Twelve Signs Hilltops Chardonnay 2014 $10–$14
Enjoy it while you can. Moppity vineyards recently grafted its old chardonnay vines over to the Spanish red variety, tempranillo, with instant success. Owner Jason Brown now relies on his Coppabella vineyard, Tumbarumba, for chardonnay. The higher, cooler region simply suits the variety much better. While the days of Brown’s Hilltops chardonnay may be numbered, there’s tasty, affordable drinking in the remaining stock. Twelve Signs 2014 offers juicy melon-like varietal flavour on a richly textured, fresh dry palate. It’s rich but not heavy, and made for current drinking.

De Bortoli King Valley Prosecco $16.20–$18
Prosecco, a neutral-flavoured northern Italian grape, makes light, pleasantly tart sparkling wines. For most in the market, the flavour might politely be called “subtle”. But that appears to be a virtue in a wine loved for its liveliness, tickly bubbles, fresh, cleansing finish and ability to slip down almost unnoticed. The De Bortoli family sources theirs from Victoria’s King Valley. They use early picked grapes and make the wine protectively in stainless steel tanks where it undergoes both a primary fermentation then, after blending, the secondary fermentation which produces the bubbles.

Tscharke The Master Barossa Valley Montepulciano 2013 $25
Montepulciano, a red variety that thrives in sunny, warm locations, grows widely in central Italy. Although sometimes confused with sangiovese, partly because of the great sangiovese, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (from the Tuscan village of Montepulciano) it’s best known for the solid savoury reds of Abruzzi, under the official name Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Several Australian winemakers now work with the variety, including the Barossa’s Damien Tscharke. His 2013 shows red-currant-like fruit flavours with strong, rustic, savoury tannins – a distinguishing feature of the variety and quite endearing when served with savoury or high-protein food.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 30 and 31 January 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

McWilliams Appellation Series Syrah 2014
Canberra District, NSW
$21.80–$25
Last year McWilliams launched their “appellation” range, devoted to wines from the southern NSW high country. But the company staked its first major claim in the region in the 1980s when it acquired Young’s (now Hilltops region) oldest vineyard, Barwang, from the Robertson family. The new range offers wines from Hilltops, Tumbarumba, Orange and this supple Canberra syrah (aka shiraz). A medium bodied style, it offers typical Canberra red-currant-like fragrance and spice on a finely textured, supple, smooth palate.
Four-star/92.

De Bortoli Deen Vat 1 Durif 2013
Riverina, NSW, and King Valley, Victoria
$10.50–$13
Durif is an accidental cross of shiraz and peloursin, first identified by Francois Durif at Montpellier, France, in 1880 and brought to Australia by Francois de Castella in 1908. It thrived in our hot growing regions, notably at Rutherglen, Victoria. There it became the region’s signature red variety – loved by many for its porty ripeness, inky colour, burly tannin structure and long cellaring life. Modern versions like De Bortoli’s retain the variety’s generous, ripe flavours and deep colour, while mellowing the tannins for early consumption. It’s a big, loveable mouthful of a wine at a fair price.

Jacob’s Creek Classic Riesling 2015
Southeastern Australia
$7.85–$12
Humble Jacob’s Creek often upstages more expensive wines in Australian wine shows. In the 2015 National Wine Show of Australia, for example, this riesling’s cellar-mate, Classic Pinot Gris, topped the pinot gris class and won the trophy as the best “Dry white, other variety” in the show. Jacob’s Classic Riesling, an even better wine on my score sheet, captures the aromatic appeal and lime-like flavour intensity of this great variety – on a delicate, dry and beautifully refreshing palate. It’s consistently one of the best value whites on the market. In great vintages like 2015, it steps up another notch to give outstanding summer drinking at a low price.

Penny’s Hill Skeleton Key Shiraz 2012
Penny’s Hill vineyard, McLaren Vale, South Australia
$25–$25
With bottle age reds move away from primary fruit flavours towards savouriness, while retaining the essential “sweetness” of the grape. Coming up to four years’ age, Penny’s Hill 2012 sits in this delicious drinking stage. It remains bright and fresh, but the deep, sweet fruit flavours are now edged with a black-olive-like savouriness and layered with satisfying fruit- and oak-derived tannins. It’s a big and rich but harmonious wine, best chilled to around 18 degrees to capture its many flavours.

Leo Buring DWR18 Leonay Riesling 2014
Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia
$33–$40
Leonay is Australian riesling royalty, descended from beautiful, long-lived whites created by John Vickery in the 1960s. Amazingly, and despite numerous changes of ownership and management over the decades, the wine retains its integrity. And, thanks to the screwcap (championed by Vickery while working for rival company Richmond Grove in the late nineties), the wines evolve magnificently for many years. We recently tasted the 2014 for the second time and love its intensely lime-like, yet delicate, fruit flavour and very long, fresh finish. It’s a special drink indeed and should evolve for many years in a good cellar.

