Ravensworth Riesling 2013 $20
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
Bryan and Jocelyn Martin’s 2013 riesling swept all competitors aside at the recent Canberra and region show. It won the top gold medal in the 2013 riesling class, then cleaned up in the taste offs, winning trophies as the show’s best riesling, best white wine and best wine. A few weeks later it won another gold medal plus a trophy as best Canberra riesling at the Canberra International Riesling Challenge. Ravensworth shows the tight structure and acidic backbone of Canberra riesling, with pure, intense, fresh citrus varietal flavour and sufficient mid-palate flesh to offset the gripping acidity. Should drink well for the next decade.

Forbes and Forbes Riesling 2012 $20
Woodman vineyard, Springton, Eden Valley, South Australia
A year older and a shade darker in colour, Forbes and Forbes 2012 offers an interesting style contrast to Ravensworth 2013. They’re both gold medallists from their respective regional shows and national events. They’re of a similar alcohol content. Both contain three grams per litre of residual sugar – undetectable by the average palate. And both deliver pure fruit flavour, albeit on different parts of the varietal spectrum. Where Ravensworth offers Canberra’s solid acid backbone and the unevolved flavour of a new wine, Forbes and Forbes sits more delicately on the palate, delivering a pristine, lime-like flavour, carried by soft, fresh acidity.

Majella The Musician Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz $18–$20
Majella vineyard, Coonawarra South Australia
The Musician is the Lynn family’s song of fruit ¬– a floral, juicy expression of the cabernet sauvignon and shiraz grapes grown on their eastern Coonawarra vineyard. The wine delivers Coonawarra’s deep, ripe, berry flavours, medium body and elegant structure, without the overlay of oak or other winemaker inputs seen in wines made for cellaring. It’s made to drink right now – move onto the next vintage as soon as it’s released next year.

Printhie MCC Shiraz 2012 $36
Printhie Phalaris block, Orange, NSW
Printhie shiraz comes from the company’s Phalaris block towards the lowest, warmest point of the Orange district. Even so, MCC 2012 sits at the cooler end of cool-climate shiraz styles. It’s highly aromatic – combining bright, strawberry-like character, overlaid with the spice and white pepper indicative of very cool growing conditions. The latter often points to green, unripe flavours in shiraz. But Printhie just makes it over the line – the white pepper, acidity and fine, firm tannins balancing delicately with the vibrant fruit flavour.

West Cape Howe Tempranillo 2012 $13–$20
Frankland and Perth Hills, Western Australia
Gavin Berry’s tempranillo presents the fruity side of Spain’s great red variety. It’s adapting well across a diversity of Australian climates – in this instance Frankland and the Perth Hills, Western Australia. The colour’s limpid and crimson-rimmed and the aroma is all about fresh, dark berries. Fresh berry flavours fill the palate, too, ahead of a pleasing earthy note and then the fine, firm tannins of the variety.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Michael Shiraz 2010 $100–$145
Eastern Coonawarra, South Australia
The Riddoch Highway dissects Coonawarra from north to south. The sea of vines on the flat land either side of the highway gives a deceptive impression of homogeneity – of a landscape where all sites are created equal. In fact, various plots across Coonawarra produce a wide diversity of wines, albeit in the elegant regional style. Shiraz, for examples, struggles to ripen in the south and fares best, in Wynns’ long experience, in the sandy soils towards the eastern edge of northern Coonawarra. This is the source of the sublime Michael Shiraz 2010, a powerful but fine-boned, gentle and elegant shiraz with long-term cellaring potential. Expect wide variation in pricing.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2013
First published 30 October 2013 in the Canberra Times and goodfood.com.au

St Erth Geelong Pinot Noir 2011 $14.25–$15
The privately owned Ballande Group, based in New Caledonia, owns the Tisdall Winery, established in 1971 in Echuca, Victoria. The company exports under a number of labels and also owns the St Erth brand, which it sells exclusively to the Woolworths-owned Dan Murphy chain. A Geelong-based winemaker sources fruit and makes St Erth in Geelong for Ballande. In the cool 2011 the wine’s on the lighter side, but nevertheless offers a true pinot experience at a very good price. It combines bright, varietal fruit character with fine tannins and a savoury, earthy finish.

Mount Horrocks Watervale Semillon 2012 $25–$33
Stephanie Toole’s oak-fermented semillon offers better drinking than ever in the outstanding 2012 vintage. Fuller bodied than riesling, but lighter than chardonnay, it offers rich flavours but also delicacy and the unique lemon- and lemongrass-like character of the variety. Though fermented and matured entirely in oak barrels, the oak influence is subtle – perhaps adding a vanilla-like flavour – and perceived more in the silky texture the process adds to the wine. O’Toole makes her wines from 10-hectares of vines in the Clare Valley. The semillon comes from the Watervale sub-region at the southern end of the valley.

