Monthly Archives: May 2012

Wine review — Coolangatta Estate, Silos Estate, Cullen, Bathe Wines and Massale by Kooyong

30 May 2012Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Coolangatta Estate Tempranillo 2009 $35
Coolangatta Estate vineyard, Shoalhaven Coast, New South Wales
In the Canberra Regional Show 2011, this wine top scored in its class, winning a gold medal and proceeding to the “other red varieties” trophy taste-off. The Canberra gong added to the gold medal and four trophies won in the 2010 Kiama Regional Wine Show. Like Coolangatta’s wonderful semillons, the tempranillo is estate grown but made in the Hunter Valley by Tyrrell’s – clearly a successful arrangement. This is a fresh, vibrant and medium-bodied tempranillo, seamlessly combining sweet and savoury fruit with soft, persistent tannins.

Coolangatta Estate Wollstonecraft Semillon 2011 $25
Coolangatta Wollstonecraft vineyard, Shoalhaven Coast, New South Wales
Coolangatta’s Ben Wallis says, “powdery and downy mildew are part of our life on the coast”, so in the cold, wet 2011 season, “we upped the ante in the vineyard”. The acidic grapes developed flavour ripeness very early in the cool conditions, but sugar levels lagged – the opposite of a normal year. Owner Greg Bishop and his team hand-picked the healthy fruit, shipping it to Tyrrell’s for vinification. The resulting wine presents rich, lemony varietal flavours cut with the season’s tart, bracing acidity. It’s slightly rounder than you’d expect in a cool season, 11 per-cent-alcohol wine, but it’s definitely built for ageing.

Silos Estate Wild Ferment Chardonnay 2010 $22.50–$25
Silo Estate vineyard, Berry, Shoalhaven Coast, New South Wales
The estate, located near Berry, grows seven grape varieties, including chardonnay, in its five-hectare vineyard. Looking young and fresh at two years, the 2010 chardonnay – fermented spontaneously by wild yeasts – shows fresh citrus and melon rind varietal characters. The palate’s medium bodied and smoothly textured with an underlying nutty character, derived from maturation on yeast lees following fermentation. The vines are hand pruned and the grapes hand picked.

Cullen Diana Madeline 2010 $115
Cullen vineyard, Margaret River, Western Australia
Like Penfolds Bin 707 reviewed on 9 May, Cullen Diana Madeline enjoys a cellaring potential measured in decades, not years. But the wines contrast starkly in style. Bin 707 shows an impenetrably dark, powerful face of cabernet – overwhelmingly dense and tannic as a young wine but becoming increasingly elegant as the decades pass by. Cullen is limpid and approachable on release – a wine of delicate violet-like aroma and seductive, subtle, supple, fine-grained palate. It’s a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot malbec and cabernet franc, planted forty years ago by winemaker Vanya Cullen’s parents, Kevin John and Diana Madeline.

Bathe Wines Pinot Noir 2011 $33
Tamar Valley and Coal River Valley, Tasmania
This callow newcomer to the busy wine scene rushes to the market barely a year out of the vineyard. Brash and exuberant on first opening, it becomes a more complete pinot after a long aeration. It’s light to medium bodied, with bright varietal fruit flavour, a stalky note (courtesy of whole bunches in the ferment) and, most importantly, a silky mid-palate. Jeremy Dineen of Joseph Chromy Wines made it for Bathe Wines, owned by John Harvey. It’s available at www.bathewines.com.au

Massale by Kooyong Pinot Noir 2011 $22.70–$30
Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Sandro Mosele’s new release stood out in a recent tasting, wedged between Alex McKay and Nick O’Leary’s attractive Bourke Street Tumbarumba pinot and a very strange beast indeed from Savaterre, Beechworth. Mosele’s wine shows the light body and high acid of the cool season. But therein lies the appeal. Mosele hasn’t tried to prop the wine up with winemaking artifice. We taste pure and delicious raspberry-like varietal flavour on a shimmering fresh palate, supported by lean, tight tannins.