Bream Creek Chardonnay 2012
Bream Creek vineyard, Marion Bay, Tasmania
$30
Tasmanian vineyard consultant, Fred Peacock, grows grapes on his beautiful Bream Creek vineyard, then collaborates with Winemaking Tasmania to produce wine. Peacock holds his wines back for a few years before release. He says they’re a bit shy at first and need time to develop. We tested his 2012 vintage chardonnay with local oysters and Lake Conjola recently and found a fine match in the chardonnay’s fine structure and racy acidity. The rich fruit flavours came through deliciously, too, with the fuller flavour of fresh prawns.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 26 and 27 January 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Tyrrell’s Lost Block Heathcote Shiraz 2013 $18
Tyrrell’s Lost Block range presents Australian regional specialties in a drink-now style. This could be a hard ask for Heathcote shiraz as the wines tend to mouth puckering in the tannin department. The winemakers soften this one with a small addition of the white variety, viognier – which has the pleasing effect of lifting the aroma and flavour as well. The wine presents the savoury, black cherry varietal aromas and flavours of Heathcote shiraz on a soft-ish medium-bodied palate, which nevertheless retains a touch of the region’s bity tannins.

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Chardonnay 2015 $4.75–$6
The holiday season draws to a close, but not too late to included a delicious and cheap summer quaffer from De Bortoli. They make the wine from fruit grown near their home base in the Riverina, with a just a splash from Victoria’s cooler King Valley. The winemaking aims at capturing varietal nectarine-like flavours. But it also builds in a few extra layers by using oak staves in part of the blend and allowing maturation time on spent yeast cells. The result is a fresh and lively dry white with clear varietal flavour and that little extra texture and richness we expect of chardonnay.

Domaine Chandon Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2014 $25–$32
Cool-climate pinot noir of this calibre suits the hot Australian summer. It’s fruity, fresh, comparatively low in alcohol (12.5 per cent), and medium bodied with subtle tannins. But the intense flavours and silky texture – boosted by inclusion of whole bunches in the fermentation – mean really satisfying drinking. Grace, elegance, and deep flavour maintain the drinker’s interest to the last drop. However, the wine needs to be chilled slightly to capture the delicate perfume and subtle flavours – but not too cold. Around 18 degrees is perfect.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 23 and 24 January 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Mount Horrocks Cordon Cut Clare Valley Riesling 2015 $26.90–$33
OK, dessert’s on. Should we go refreshing, dry and light, leaving the sweets on centre stage? Or we could pile sugar on sugar: kind of invite Beelzebub to Satan’s party, upping the voluptuous sweetness of the dessert with Stephanie Toole’s Mount Horrocks Cordon Cut Riesling. What a wine. It brings to the table Clare riesling’s pure, intense lime-like flavour on a delicate, luscious palate, cut with searing, refreshing acidity. It’s an harmonious, irresistible sweetie that captures the essence of Clare riesling.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 23 January 2016 in the Canberra Times Panorama magazine.

Bay of Fires Riesling 2015
Derwent and Coal River Valleys, Tasmania
$28.49–$35
The Bay of Fires winery at Pipers River, northern Tasmania, sources grapes for this wine from the Derwent and Coal River Valleys to the south. In a masked tasting alongside the other two rieslings reviewed today, it revealed a unique combination of Germanic apple-like and Australia floral aromas. The gloriously fresh, vivacious palate mirrored the aroma. Intense but delicate acid accentuated the fruit flavours and a small amount of residual sugar harmonised perfectly with the acidity.

Pikes Clare Valley The Merle Riesling 2015
Gill Farm and Hill blocks, Pike Vineyard, Polish Hill River, Clare Valley, South Australia
$38–$45
Clare Valley veteran Neil Pike produces a number of Clare Valley rieslings, led by his flagship, The Merle. Pike sourced the 2015 vintage from the Gill’s Farm and Hill blocks within the family’s vineyard in the cool Clare sub-region, Polish Hill River. Alongside two rieslings from significantly cooler sites (Henty, Victoria, and southern Tasmania), Pike’s normally austere young wine showed appealing floral and lime-like aroma and a comparatively gentle, rounded, delicious palate of great finesse and length.

Seppelt Drumborg Riesling 2015
Drumborg Vineyard, Henty, Victoria
$30–$35
In 1964, well ahead of Australia’s table wine boom, Karl Seppelt planted grapes at chilly Drumborg, southern Victoria. The vineyard produces excellent pinot noir, chardonnay as well as rieslings of great subtlety and finesse. We lined the 2015 up in a masked tasting beside Bay of Fires Tasmania 2015 and Pikes Merle Polish Hill 2015. What a beautiful, albeit varied, lineup it proved to be. Drumborg showed lean, taut acidity with delicate but intense fruit pushing through a finely textured palate. A little kiss of residual sugar perfectly balanced the high acidity. This is one to enjoy every year or two over its potentially very long cellaring life.

