Murder Down Under: May 2020 Book + Bottle Pairing

I was joking with a friend the other day about how I really should diversify my reading and finally pick up a book by white male. Maybe it was because I am a woman myself, or maybe because society has been placing extra attention on reading more diversely, but I had been reading primarily women and women of color over the past year and had unintentionally biased myself in an opposite direction. I am deliberate in my attempt to make my pairings diverse in both author and genre, and we did choose Steinbeck’s East of Eden as a pairing last year, but that’s a classic, not a contemporary male author. I wanted something more overtly masculine, if that’s an appropriate descriptor. In flipping through some of the interesting books that have passed through the shelves recently, one in particular stuck out to me, and when I poked through it I knew I had my answer. 

The book Scrublands stuck out to me immediately because it takes place in Australia. I adore Australia and all things Aussie, and this book seemed authentic - it takes place mid-drought in a rural Australian town and the author is from Canberra. The added bonus is that it’s a mystery/thriller, a genre I rarely indulge in. From the back cover description alone, the book draws you in.

In Riversend, an isolated Australian community afflicted by an endless drought, a young priest does the unthinkable: he kills five parishioners before being taken down himself.

The book in fact is not just about this one murder, but instead weaves multiple layers of stories together as the mystery becomes increasingly complex. The main character, Martin, is a journalist who moderately begrudgingly takes the assignment to report on the church murder a year after the horrific event. Somehow, he becomes much more involved than he anticipated as another round of mysterious deaths open up more questions than Martin can answer. I won’t say too much more about the mysteries because the fun in reading them is navigating the author's sleight of hand and the feeling of suspense as you try to solve the puzzle. 

From page one, author Chris Hammer’s descriptive language sets a scene so desolate your own mouth gets parched. It feels like an old Western but the story is contemporary. You can see the red dust, the outdated wooden siding, and the sun-wrinkled skin of the characters. The book takes place in the fictional towns of Riversend and Bellington, but the inspiration for the backdrop is very real - an expansive place called Riverina in New South Wales, Australia. It’s literally the scrublands - dry and dusty and hot with some scrub brush for vegetation that the kangaroos can munch on.

(Check out this interview with the author that includes some photos of the desolate landscape that inspired the book.)

Communities like this are dependent on the rivers that run through the region for irrigation for their crops, including wine grapes. Without this water, towns literally cannot survive, and it is this barren backdrop that Hammer thought to set his mystery novel. The local river has run dry and the town is mid-way through a historic drought. It presents like hell, itself, a perfect setting for a mystery about a murderous priest.

To help you combat all this dust and this heat, we’re pairing this month’s book with a Hunter Valley Semillon. Hunter Valley is a smaller, well-regarded wine region within the larger and less prestigious Riverina region in New South Wales Australia with a cooler, damper condition than the surrounding heat of Riverina in which this story takes place. The wine too, is refreshing, and thirst-quenching, and provides a respite amongst the death, suspense, and insipid heat of the novel.

Semillon is a classic grape variety that originated in Bordeaux, France, where it is often blended with sauvignon blanc to make dry, white Bordeaux Blanc, and it also has the ability to become the indulgent, rich dessert wine Sauternes. In France, the semillon serves the purpose of rounding out the sauvignon blanc - it makes the resulting blend more mouth filling, round, and rich. In France it’s pronounced sem-ee-yawn but in Australia where semillon wines are nothing short of national treasures (Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible Second Edition, pg. 70), the Aussies pronounce it sem-il-lawn. The style of the wine changes a bit too, down under. While they can make rich, thick, and sweet botrytized wine, the predominant style is one that is lean, tart, and racy. 

Because of the cooler, cloudier, damper climate found in Hunter Valley, wine grapes could be exposed to a fungus called botrytis, or noble rot. Contrary to how it sounds, this is often a desirable condition. The fungus attaches to the grape and sucks out the water inside, leaving a much more concentrated and richly flavored juice. It can also add compelling exotic flavors like ginger, chamomile, honey, and wax to the wine. This is what happens in Bordeaux to make Sauternes, but in Hunter Valley, the Aussies tried to prevent this by picking earlier in the season when the grapes were a little less ripe before the rot had time to take hold. What resulted was an incredibly fresh, lively, refreshing wine that has become extremely well- regarded itself.

Tyrrell’s is one of the original wine producers in the region and they make the most awarded Hunter Valley semillon, called Vat 1. That one would run you about $90 a bottle, so I’ve picked their basic Hunter Valley semillon that is much more approachable in price and still provides that tingling springboard of energy that these wines are known for. This semillon is a super aromatic wine with an indulgent nose. You’ll pick up on the honey, flowers, and light stone fruit. Its aromas excite because you can feel the tension building as the wine seems bursting with kinetic energy. Smelling it, it seems to move around alive on your nostrils. A sip of the wine is thirst quenching and refreshing but reflects that tightness that was apparent on the nose. The fruit is tart, not ripe and very dry - a reflection of the earlier harvest that preserves the driving acidity in the wine. There’s some tart tangerine, and under ripe white peach with a hint of pleasant grapefruit bitterness on the finish. 

What’s cool about this wine is how much it can change over time. That acidity that is so linear and driven when young allows the wine to develop in the bottle over time. That Vat 1 semillon could/should age in bottle for ten years or more. As semillon ages, the character expands - becoming rich and almost lanolin or oily-like in texture and developing a nuttiness that aligns extremely well with the crystalline ginger honey notes that were mere wisps in the young wine. If you enjoy this wine, maybe it’s worth stashing one away to try again in a few years to see how the wine changes.

This particular wine is meant to be drunk relatively young because it is so absolutely fresh and that is one of the reasons that we paired it with Scrublands. Its freshness is a respite from the dry and scorching backdrop of the novel, but the acidity of the wine is on par with the tension in the story’s plot. 

You can purchase this Book + Bottle pairing from our online store.