Francois Millet – Melody of the Old Guard

Francois Millet – Melody of the Old Guard

“Be sure that the land is visible in the glass. That is the essence of what we do”. Francois Millet If I could add my own caveat to Francois’s imperishable phrase, it would be to do justice to the fruit. Is the wine as delicious as the fruit and vineyard promised and,...
The Americans in Sydney

The Americans in Sydney

A recent invite to an American wine tasting had me wondering what did I really know, or think of American wines? Well, very little as it happens, but enough to know that there are treasures to be had and the first wine tasted confirmed this – not just not bad,...
New – Ravensworth Estate Release

New – Ravensworth Estate Release

The 2021 estate release are wines grown on Ravensworth’s own immaculate vineyard. Ravensworth also produces a number of excellent wines, with fruit purchased predominantly from Hilltops. After 20 vintages, owner/winemaker Bryan Martin has refined his style into a...
Pabiot Loire – Sauvignon not as you know it

Pabiot Loire – Sauvignon not as you know it

‘Forget Sauvignon as you taste these wines’ comes from an Andrew Jefford article titled Sancerre and Friends, published in Decanter in late 2017. Needless to say that all the wines of Pabiot are Sauvignon Blanc, yet as you taste through them, the less...
Kabinett – Understanding Germany’s Emblematic Wine

Kabinett – Understanding Germany’s Emblematic Wine

Kabinett is the lightest of all wines in the German Pradikat system. Measured in degrees Oechsle (a hydrometer scale measuring density of grape must), many wine growers have struggled to produce the differences that made sense of the Pradikat in recent years. Warmer,...
Chateau de Pibarnon – Benchmark Rose

Chateau de Pibarnon – Benchmark Rose

Pibarnon is Bandol’s highest vineyard at 300 metres, an amphitheatre of vines facing the Mediterranean. Vineyards planted in this way generally trap heat, creating a cauldon effect, but at Pibarnon, the amphitheatre provides shelter from the regions strong winds,...
Traviarti 2022 Chardonnay and Rosso

Traviarti 2022 Chardonnay and Rosso

Nebbiolo it seems is the new Holy Grail of Australian wine. Simon Grant’s vision for Traviarti has always been about crafting beautiful Nebbiolo, and so he does; Australia’s best alongside Pipan Steel. But never mind all this. The Holy Grail for Australian...
2021 Fritz Haag and Burklin-Wolf

2021 Fritz Haag and Burklin-Wolf

The concentration, balance, complex flavour and textural profiles, extract and sleek velocity of the 2021 wines will make these some of the greatest and longest lived German Rieslings this century. A cool and late vintage of cut and finesse, but also fleshy mid...
Discovering Guillot-Broux, Maconnais

Discovering Guillot-Broux, Maconnais

Based in Cruzille, Guillot-Broux was founded in 1978 when the land was cheap and the wines of the Maconnais not exactly known for their grandness. Cruzille is gifted with limestone, marl and iron rich soils; sunshine, rainfall and elevation – an area gifted with...
Daniel Bouland 2021 – Serious and joyous Beaujolais

Daniel Bouland 2021 – Serious and joyous Beaujolais

Daniel Bouland’s 2021 releases are pure, juicy, and cool – all tangy fruit, coupled with incredible energy and weightless power. The tannins and shape vary from wine to wine, from velvet to silk, angular and round. Incredibly refreshing and gourmand, they...
Quinta do Noval Ports – World Beaters

Quinta do Noval Ports – World Beaters

Quinta do Noval’s style, and Portuguese Tawnys in general, are very different to Australian equivalents. Firstly, the alcohol levels are higher and you can taste the spirit and feel the heat. Secondly, the increase in spirit also changes the shape. Portuguese...
Introducing Ossa Wines – Grand Cru Tasmania

Introducing Ossa Wines – Grand Cru Tasmania

Ossa was founded in 2017 by Rod and Cecile Roberts, eponymously named after Tasmania’s highest peak – Mount Ossa. Situated on the East Coast, joining the rush for land which many observers believe harbours Australia’s greatest cool climate potential....
Vanguardist 2022 Spring Releases

Vanguardist 2022 Spring Releases

Twenty years ago, it would have been inconceivable to drink wines of the Vanguardist style. Large producers, aided by compliant wine critics and journalists churned out full bodied, sweet fruited and extracted wines. Small producers were no different, and it seemed...
Verget – New Spring 2022 Releases

Verget – New Spring 2022 Releases

Every year, Verget confuses us all by releasing wines from various vintages and appellations. For the neat, logical and rational people out there, this must seem perverse. Why not concentrate our minds and tastebuds on one vintage and better still, release wines from...
Josh Cooper’s 2021 Summertime Cabernets

Josh Cooper’s 2021 Summertime Cabernets

Josh Cooper’s three Cabernets from different sites across Victoria are some of the most important wines released in Australia this year. Cabernet Sauvignon is so often overlooked, and many Australian iterations are unexciting corporate wines. I feel we have...
Picardy – Wines of Chiseled depths

