Wine wanderings 1 of 2

Notes from “I couldn’t make this stuff up” file.

• Available September, soon to rival Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition: the sultry women of Austrian wine, 2012.

Featured women (men need not apply) are attractive, shot “tastefully” in black and white, almost-bare in barrel rooms, fetchingly photogenic beside fermentation tanks, strolling through vineyards in lingerie and stilettos (you know they do this all the time).

They are not models. They are actual Austrian winemakers. The Jungwinzerinnen Kalender (“Young Female Winemakers Calendar” if you’re rusty on your German) is the brainchild of publisher Ellen Ledermüller-Reiner.

Ellen told decanter.com that her calendar: “should attract attention and be sexy, but not cheap or overly erotic.” Ahem, right.

She gets “not cheap” right by charging $36 per calendar. OK, guys, you have key words, Google away.

• Mollydooker million dollar mashup. Australian winemaker Mollydooker—a favorite of this column—suffered a forlorn forklift failure in late July. Some 5,544 bottles of 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove Shiraz, one-third of the production of their $185-a-bottle flagship wine, worth more than a million dollars, crashed to the ground at a wharf in Port Adelaide thanks to a fumbling forklift operator.

The forklift company whined it moves hundreds of pallets every day of stuff that wouldn’t matter if they dropped it 50 feet, but screwed up only premium container of the shift. We’ve all had days like that.

Officials searched through debris. Less than 500 bottles survived. Mourn away, mate.

Recommended:

• Hugl Weine Grüner Veltliner Qualitätswein Niederösterreich. Grüner Veltliner: Austria’s most-planted grape. Crisp, great clarity, clean; gooseberry, lentils; pour cold on hot day. Liter bottle. $13

• Mollydooker Two Left Feet. Shiraz-cab-merlot. Big fruit, big spice, big finish, big wine. Burst of dark berries, cherries; plums. $26

• Mollydooker Shiraz South Australia The Boxer. Wow fruit bomb; berries, plums; juicy, jammy, warm oak, smoke, spice, everything nice. $26