Coolangatta Estate leads the way on Shoalhaven Coast

30 May 2012People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

The Shoalhaven Coast wine region website lists 15 wineries. They stretch about 130 kilometres by road, from Yarrawa Estate, Kangaroo Valley, in the north, to Bawley Estate, at Bawley Point, to the south.

That’s a reasonably big stretch of coastal land, covering almost a degree of latitude (34˚37’ to 35˚31 south, says Google Earth). But as winemaking regions go, it’s small, totalling, by my estimate, around 70–80 hectares of vines.

With temperature the main driving force behind the physical development of vines and grape ripening, the local climate, aided at the margins by human intervention, decides what varieties succeed and fail.

At first glance, Shoalhaven’s latitude (about three degrees north of Coonawarra, for example) might suggest a home for reds like cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. But in fact, the region’s significantly cooler than Coonawarra during the ripening season. As a result whites, in general, fare better than reds, which struggle in most seasons.

Coolangatta Estate’s Greg Bishop sees parallels between Shoalhaven and the lower Hunter Valley, to the north. Shoalhaven’s grapes ripen about three weeks later than the Hunter’s, but humidity and summer rainfall present almost identical challenges in the vineyard.

“It’s a hard place to grow grapes”, says Bishop. But constant vineyard work generally overcomes the disease pressure created by moisture. “In the early days, Dr Richard Smart helped us, especially with canopy management”, he says. Open canopies maximise air circulation, helping the vines and fruit to dry out – aided by daily sea breezes. They also help sprays penetrate the vines.

The right spray regime, says Bishop, protects against mildew and botrytis cinerea. And tilling v-shape furrows between vine rows diverts water quickly away from the vineyard, further reducing disease pressures.

Bishop’s vigilance makes Coolangatta Estate the region’s dominant producer in quality and quantity – and the only one to date to stand up in any company, among those I’ve tasted. It’s also a consistent winner of trophies (130 to date) and medals at Australia’s top wine shows.

At the 2011 Canberra Regional Wine Show, for example, Coolangatta entered 13 wines and won nine medals, including golds for its 2009 tempranillo (reviewed today) and 2006 semillon.

Bishop rates semillon as best of the estate’s varieties by a wide margin. And given its outstanding show success, he wonders why it’s not more widely grown in the region.

I’ve tasted many vintages of these semillons over the last decade in wine shows and at the dinner table. They’re lovely, low in alcohol, capable of prolonged ageing and very similar in style to those from the Hunter – that is, austere and lemony when young and developing mellow, honeyed flavours with age.

To some extent, the style’s driven by the Hunter connection – as Tyrrell’s, Australia’s semillon masters, makes all of the Coolangatta wines. But Tyrrell’s are merely custodians of the fruit – the source of the wine flavour. Clearly, what Coolangatta grows is very good.

However, the more widely adopted verdelho “comes in every year”, says Bishop. Indeed, Coolangatta Estate 2011 ($22) and Cambewarra Estate’s 2010 ($23), tasted for this article, offer pleasant drinking – with Coolangatta comfortably ahead.

Chardonnay also performs well and a couple in our tasting looked OK – Silos Estate Wild Ferment 2010, reviewed today, and Cambewarra Estate Unwooded Chardonnay 2010 ($24). Neither of these, however, matches the ones I’ve tried from Coolangatta Estate.

Coolangatta recently planted what it believed to be the Spanish white variety, albarino. But the variety (misidentified across Australia and, in fact, savagnin) performed consistently well in its first four vintages, 2009 to 2012. Bishop sees a good future for the variety in Shoalhaven.

Judges at the 2010 Canberra regional show, support Bishop’s view. They wrote that Coolangatta Estate Savagnin 2010, “had lovely bright fruit with depth of flavour and should be received with some excitement in the region”.

