Daniel Tillett

Clonakilla O’Riada Shiraz 2009

Daniel — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:38:12 +0000

Tim Kirk from Clonakilla is one of the better Australian winemakers (just a slight understatement). Clonikilla flagship Shiraz is rightly considered one of the best Australian wines, but at $100 a bottle is a little outside my budget. Last year I saw a new wine from Clonikilla – the O’Riada Shiraz at $35. The second wines of great winemakers in good years are normally bargains and this wine was the perfect example of this theory. The 2009 vintage is everything you could wish for at this price and is better than most wines I have had that cost more than twice the price. I was only able to grab 3 bottles and Dan Murphys were not able to get any more in for me (unfortunately the 2010 is not anywhere near as good). I had my last bottle tonight with roast rib eye and it was perfect – smooth, powerful and in harmony with the meal. Now if only I could get more :(

Cost: $35
Value: >$70

New iPad

Daniel — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:27:41 +0000

On a bit of a impulse I decided to try my luck getting a new iPad at BigW on Friday morning (I was driving past around the time they open). While there were quite a few apple desperadoes ahead of me in the queue (I was last in line), I thought it might be worth the wait. Luckily they still had the model I wanted (32G wifi black) by the time they got down to me so I bought it.

I didn’t get much chance to play with it yesterday (work), but I have had a bit of a chance today. I already have the version 1 iPad. I can say the only important difference between the two is the screen. While this might not seem that important the new screen is immaculate – so much that it makes the old iPad seen like something out of the 80s. I can’t stress enough how much better the new screen is than the old. If like me you use your iPad mostly to read then the new iPad is not just an incremental upgrade, it is revolutionary. It is a shame that Steve didn’t live to see it released as I am sure this is what he always had in mind what the iPad should be – maybe Apple’s stock will reach $700 yet.

MySQL Problem: Column count of mysql.proc is wrong. Expected 20, found 16. The table is probably corrupted;

Daniel — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:20:50 +0000

I was dumping and importing my mysql databases between my production server which has 5.0.95 and the my test server which has 5.1.61 and was getting “Column count of mysql.proc is wrong. Expected 20, found 16. The table is probably corrupted;” on the test server.

To make a long story short apparently there is some bug in mysql that causes this when moving database from 5.0 to 5.1. To fix this you need to run
mysql_upgrade --force -uroot -p
(then enter your mysql root password) on the migrated server. You have to use the --force option or else it won’t fix the problem. I hope this saves someone else some time.

Pio Cesare Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese 2009

Daniel — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:22:11 +0000

I am a bit of a sucker for new things (at the supermarket if it say “new” I will buy it). On this basis I bought a bottle of Pio Cesare Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese 2009. I of course had never heard of Grignolino before (who has), but what the heck I thought why not try this wine. Price is usually a very good indication of quality (unfortunately) and at $30 I thought it should be drinkable. I am glad I took the risk as the wine is very,very drinkable. It is rather difficult to describe (Grignolino is apparently a rather rare, but distinctive Italian wine according to my google research), but I guess the closest would be to say it can fill the role of a pinot while being different. If you are looking for a medium bodied, yet robust, wine that can pair up well with food then this is something to try. If I had to sum it up in one word then that word would be yum. I will certainly be buying more.

Price $30

Value $45

The Hut by Dalwhinnie Shiraz 2010

Daniel — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:37:09 +0000

This is a great food wine. Too many wines are made to drink on their own and not enough are made to have with food. A good food wine should have flavour and depth without overpowering the great meal you are eating. The Hut by Dalwhinnie 2010 Shiraz is one of those wines that manages to be meet both requirements. This is not a wine that needs to be cellared for 20 years before drinking – it is one of those wine to open and enjoy now.

One thing I rather like about this wine is the label. It manages to be different without trying too hard. Pick some up from Dan Murphys before it all sells out.

Cost. $23

Value. $30

Installing Windows 7 on Mac Mini without a MacOS X Lion Partition

Daniel — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 07:28:02 +0000

The Apple mac mini make a rather nice silent and quite powerful Windows box (there just isn’t any other hardware out there as good). The problem is if you install Windows 7 you have to keep a Mac OS partition if you use BootCamp which is a waste of drive space. The second problem is the new mac minis don’t have a DVD drive anymore so it is not possible to install from a Window 7 DVD. The final problem is you need all the drivers that Apple supplies, so even if you manage to install from a image it would not work.

