12 hours ago, bermondburi said:

What sort of discounts you talking about, on a case? 

Buy 2 get one free.  Bottles or cases.  And, if you buy a few bottles, the tastings are free.  With our purchase, and after lunch there, we had a great time sampling their wines.  Super nice people.

14 hours ago, Disparate Dan said:

The Mont Clair box is still there. Unfortunately, they [deleted] it by adding "orchard fruits" - cheap, nasty fruit juice - as of mid last year and it's now off the menu chez nous. It never was exactly a conoisseur's drink; it was basic and did a job. Now, I wouldn't wash my car with it.

There are still some boxes that are not too awful (or adulterated) though: as a rough guide, if it says it's BOTTLED (or packed) in AU or RSA, you are probably ok. I've been mainlining 'Mountain Vineyards' - Chenin blanc and Shiraz - from RSA and as yet no ill effects - at least nothing worse than I used to get with Mont Clair!

Montclair always used to add Rosella to their red wines in order to be able to get round some excise duties, so I've always stayed away from it and of course they imported grape juice from Australia, added Rosella and other stuff to it, so I stayed away from that too.

 

There are many boxed wines from Australia and South Africa which have fruit juice added to them, in fact I think the majority of them do in order to get round duties and if you look very carefully you can see the words "fruit wine" somewhere on the box, although Montclair have omitted those words over the past year or two.

 

What I thought was a bit cheeky was the Australian boxed wines having fruit juice added, and being shipped here under the guise of being "good old Aussie wines" which they aren't, although there were a few in the early days but haven't seen them for a year or two now.

8 minutes ago, xylophone said:

What I thought was a bit cheeky was the Australian boxed wines having fruit juice added, and being shipped here under the guise of being "good old Aussie wines" which they aren't, although there were a few in the early days but haven't seen them for a year or two now.

Doesn't tally with my information sourced direct from shippers in Sydney.

17 minutes ago, Disparate Dan said:

Doesn't tally with my information sourced direct from shippers in Sydney.

Well, their information doesn't tally with mine, or what I read on the back of the boxes and the bottles which come from Australia.

 

Australia started doing this "nonsense" (adding fruit juice to wine) to be able to overcome the duties payable in countries like Thailand, and I will seek out a few bottles/boxes today on my travels and post a few for you.

 

Australia still produces and exports some very good wine, and I seek it out, but I always steer clear of the cheap and fruit added stuff, because after 50 years of collecting and drinking fine/good wines I'm not prepared to accept the fruit wine. 
 

3 hours ago, Disparate Dan said:

Doesn't tally with my information sourced direct from shippers in Sydney.

Well, I would certainly change shippers as a source of information on wine, as they obviously don't know what they are shipping!

 

The following casks/boxes of Australian wine are fruit wine: –
– Castle Creek
– Cedar dry red
– Bodegas Valley (yes an Aussie wine)
– Gossips
– Bushman's Gully

 

And these are also fruit wines: –
– Peter Vella
– Sol de Mayo (Chile)
– Robertson's wine (SA)
– Rumours

 

A previous poster mentioned that Sol de Mayo wine in bottle was a good buy, but it is also fruit wine.

 

Some people can handle fruit wine, and everyone to their own, but I won't and often can't as for some reason it tends to give me a headache, besides which, having been brought up on good wine from around the world, and having a couple of large cellars of my own, I won't settle for anything less than real wine (from grapes), and even then it doesn't have to be top-quality, just a drinkable wine to match some food I cook.