Anyone for cricket?

Thud is good at discovering interesting wines for me to try.  The ones he finds can be of interest due to an unusual varietal or blend, a compelling place of origin, or a gripping backstory.  Or, as is the case with this wine, a celebrity connection: former England cricket star Sir Ian Botham OBE (incidentally, born about 2 miles away from where I'm sitting).
The 2017 Botham All-Rounder, Cabernet Sauvignon (Australia) is definitely not a complex wine, but I wouldn't expect it to be for a wine that costs about £8.00 (currently about $10.50).  Produced from several vineyards in South Eastern Australia, and the result of a collaboration with Paul Schaafsma (innovative wine industry guru), The All-Rounder is a medium bodied, invariably quaffable, fruit forward, usual-suspect-berry-packed red.  Thanks Thud for the easy to swallow wine - bit of a dibbly dobbly, really.
Sir Ian was a rather big deal when I was in my teens (I do like a bit of cricket) and is considered one of England's best ever to play the game: excellent at both batting and bowling (an all-rounder).  As a retired sportsman, he is currently in an advert on the telly hawking the Revitive Medic, an electrical muscle stimulator/circulation booster.  He isn't drinking wine in the advert, but methinks he should be.  In my opinion, a glass of wine would certainly aid in the relaxation of Sir Botham's, or anybody's, aching muscles.

I love Groth!

I blame it all on my sister, La Serenissima.  She had played a little bit of tennis back in grammar school (with nuns, in habits), but come British summertime she'd be glued to the telly for the entire fortnight of Wimbledon.  I mean, nonstop.  And being 10 years younger, what was a little Vinogirl to do?  La Serenissima soon had me hooked. Nowadays, if I am not watching the news, or something English on PBS, I am watching tennis. Only now, I get to blame my fondness for the game on Vinomaker, who does actually play tennis 3 or 4 times a week.
I tried learning to play tennis a few years ago (a funny story in itself), but I wasn't very good, as, alas, most English people aren't.  So, in lieu of having countrymen and women to cheer on, I gravitated towards the Australian players who were all just so good at chasing that little white ball - I'm showing my age - around the court.
Tennis is hard, really hard, and that's why I appreciate a player like Sam Groth, a current Australian player on the ATP tour.  Sam has the distinction of having the fastest serve on record (that's serve, actually getting the ball in play), which was clocked at an incredible 163.4 mph.
I love tennis.  And I have it on good authority that Sam is, "a big wine fan."
Go Grothy!
Photograph courtesy of Samuel Groth, professional tennis player.

The Antipodes and South Africa.

Tonight's tour of the wine world takes me Down Under - at least it would if I was still in England - to Australia and New Zealand.  But not before a quick stop off in South Africa.
Despite the illustrious grapegrowing and winemaking traditions behind these three wine regions - wine grapes were planted in South Africa a good 100 years before California - I was a tad disappointed with the wines I tasted.  In fact, I found myself overwhelmingly unimpressed.  It's week 12 of my Wines of the World class and perhaps I'm a little jaded, after all I seem to recollect that I have enjoyed many quaffable Australian wines in the past.  So I am just going to mention one wine from each country that I think I could buy and drink without too much bother or fuss.
From South Africa, in spite of the wince-inducing pun in this wine's name, I quite enjoyed a Goats Do Roam, 2006 Goat-Roti (WO Coastal Region). Similar to a northern Rhône blend, this was an easy drinking wine. Hailing from New Zealand a Sauvignon blanc, of course, a Craggy Range, 2010 (Martinborough).  Heavy on the pyrazines, I could imagine myself drinking this very chilled on a very hot day.  And from Australia, a d'Arenburg, 2008 The Laughing Magpie (McLaren Vale) - a Rhône blend, again.
I photographed the Yalumba Viognier just because I liked the label with it's depiction of rootstocks, but I can add that this particular wine displayed strong varietal characteristics.  Of the 23 wines tasted tonight only one had a cork closure - a Lameka, 2009 The Marschall Shiraz (Barossa Valley) - suggestive of the notion that in the New World wine producers have thoroughly embraced new wine bottle closures.
Next...