While reds in general struggle to ripen, a few varieties get there and newcomer tempranillo looks exciting. The Coolangatta 2009 reviewed today drinks beautifully – and deserves the gold medals and trophies won in the Canberra and Kiama regional wine shows. Bishop said he planted it because as an early ripener it stood a chance in the cool region.

Coolangatta and other producers in the area grow another early ripening red, chambourcin. This French-American hybrid has the advantage of being resistant to fungal disease; and the disadvantage of making plain wine, in my experience. However, consumers love it both as a red and rosé, says Bishop, partly perhaps because of its novelty.

Bishop also favours tannat, a tannic red variety, for its ability to ripen quickly and fully and, because of its loose bunches and thick skins, resistance to fungal disease. He says, “it has a lot of potential, and Tyrrell’s love it”. The current release Coolangatta 2009 has three gold, eight silver and seven bronze medals to its credit.

Although Coolangatta Estate planted vines in 1988 and Silos Estate three years before that, the Shoalhaven Coast lacks the maturity of a region like Canberra. Canberra’s maturity arrived over the last decade as all the threads spun over forty years finally came together – throwing up shiraz and riesling as regional specialties and achieving a critical mass of high quality vignerons.

Shoalhaven straddles the important Princes Highway tourist route and, at the moment, its tiny, fledgling wine industry seems more plugged into tourism than wine, per se. That’s a good start. But it’ll only be taken seriously as a wine region as the number of really high quality producers, like Coolangatta Estate, grows.

Cascade’s all-Tassie brew

30 May 2012Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Two months after Tasmania’s hop harvest, Cascade Brewery rationed 2,850 cases of First Harvest 2012 to retailers across the country and a small number of kegs to a handful of venues in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.

Anglo-African brewer SABmiller owns Foster’s Group and, through it, Tasmania’s Cascade Brewery. But in a sign of the growing importance of upmarket beer brands, Cascade retains its regional identity in fact as well as in name.

Cascade’s eleventh First Harvest ale retains its Tasmanian origins, giving the beer a sense of time and place. The time is the annual hop harvest – in this case three varieties of hops handpicked and delivered fresh to brewer Mike Unsworth on 14 March.

And the place is Bushy Park Estate in the Derwent Valley. Even the malted barley comes from Tasmania. The result – a full-bodied malty ale cut with ultra-fresh hops.

Cascade First Harvest 375ml 4-pack $18.99
Mmmmm mmmm, what a fine, winter warming brew Mike Unsworth made this year. It’s slightly more alcoholic than Premium Lager (below), deeper coloured (amber versus gold) and more luxuriantly malty – and cut through with pungent hops aroma and flavour. The assertive, lingering, resiny bitter hops offset the sweet, malt opulence.

Wine review — Innocent Bystander, Voyager Estate and Yalumba

27 May 2012Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Innocent Bystander Yarra Valley Pinot Gris 2011 $20
Innocent Bystander Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2011 $25
Winemaker Steve Flamsteed writes, “2011 was a cool, wet and challenging year. White varieties revelled in the cool conditions and those growers who avoided late season moulds by careful vineyard work, produced some of the best fruit we have seen since our first vintage in 2000”. Flamsteed’s pinot gris and chardonnay display the lean and tight but tasty character of the season. The pinot gris shows varietal pear-like flavour and savoury, dry finish. The medium-bodied chardonnay reveals the more citrusy end of the chardonnay flavour spectrum, backed by a silky, smooth structure and lively, bone-dry finish.

Voyager Estate Girt by Sea 2010 $19–$24
As several of Margaret River’s top cabernet blends now push to $100 or so, Girt by Sea delivers an affordable and delightful, drink-now expression of the region’s great red specialty. Blended principally from cabernet and merlot (usually with a splash each of shiraz and malbec), it’s a rich but elegant, fine-boned red, based on just-ripe, mulberry-like varietal flavour, with an attractive overly of cedar and tobacco-like character that seems to come partly from the oak and partly from the varietal blend. The 2010 vintage seems a little more intense than the lovely 2009 – a classy wine indeed at this price.

