The Tribute

I was reading MAN ABOUT TOWN magazine yesterday and was quite touched that they had a small tribute page to, the king of photography, Richard Avedon.

Richard Avedon, along with Robert Doisneau have given me quite a lot of inspiration through their maticulous work and beautiful black and white shoots. Long live the king...

This is by far one of my favourite's .... Homage to Munkacsi

The Other Night

Last night I got a rather late email from a friend and wine contact, Sommelier Ben Knight. Ben runs a company called BenandWine (benandwine.com). He writes wine list's for three gorgeous restaurants in Melbourne (The Commoner, Bottega Restaurant & Punch Lane), consult's for numerous little wineries, write's occasional columns in newspaper's, conducts wine lessons and can also be seen at regular tastings, which is exactly how I met him.

The email entailed two free available seats for his French wine class, which one of the numerous classes he conducts often. Myself and my good friend Jonathan headed down to the class in the city on Swanston street. The restaurant it was held at was "La Vita Buona" (see below) and fantastic place to stop off and have a quick after work snack or nibbles. The wine list and some of the drinks on offer by the glass are amazing and worth a stop off. Lot's of internationals for very cheap price's by the glass.

The class included eleven different glasses. One champagne, four white's, four red's, a sticky and a cognac. It was great to see how far I'd come in my palate and tasting knowledge since the last class and would STRONGLY suggest these classes to anyone. At $50 a pop, it's an absolute steal, I literally have no idea how Ben make's any money from it. At the end of the class too the bottle's are left for anyone to take or finish off there.

Myself and Jony thought it'd be a great idea to grab the Southern Rhone Rouge (although the Beaujolais was quite nice) and the beautiful Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise sticky and heade off to his work (Council Bar) just on Little Collins St to grab a bite for dinner.

The '06 Beaumes-de-Venise (pronounced, BOAM DE VE-NISE and see below) from Domaine De Durban was another fantastic sticky. Almost comparable to a '05 Umani Ronchi Botrytis Sauv Blanc I had a week or so ago at a tasting which was just amazing, absolutely coated your mouth with honey and golden syrupy flavours. This Muscat was very much the same however it had a bit more alcohol/acidity at the back of the palate which was surprisingly nice for a dessert wine and would be great with some goats cheese or maybe even as a pre-dinner drink to get your stomach churning ready for food.

Once we arrived at Council Bar, a beautiful little tapas come cocktail bar at night, jony ordered these amazing prawn spring roll things that were almost like prawn crostini with a caramel dipping sauce. We also got some bread with some dips and of course some croquettes.

What a nice way to spend a usually boring Monday evening, mmm.

The Future

Many months have passed since I made my last past. Over a year in fact....

Since then I've acquired myself a fantastic/gorgeous girlfriend who I've been with for over a year and a half now and loving every minute with her (looks like a combination of Freja Beha Erichsen and Leighton Meester off GG, see pictures below). I lost my original job yet acquired an even better one (assistant sommelier at The Botanical in Melbourne), started my first year of university and finally come to the conclusion about possibly what I want to do with my life.

This blog shall now be about what I enjoy. Something that can help me in my search for what career I want to pursue. Right now I'm completing a Commerce degree at University and working part time as an assistant Sommelier in at a beautiful restaurant in, the leafy suburb of, South Yarra (right across from the botanic gardens) in Melbourne. I quite enjoy what I do, particularly serving some expensive Bordeaux's and Bourgogne Rouge, however I can't see myself continuing working night shifts past the age of 22.

I'd much prefer a job where I can enjoy the earnings of a firm worker yet enjoy the interesting and good things in life that come in and the freedom of having your weekend off and having a quaint little apartmet in South Yarra with my partner/girlfriend. I'd love to work somewhere in one of the big four firms or possibly in a publishing firm like Conde Nast Publications.

I'm quite big on anything culutural - wine, clothes, etiquette (due to my lack of it), economics/entrepreneurship, photography, film, architecture, language and of course food. From now I shall model my post's like my very own magazine focusing on these vary interests. I'm going to take inspiration from magazine's such as Mens Vouge, Mens Stlye, GQ and most importantly my facourite magazine, MAN ABOUT TOWN.

So from now on I shall make a post at least once a week and keep you all updated with the going's on of my new and exciting life after high school into the adult world and lifestyle.