kgs. This will yield approx. 2100 litres of juice which will be fermented and fill about 9 barrels. Each 220 litre barrel will fill about 293 bottles or 24 cases. This equates to approx. 1 kgs of grapes needed to fill 1 bottle.

Mount Barker is situated in the middle of Great Southern, with strong continental aspects together with marri soils and lateritic gravely and sandy loams provided from the granite rock backdrop the region is suited to Riesling, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir.

 Grapes were first planted here in 1859, when original settler George Egerton-Warburton planted vines on his St Werburgh's property  and bottled his first vintage two years later. However it is  in 1965 the celebrated winemaker Jack Mann went to Mount Barker and planted the first experimental cuttings at Forrest Hill which started the Mount barker Region as a premium wine growing region.

The climate of the Mount Barker region during the growing season offers warm and sunny days providing important sunlight availability and excellent fruit ripening conditions, while the cool nights enhance and retain acidity. This often results in the production of exceptional fruit that in turn, makes for a sublime wine drinking experience.

Average ripening period sunshine hours at Mount Barker together with the whole season measure of sunshine hours are nearly identical with those of Bordeaux. It is because of the climate that and terrioir that James Halliday is quoted as saying "Mount Barker Produces high-class Rieslings, notable for their purity and intensity courtesy of their natural high acidity.'