Yalumba Running with Bulls Wrattonbully Tempranillo 2011 $17–$20
Yalumba makes two tempranillos under its Running with Bulls label, one from the warm Barossa Valley, the other from the cooler Wrattonbully region, several hundred kilometres to the south – between Coonawarra and Padthaway, on the Limestone Coast. The 2011 wine, made by Sam Wigan, is medium bodied, savoury and soft, though packed with tannins. The savouriness and tannins set the wine apart from mainstream, fleshy Australian styles, making it good company with savoury food or roasted red meats. Tempranillo, a Spanish red variety, performs well in a number of Australian wine growing regions.

Wine review — Jacob’s Creek St Hugo, Yarrh, Cullen, Xanadu and Blue Pyrenees

23 May 2012Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Jacob’s Creek St Hugo Shiraz Cabernet 2009 $45–50
Barossa (shiraz) and Coonawarra (cabernet), South Australia
I don’t believe any Australian cross-regional blend equals the symbiotic pairing of Barossa shiraz with Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon. For example, few wines in the world equal Penfolds Bin 60A 1962, the legendary Max Schubert blend that upstaged Grange. The new Jacob’s Creek may not challenge Bin 60A, but it captures the beauty of the combination: generous, soft Barossa shiraz gives mouth-filling flavour; Coonawarra cabernet provides the wonderful, elegant structure. It’s beautifully balanced and therefore a joy to drink now, but has the depth to age well for many years.

Yarrh Shiraz 2010 $25
Yarrh Vineyard, Yass, Canberra District, New South Wales
Fiona Wholohan’s shiraz presents a lighter side of Canberra’s already medium-bodied red specialty. The colour’s pale and bright and the aroma’s exoticically peppery and spicy – deep inside cool-climate shiraz country. The pepper and spice flavours flow through to a lean, taut, finely structured palate – where the bright fruit, lively acid and fine tannins delivery a clean, dry refreshing finish. The style should pair well with savoury or high-protein food.

Cullen ‘Cullen Vineyard’ Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2011 $35
Margaret River, Western Australia
Vanya Cullen’s new releases include two sauvignon blanc semillon blends – one from the Cullen vineyard, the other from the family’s Mangan vineyard. They’re both partially barrel fermented and matured (half the blend for the Cullen vineyard and one-fifth for Mangan). And there’s more new oak in Cullen than Mangan. The Cullen vineyard wine absorbs the oak, though it’s noticeable, adding texture and subtle vanilla-like character to the racy, lemony/grassy palate. It should age well for several years. The marginally fuller, rounder Mangan maintains the grassy character on a still bracingly fresh palate.

Jacob’s Creek St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $35.15–$50
Coonawarra, South Australia
This is a particularly robust vintage (the 28th) for St Hugo, winner of a trophy and five gold medals. It’s deep, dark and powerful, with concentrated ripe-berry varietal fruit flavour, seasoned by leafy and minty notes. The powerful fruit and firm, tannic structure point to a long cellaring life – a given for St Hugo in most years. Winemaker Bernard Hickin writes, “it’s a riper Coonawarra style from a warm-end vintage – should cellar well for 10–15 years”. If you’re looking for pedigreed memento for a special event in the future, St Hugo offers great value as it’s widely discounted.

Xanadu Next of Kin Chardonnay 2010 $16–$20
Margaret River, Western Australia
Alas, the Rathbone family recently slapped a for sale sign on their Australian wineries (Xanadu, Langi Ghiran, Parker Estate and Yering Station). Let’s hope the new owners maintain the amazing standard achieved during the Rathbone stewardship. Take, for example, this appealing, modestly priced chardonnay. A combination of stainless steel and oak fermentation captured the bright, citrus and melon varietal flavours. The barrels added subtly to the aroma, flavour and texture without overwhelming the juicy, delicious fruit flavour. It’s ready to drink now.