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Chardonnay 2013 $4.75–$7
De Bortoli Windy Peak Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2012 $9.80–$15
De Bortoli makes chardonnays at many prices, from the humble Sacred Hill ($4.75–$7) to the lofty PHI and Yarra Valley Reserve ($50). The latter rate among the best in Australia. And, as so often happens when wineries strive to be the best, the cheaper wines benefit from what the winemakers learn in their quest for the best. The bright and fresh Sacred Hill offers generous, peachy varietal flavour on a medium bodied, smooth-textured palate. The year older Windy Peak shows the greater flavour intensity and complexity, and stronger acid backbone of the cool Yarra Valley.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2013
First published 27 October 2013 in the Canberra Times

Eden Road Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2012 $40
Maragle and Courabyra vineyards, Tumbarumba, NSW
Canberra’s Nick Spencer made three 2012 chardonnays from Tumbarumba – this blend from the Maragle and Courabyra vineyards, plus individual wines from each site. There’s a family style in their lean, tight, pure flavours; but differences, too, based on the altitude of the sites and winemaking techniques. The barrel-fermented blend (silver medallist at the regional show) delivers generous nectarine-like varietal flavour, albeit in Spencer’s tight, smooth-textured style. Barrel-fermented Maragle 2012 (silver medallist, $50), from a comparatively warm site at 400 metres, uses notable more new oak than the blend. This influences the fuller, nectarine-and-peach flavours on the palate – though the wine remains a comparatively lean, tight style. The tank-fermented Courabyra 2012 (bronze medal, $50), shows the soaring acidity of the cool, 750-metre site. It brings grapefruit-like acerbity to a pure-fruited, distinctive unoaked style. I suspect these wines will age well, though cellaring remains an act of faith at this early stage of the brand.

Eden Road Canberra Riesling 2013 $30
Long Rail Gully vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
A bronze medal in the regional wine show matches my own rating for a clean, fresh, well made riesling. Delicious, citrus-like varietal flavour gives it some immediate drinking appeal, though I suspect the fruit flavour to assert itself over the austere acids with a little time in bottle. The difference should become apparent over the next few months. This is characteristic of many Canberra rieslings, though the 2013s, in general, seem more approachable when young than the 2012s did.

Mount Horrocks Riesling 2013 $32
Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia
Everything appeals about Stephanie Toole’s 2013 riesling – favourite by a big margin in a trio of 2013s from Canberra, Great Southern and Watervale. The shimmering, green-tinted colour gave it a visual edge – matched by its pure, lime-like varietal aroma and fine, delicate, mouth-watering, dry palate. The wine should evolve well for several years, though it’s racy and a thrill to drink now

Tahbilk Shiraz 2010 $16–$20
Tahbilk vineyard, Nagambie Lakes, Victoria
Tahbilk, the Purbrick family property established in 1860, produces a distinctive shiraz style, with its own little slot on the variety’s very wide Australian spectrum. Like those from other cooler regions, it’s medium bodied. And there’s black pepper and spice seasoning the underlying berry flavours – both clear shiraz characteristics. But the firm, even bony, tannins separate Tahbilk from other medium bodied shirazes. The tannins bite and thrust, giving a firm, savoury finish to the dry palate.

Bests Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 $26–$30
Best’s vineyard, Great Western Victoria
Unquestionably shiraz is the standout variety on the Thomson family’s Great Western Vineyard – wines polished to an exceptional standard in the last two decades under Viv Thomson and, since 2008, his son, Ben. Cabernet performed well, too, in 2012, producing a fragrant, elegant, easy-to-drink wine. It’s built on ripe, blackcurrant flavours, with the variety’s leafy edge and firm but fine tannins. The Great Western vineyards were established by Henry Best in1867 and acquired by the Thomson family in 1920.

Chianti Classico (Corte Carista) 2009 $10
Chianti Classico zone, Tuscany, Italy
Aldi’s Tuscan important takes us well away in style from Australian wines made from the same grape variety, sangiovese. It’s light to medium bodied, taut, bone-dry, earthy and savoury with its cherry-like fruit flavour buried well inside the fine, firm tannins. Like all the Aldi wines I’ve tried to date, it fits the specification, offering very good value for money. The withered little cork snapped in half as we coaxed it from the bottle. But at least the wine emerged clean, fresh and untainted by the cork – something drinkers always risk with this outmoded seal.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2013
First published 23 October 2013 in the Canberra Times and goodfood.com.au

Tahbilk Nagambie Lakes Marsanne 2013 $12.99–$18
Tahbilk, the Purbrick family’s lovely old property on an anabranch of the Goulburn River, established marsanne long before Rhone Valley varieties became fashionable in Australia. Tahbilk marsanne drinks well and it takes on a golden, honeyed richness with age. The introduction of a screw cap from 2002, and a brightening of the fruit character in the last decade, makes it an even safer cellaring bet than ever. Most likely, though, the bulk of the just-released 2013 vintage, will slip down before next year’s vintage arrives. It offers distinctive citrus and melon-like flavours and a full, dry palate unlike any other white wine.

Shingleback Haycutters McLaren Vale Shiraz 2012 $15–$17
Shingleback’s very popular Red Knot range recently became a Woolworths’ exclusive, selling between $11.40 and $15 a bottle in their Dan Murphy outlets. Coles have since struck back against their archrival, releasing Shingleback Haycutters Shiraz at a slightly higher price. I’ve not tried the two side by side, so can only make the comparison from memory and notes. Red Knot, I recall as bright, fruity and fresh. Haycutters, on the other hand, brings quite assertive, rustic, savoury tannins into the equation. Coles offers it through its Vintage Cellars, 1st Choice and Liquorland outlets.

Zema Estate Cluny Cabernet Malbec 2009 $25
Cluny is the Zema family’s blend of cabernet sauvignon (65 per cent) and merlot (25 per cent) with five per cent each of cabernet franc and malbec. It’s a medium bodied red, featuring Coonawarra’s bright berry flavours, the distinct fragrance of cabernet franc and the minty–herbaceous notes associated with cool-grown Bordeaux varieties. Firm but fine tannins, some no doubt derived from malbec, give the wine a solid backbone. Former Lindeman winemaker, Greg Clayfield, makes the wine. At four years, it’s ready to drink, though should hold for another three or four years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2013
First published 20 October 2013 in the Canberra Times