Last modified on Tue 3 Aug 2021 21.47 EDT
Across Australia, so many of us are staying at home right now. Although we might long for the day when we can gather around a table and open a great bottle of wine, for those in cities that are locked down, it could be a while.
In the meantime, you might try an alternative approach to enjoying wine at home: drinking a magnum over the course of several days, as you would with boxed wine.
A magnum is twice the size of a regular bottle, at 1.5 litres it contains around 16 glasses of wine. If it’s a quality wine from a reputable producer, once you’ve opened a magnum and poured yourself a glass or two, you can simply pop the cork back in – or, even better, stock up on a few cheap, versatile wine stoppers (we use these at home). Once you’ve closed the bottle properly, just place the wine in your fridge door for another night.
Manze, Melbourne s first Mauritian wine bar, coming soon to Errol Street
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Flat out or time out? How Melbourne chefs are playing lockdown 5.0
Emma Breheny
Photo: Eddie Jim
Lucy Whitlow hasn t been in a restaurant kitchen for more than a week, but she s still kept to a strict schedule. The pastry chef at Osteria Ilaria in Melbourne s CBD is also a budding cheesemaker and COVID lockdown means more time to hone her craft.
Mornings are spent making new cheeses, which takes about four hours, then in the afternoon she checks on those already draining in one of four refrigerators. Others might need brushing with brine to stop them drying out. Later, it s time to make her clabber – a term for fermented milk that behaves in a similar way to sourdough culture. Whitlow must feed the clabber 12 hours before she wants to make her next batch of cheese.
Group-friendly and low-alcohol: Home Grown is a different kind of bottled cocktail
Emma Breheny Home Grown s Creamy Soda Highball, Ginger and Mango Spritz, and Strawberry and River Mint Spritz.
A group of Melbourne s most talented drinks wizards is bottling the Australian spirits boom with Home Grown, a range of large-format batched cocktails made entirely with local products.
Home Grown s current line-up stars Ned Whisky, Okar s Island bitter, Grainshaker vodka and Anther gin across two spritzes and a whisky highball that s reminiscent of cream soda.
The idea came from Worksmith s Michael Bascetta (also a co-owner of Bar Liberty and Capitano) and Roscoe Power, who wanted to offer the quality found in Australia s small-serve batched drinks but on a larger scale. Collaborating with Seb Reaburn (Anther Gin, Topshelf Spirits) and Fancy Free s Ryan Noreiks, they created the first release of Home Grown.