Blue Pyrenees Shiraz 2009 $14.25–$20
Blue Pyrenees vineyard, Pyrenees, Victoria
From the 177-hectare Blue Pyrenees Estate (established 1963) comes this humbly priced, appealing red. The winemakers leave the supple, spicy, regional shiraz flavours at the centre of the wine – unburdened by any obvious winemaking inputs. It’s medium bodied and ripe, soft tannins support the succulent fruit. Winemaker Andrew Koerner says the wine comes from “parcels of fruit grown on low-yielding exposed vines which results in intense flavours [and] soft tannins”.

Beer review — Cascade

23 May 2012Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Cascade Pale Ale 375ml 6-pack $15.99
Dating from the 1830s, Cascade Pale really stands out among Australia’s non-premium brews. The stunning freshness of our sample bottle helped – always does with beer. Then the rich, smooth malt and lovely balance of delicate, herbal hops flavour and lingering, clean bitterness completed the experience.

Casella to enter beer market

23 May 2012BeerChris Shanahan

Griffith-based Casella family – makers of Yellow Tail, the biggest selling wine brand in the USA – plans to enter the Australian beer market.

They’ve built the brewery and employed former South African Breweries’ master brewer, Andy Mitchell, and Anthony Clem, veteran of South Australian Breweries, Castlemaine Perkins and Knappstein Enterprise Brewery.

Yellow Tail’s Gillian Martin says Mitchell and Clem are using consumer feedback to decide what the beer will taste like. They are gathering information through a free iPhone app (search ‘the perfect lager project’ in the app store).

Martin says around 2,000 people have already downloaded the app and provided information about what they like in beer.

The new brew, to be launched in June, will be a lager, distributed Australia-wide by a dedicated, recently recruited sales force. I’ll review the beer here as soon as it’s available.

Wine review — Kilikanoon, Wicks Estate and Lake Breeze

20 May 2012Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Kilikanoon Watervale Mort’s Block Riesling 2012 $19.95–$22
Kilikanoon owns about 500 hectares of vines in South Australia, including the six-hectare Mort’s block at Watervale, southern Clare Valley. Mort Mitchell, father of Kilikanoon winemaker Kevin Mitchell, planted the block about 40 years ago. The old low-yielding vines are hand pruned and the fruit hand harvested. Even in the cool, wet 2011 season they produced the goods – a delicate, lean, taut, plank-dry, lemony riesling of amazing vitality. The lemony tartness makes it a good match with fish – much like a squeeze of lemon. The combination of tartness, delicacy and intense underlying fruit flavour suggest good medium to long-term cellaring, too.

Wicks Estate Adelaide Hills Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 $18–$20
In Australia, king cabernet lives in the shadow of shiraz. But it remains our number two red wine variety and arguably the best companion of all with roasted red meats, thanks to the interplay protein and the variety’s firm tannins. The two cabernets reviewed here today reveal different ends of its flavour spectrum – the riper, fuller, fleshier warm-climate style from Langhorne Creek; and the leafier, medium-bodied style from the cool Adelaide Hills. The leafiness and finer tannins in Wicks Estate add interest to the underlying ripe, juicy berry flavours.

Lake Breeze Langhorne Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 $21.85–$23
Langhorne Creek lies a little to the south of McLaren Vale, near Lake Alexandrina – a warm region moderated by cooling lake breezes. The area’s rich, fleshy reds – included in many popular blends such as Wolf Blass and Jacob’s Creek – gave it a reputation as Australia’s middle palate. Lake Breeze cabernet demonstrates this attribute deliciously. It’s pure cabernet in aroma and flavour, differentiated from the same variety grown in other regions by the sheer juicy opulence of the palate. It’s irresistible – a view supported by gold medals it won at the Adelaide, Sydney and National wine shows.

Victoria’s King Valley — thirty diverse kilometres

16 May 2012UncategorizedChris Shanahan

On Sunday 1 July winemakers from two neighbouring but very different Victorian regions – Rutherglen and the King Valley – present their wares in Canberra. The annual Taste of two regions will be held at old parliament house between 10am and 5pm, admission $25 per person.