Picardy – Wines of Chiseled depths

Rarely is a wine region so defined by one producer as Pemberton is by Picardy Wines. Only identified as a potential region for vine growing in the 1970’s, Pemberton can now boast over 50 wine producers, with Picardy at the forefront. Founded by Bill and Sandra...
Swinney Release Spring 2022 -Treading Softly

Swinney Release Spring 2022 -Treading Softly

Swinney has never been less than awesome, creating new benchmarks and pushing boundaries. The 2021 vintage reds are the best since 2019 and the most charming and delicious. The vintage was cool, hence the harvest was late, creating ideal conditions for wines of...
Massolino Spring 2022 Releases – Gentle Masculinity

Massolino Spring 2022 Releases – Gentle Masculinity

Vintage 2016 was a watershed moment in Piedmont. Universally acclaimed as a great vintage, many producers crafted their best ever wines. Standards across the region’s varietals and styles were all successful and it seemed that no one had failed to make at the...
Enderle and Moll – Nothing quite like it

Enderle and Moll – Nothing quite like it

This is not Burgundy. There, I said it. Is our love of Burgundy a love of Pinot Noir, or are we that obsessed with Burgundy we can’t see past it? Pinot Noir is known as Spatburgunder in Germany and, like everywhere else, style and taste is as much to do with the...
CRFT Gruner Veltliner – Unsurpassed in Oz

CRFT Gruner Veltliner – Unsurpassed in Oz

CRFT Wines (pronounced croft) was founded in 2012 by winemakers Candice Helbig and Frewin Ries. Sourcing fruit from 10 single vineyards across the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley, they make wines from established varietals and relative newcomers. Indeed CRFT are...
A Rodda Chardonnays – New Premium Release

A Rodda Chardonnays – New Premium Release

Vintage reports aside, 2021 is an exceptional vintage for A Rodda. Only one Chardonnay was produced in 2020, due to the bushfires, so it’s a delightful relief to taste through the suite of 2021’s. These wines are compact and coiled, packed with dense tangy...
Joshua Cooper 2021 Release – Taste a revelation

Joshua Cooper 2021 Release – Taste a revelation

It’s not every day you’re lucky enough to taste a revelation, wines that alter parameters, perceptions and challenge beliefs. All tastings are worthwhile, and in a sense revelatory, but few illicit strong responses one way or the other. I still remember my first...
Rieslingfreak – there’s nowhere to hide

Rieslingfreak – there’s nowhere to hide

Something my dad used to tell me often, and advice I did not heed until middle age, was to ‘know thyself’. Happily, absorbing wisdom came much sooner for John Hughes, who was called Riesling Freak by his friends as he always brought around a bottle of...
Stargazer Tasmania – Passion and True Grit

Stargazer Tasmania – Passion and True Grit

Stargazer, in a very short space of time, has become one of the most exciting prospects in Tasmania. Passion and true grit Founder/owner/winemaker and grape grower, Samantha Connew, released her first Stargazer wines in 2012, after previously working with Wirra Wirra...
Douhairet-Porcheret – sensual, ethereal Burgundy

Douhairet-Porcheret – sensual, ethereal Burgundy

Domaine Douhairet-Porcheret is a small domaine of 6.5 ha. Mademoiselle Armande Douhairet owned and ran the estate until her death in 2004. She bequeathed the property to her winemaker and great friend Andre Porcheret, former manager at Hospices de Beaune and Domaine...
Craiglee 2017 Sunbury Shiraz – Absolute classic

Craiglee 2017 Sunbury Shiraz – Absolute classic

Can a wine taste historic, or old fashioned? Not old or dated, but from another era. Probably not, but that was my first impression when tasting the 2017 Craiglee Shiraz from Sunbury. It smells, tastes and feels savoury with seams of natural acidity, firm fruit and...
Domaine Barmes-Buecher – Another Level

Domaine Barmes-Buecher – Another Level

There was a time when the wines of Alsace were all chisel and sinew, so plain under the clothes. Described as elegant, restrained, aristocratic and mineral, they often displayed shrill structures, hard textures and empty fruit profiles. They were Alsace’s answer...
CRFT Wines – Arranmore and Whisson Pinots

CRFT Wines – Arranmore and Whisson Pinots

CRFT’s stunning wines are the work of Candice Helbig and Frewin Ries from their serene property, tucked away in the Piccadilly Valley. Their certified organic Arranmore Vineyard is almost other-worldly, with 150 year old trees lining the driveway, old fruit...
Greenock Creek – The Bold and the Beautiful

Greenock Creek – The Bold and the Beautiful

If there is one producer that embodies what most of us would come to expect from the Barossa Valley, then Greenock Creek is it. That is not to say that there aren’t other styles and regional interpretations, but for wines of scale, this has to be the benchmark...

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