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Devil's Marbles Chardonnay

By , About.com Guide

A south Australian wine honors a north Australian landmark. (more below)
A faux terroirPhoto (c) 2006 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com, Inc.
The Devil's Marbles Conservation Reserve is an area of precariously balanced boulders deep in the northern Outback. These features form underground by subsurface weathering of granite, then are gradually unearthed by erosion. I show some in my Joshua Tree National Park photo tour. Elsewhere in the desert West, precarious boulders have been used as a crude seismoscope to research earthquakes in the prehistoric past.

Australia's Limestone Coast is on the western edge of the continent, far from Devil's Marbles. The wine is a good value, crisp and fragrant without most of the buttery oakiness typical of too many California vintages. What this region has to do with the deep Outback is beyond me, but the rocks make a pretty label.

Also on About.com:
Where to Go in Western Australia
Australian Wine Regions
Introduction to Australian Wines

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