Rutherglen (to the north of the King Valley) spreads along the Victorian side of the Murray River. It’s a hot region famed, historically, for magnificent, luscious fortified wines and thunder-in-the-brain reds, notably durif – a serendipitous cross between syrah and peloursin.

These days it makes a full range of table wines, including somewhat less threatening reds.

In its heyday as a fortified wine producer, Australia’s major winemakers sourced large quantities from the area, which spread across the Murray to Corowa, New South Wales. The Seppelt family operated a winery in Rutherglen township, while Lindemans developed its great fortifieds from the Felton and Southern Cross vineyards across the river.

A little to the south, on the Oxley Plains, Brown Brothers flourished on its fortified wine production, too, but also made high quality reds. Their later search for more elegant modern styles opened up the southern, cooler end of the King Valley to grape growing.

The valley stretches northwards from the sub-Alpine country around Whitlands, at a chilly 800 metres above sea level, gradually descending and comparatively narrow, before fanning out over the hot Oxley plains around Brown Brothers, Milawa, at around 170 metres.

Growing conditions vary greatly in this thirty kilometre long valley. Varying altitudes, rainfall, latitudes, soils and aspects produce a correspondingly wide spectrum of grape and wine flavours.

The mean January temperature at Milawa in the north is 22 degrees Celsius; in the south at Whitlands it’s just 19 degrees. Grapes ripen in early March at Milawa but not until late April at Whitlands.

In short the area produces everything from thumping big, alcoholic fortifieds and reds, to delicate sparkling and white wines.

While the Valley’s winemaking began in the late nineteenth century, most activity remained at the warmer northern end around Milawa until the 1970s.

Milawa owes its prominence on the winemaking map to Brown Bros whose presence, from 1889, sustained the industry in the region and, ultimately, sparked the southward vineyard expansions into the higher, cooler southern end of the valley.

Growing demand for high quality table wine drove the spread south and upward towards Whitfield, Myrrhee, Whitlands and Cheshunt. Brown Bros led the way, developing its own high altitude Whitlands vineyard and encouraging local landowners to diversify into grapes.

The first independents — Guy Darling and John Leviny — established vines between Moyhu and Whitfield in the higher, cooler northern sector in 1970. Both sold grapes to Brown Brothers. Indeed, older readers may recall Guy Darling’s Whitfield vineyard name – Koombahla — appearing on Brown Bros labels in the late seventies and eighties, before Darling established his own brand.

During the eighties and nineties, other landowners, including several Italian descended tobacco growers, commenced growing grapes, originally to sell to Brown Brothers or other winemakers.

However, during the recession of the early nineties Brown Brothers reduced its grape intake. This shock, grower Arnie Pizzini (Chrismont Wines) once told me, was the catalyst that drove him and other growers to adopt a broader, more independent approach to marketing their product.

During the late nineties, driven partly by the export boom, the numbers of independent growers increased, as did the number converting all or part of their production into branded product.

The late nineties, too, saw the arrival of the large independent makers De Bortoli and Miranda, both Griffith based and both Italian descended.

By this time the Valley had acquired a distinctively Italian flavour as the Corsini, Pizzini, Cavedon, Dal Zotto and other families planted indigenous Italian varietals, including sangiovese, arneis, barbera, marzemino, prosecco, barbera, nebbiolo, dolcetto, primitivo (aka, in California and Australia, zinfandel) and verduzzo.

These joined the usual mix of French and German varieties plus a sprinkling from Spain (tempranillo and verdejo), Russia (saperavi) and France’s little known petit manseng and increasingly popular pinot gris (often marketed under its Italian name, pinot grigio).

This diversity of landscapes, climates, grape varieties, growers and makers means the King Valley gives wine drinkers an exceptional range of taste sensations – subtly different in the case of the mainstream varieties like riesling, chardonnay and shiraz but totally removed from our usual fare when we encounter sangiovese, nebbiolo, barbera, verduzzo, prosecco and the like.