It occurred to me that it might not be necessary to keep the MAC OS X partition if I installed from the BootCamp created USB installer. This would allow me to remove the Mac OS X partition in the Windows install process. I gave it a go and it worked. The basic procedure is as follows:

Boot into Mac OS X Lion and use BootCamp to create the USB installer with the Apple drivers. You will need an Windows 7 iso image and a USB drive. I am not sure of the capacity you need for the drive, but the drive I used was 16 GB. Make sure you don’t have anything you want on the USB drive as it will be deleted in the process of creating the installer.
Restart the Mac Mini holding down the option key and select the USB drive to boot.
Windows 7 should start up and take you through the installation process. Select the custom installation and when it shows the hard drive delete all the Mac partitions and create a new partition for Windows. Continue with the installation as per normal.
Once you are in Windows 7 go to the USB drive and install the Apple drivers.
Now you have the drivers installed you can download and install all the Windows updates – so much fun :)

Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz 2006

Daniel — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00:04 +0000

The Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz 2006 is one of great bargains out of Dan Murphys cellar release program. On release a few years back I must have bought two or three cases of this wine and one of my big wine regrets was that I did not buy more. It is great example of a Clare Valley Shiraz and in a good year one of the best value wines out there. While 2007 & 2008 were not great vintages, the 2006 vintage was fantastic. The 2006 vintage has really settle down into a great food friendly wine. It amazes me how little extra Dan Murphys charges for some cellar release wines since this is only a few dollars more than the release price. Grab some before it all goes.

Price: $23

Value: $30

Pirathon by Kalleske Barossa Shiraz 2009

Daniel — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 23:50:30 +0000

Thankfully 2009 was a much better vintage in SA than the drought disasters of 2007 and 2008. One of the better wines to come out of the Barossa Valley is the 2009 Pirathon by Kalleske. At around $20 it is has all the great qualities of a good, food friendly Barossa Shiraz at a pretty reasonable price. My only complaint is Pirathon has decided to spend a fortune on the bottle, cap, and label. The bottle is a custom design with their logo and name embedded in the glass, the label has metal print, and even the cap is customised and embossed with their logo. I know this makes for a great looking bottle, but I would have preferred we instead got the same wine in a standard bottle for $15 or $16. It is what is in the bottle that matters.

Price $20

Value $30

Kooyong Massale Pinot Noir 2009

Daniel — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:11:00 +0000

Australia is blest with a great climate, that not only make it a fantastic place to live, but also means that our good wine makers can turn great wines year after year. Although we can expect a certain level of quality when we buy a known wine, on occasions the elements conspire to produce something extraordinary. Just such an example is the Massale Mornington Peninsula 2009 Pinot Noir produced by Sandro Mosele of Koyong Estate. Sandro creates great wines year to year, that while above my normal price threshold, really offer great value. His Massale Pinot Noir is such a wine. The 2007, 2008, and 2010 (current vintage) are all great examples of minimally oaked Mornington Peninsula pinots, but the 2009 is truly extraordinary. I managed to pick up a bottle on release and was blown away. By the time I headed back to buy more (two days later) the vintage had sold out. After cursing myself for not buying more when I had the chance, I tried to cheer myself up with the thought that at least I had got to try one bottle.

I recently managed to track down four bottle on the net and so had the chance to try it again. It certainly lived up to my memory with a concentration and balance that brought to mind that description of a great pinot as being a “iron fist in a velvet glove”. I have tried to find why Sandro managed to make such a great wine in 2009 and it appears that grape yield was well below average for this vintage. It seems to be a classic of example of quality being inversely proportional to production.

Price $27

Value $50

Watershed Margaret River Sense Shiraz 2007

Daniel — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 06:25:31 +0000

In Eastern Australia 2007 was a disastrous vintage – it was far too hot and resulted in a huge number of overly alcoholic (15%+) prune wines. Thankfully we have Western Australia to save us from bad wine. 2007 was a great vintage in the west (2008 wasn’t too bad either) and one of the better reds to come out of the west is Watershed’s Margaret River Sense Shiraz 2007. This wine is a great example of a Margaret River Shiraz from this year – silky smooth with a beautiful depth and balance. Unfortunately the 2008 vintage is no where near as good as the 2007, but you may be still able to find the 2007 if you hurry – my local Dan Murphy’s had it in stock until a few weeks back when I grabbed what they had left.

Price $17

Value $25