In this instance the principal driver of difference was the Italian connection – the sons and daughters of post-war immigrants.

Wine review — Penfolds, Wicks Estate, Chalmers, Shaw & Smith and Zonte’s Footstep

16 May 2012Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay $130
Derwent Valley, Tasmania, Henty, Victoria, and the Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Penfolds releases Yattarna alongside Grange and its other top-end reds. However, Grange, and the accompanying retail price war, invariably upstage Yattarna. It’s a beautiful chardonnay, driven by the intense flavour and elegant structure of fruit from some of our coolest growing regions – principally the Derwent Valley, Tasmania, and the old Seppelt vineyard at Drumborg in Victoria’s Henty region. Winemaker inputs from barrel fermentation and maturation on yeast lees add another layer of complexity in an exceptionally graceful white with considerable cellaring potential.

Penfolds Reserve Bin 10A Chardonnay 2010 $70–$95
Adelaide Hills, South Australia
The “white Grange” project of the early nineties pushed Penfolds quickly up the chardonnay learning curve, to the benefit of the entire group’s wines. It also produced this exciting spin-off from the Adelaide Hills. The winemaker inputs show through on the first sniff and mouthful – a flinty note derived from maturation on yeast lees in new oak barrels. This character meshes with the zingy, grapefruit-like varietal flavour and taut, acidic structure. The wine tastes very young at two years and should evolve well for another four or five.

Wicks Estate Shiraz 2010 $14.25–$20
Wicks Estate vineyard, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
This gold medal winner from the Royal Adelaide Wine Show offers absolutely delicious drinking right now. Estate-grown and made, it shows the ripe-berry, spice and medium body of cool-grown shiraz – the fresh, juicy, berry flavours, in particular, light up a gentle, completely seductive palate. The winemaker says, “the elegant fruit and tannin structure will reward careful cellaring”. This may be true. But it’s hard to imaging the wine every being more charming than it is now, just bristling with fruit.

Chalmers Vermentino 2011 $25
Chalmers vineyard, Heathcote, Victoria
The Chalmers family operates a 650-hectare nursery and vineyard at Euston, New South Wales, embracing over 80 varieties and 150 clones. In 2009 they established Italian varieties on an 80-hectare site they’d acquired in 2008 near Colbinabbin, Heathcote, Victoria. Their first vermentino (white) from the new vineyard shows great promise. It offers more body, flavour and savouriness than other examples of the variety I’ve seen. At a recent tasting it drew mixed, mainly favourable, reactions as it’s well removed in flavour from our mainstream varieties.

Shaw and Smith Pinot Noir 2010 $48
Shaw and Smith vineyard, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Better known for benchmark chardonnay and shiraz, Shaw and Smith steps decisively into top-shelf pinot territory with its 2010 vintage. The colour’s pale and brilliant and the mid-weight, supple palate reflects the seductive, fruity aroma. It’s very Australian in its pure, vibrant, varietal, fleshy fruitiness – and oh so easy to quaff now. But there’s substance, too, in the strong tannin structure, range of fruit flavours and underlying savouriness. Every mouthful reveals something new.

Zonte’s Footstep Canto di Lago Sangiovese Barbera 2010 $14.95–$20
Langhorne Creek, South Australia
Like the name, the wine combines bits of Italy and Australia. A 50:50 blend of the Italian varieties sangiovese and barbera, Canto di Lago (song of the lake), brings together the sweet, brisk, piquant, summer-berry flavours of barbera and the firm, fine savoury tannins of sangiovese. The same blend made in Italy probably wouldn’t much resemble this all-Australian effort. It reflects Langhorne Creek’s unique growing, cooled by breezes from nearby Lake Alexandrina, and a modern Australian approach to winemaking – capturing pure, clean grape flavours, sealed in with an hygienic screw cap.