Moppity Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2014
Moppity vineyards, Hilltops, NSW
$32
Being slightly warmer than Canberra, the Hilltops region makes slightly fuller, rounder styles of shiraz and fleshier, riper styles of cabernet sauvignon. After a lot of hard work in the vineyard, cabernet is now emerging as a standout variety for Moppity Park’s Jason and Alecia Brown. Their 2014, winner of a trophy and seven gold medals, offers ripe red-currant-like varietal aroma, overlaid with a sweet and spicy oak character. The ripe fruit flavours flow through to a fleshy, medium-bodied palate, cut with fine, firm cabernet and oak tannins.

Tscharke Matching Socks Touriga 2014
Barossa Valley, South Australia
$20
Sixth generation Barossa vigneron, Damien Tscharke, operates a unique cellar door in the Barossa’s Marananga sub-region. Tscharke and his German wife, Eva, imported pre-cut timber from Germany then assembled the building, comprising cellar door, mezzanine pottery gallery (Eva makes the pots on site), four-metre underground cellar and bed and breakfast facility. Tscharke makes traditional Barossa styles but also works with less well-known varieties, including savagnin, montepulciano and this pretty red, made from the port variety, touriga nacional. It’s a rich, soft red with flavours reminiscent of summer berries and Christmas cake – a wine to serve lightly chilled all summer long.

Kirrihill Regional Range Riesling 2015
Clare Valley, South Australia
$16
From the three the top-shelf rieslings reviewed here today, all of gold-medal standard and built for long cellaring, we come to a more affordable, drink-now version. Sourced from a number of vineyards across the Clare Valley, it presents a fuller, rounder side of Clare riesling, with the regional thumbprint of vibrant, citrusy varietal flavour and refreshing dry finish. The winemaking focuses entirely on capturing riesling’s aromas and flavour with no discernible winemaker add-ons.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 19 and 20 January 2016 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Coldstream Hills Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2014
Yarra Valley, Victoria
$26.60–$35
Nothing focuses the mind on a pinot like a good example of it. Three times over a period of over 20 years Coldstream Hills Reserve Pinot Noir 1992 did this: on its release in the early 90s, at a 2011 tasting hosted in Bernkastel, Germany, by winemaker Ernie Loosen, and in November 2015 at Coldstream’s thirtieth anniversary tasting, chaired by founder James Halliday. Halliday handed over winemaking to Andrew Fleming and Greg Jarratt in 2001. The pair displayed their new vintages alongside Halliday’s oldies at the tasting. The latest Reserves sit with the best of the variety in Australia. And the Amphitheatre 2013 ($150) is surely one of our most remarkable. But even the entry-level wine, combining fruit from the upper and lower Yarra, is a chip off the bigger, more expensive blocks. The supple wine starts with vibrant ripe-berry varietal flavours on a medium-bodied palate, with tang and savour derived from whole-bunch ferment and juicy, silky texture.

Penfolds Koonunga Hill Chardonnay 2014
South Australia
$13.30–$15
Penfolds chardonnay is produced in a combination of stainless steel tanks and oak barrels. The tank-fermented component preserves fresh peach- and melon-like varietal flavours; and the barrel component gives a smooth, creamy texture, a touch of spice and nut an exotic yeast-derived “funky” note. It’s a very fresh yet sophisticated chardonnay at the price, and a very good example of using multi-region grape sourcing to make high quality, affordable wine.

Tahbilk Marsanne 2015
Tahbilk, Nagambie Lakes, Victoria
$12.35–$18.85
The Purbrick family’s beautiful Tahbilk property sits on an anabranch of Victoria’s Goulburn River. The property holds one of the world’s oldest and largest plantings of marsanne, a Rhone Valley white variety. The oldest vines, planted in 1927, make a separate, higher priced wine. While marsanne tends to be viscous and a little tough on the palate, Alister Purbrick fine-tuned the winemaking approach to maintain varietal character but reduce the viscosity and firmness. The result is a richly textured wine with pleasantly tart, savoury citrus-like flavours on a bone-dry palate.

De Bortoli Windy Peak Shiraz 2014
Heathcote, Victoria
$11.40–$15
Windy Peak provides a drink-now side of Heathcote shiraz. The region in general produces deep, dark, savoury shiraz. But de Bortoli tames the beast by presenting more of the ripe, juicy, red-berry varietal flavours, with less grunt and savour. Fine, drying tannins and a savoury undercurrent add interest to a lovely red made for immediate drinking pleasure.

Tyrrell’s Rufus Stone Shiraz
Heathcote, Victoria
$16.90–$25
Tyrrell’s provides a full-bore, albeit highly polished version of Heathcote shiraz. The very deep colour and vivid crimson rim point to the wine’s power – an impression confirmed by the intense, black-cherry-like aroma and big, juicy, mouth-filling flavour. While the wine’s big, it’s also harmonious and layered with fruit- and oak-derived tannins. The oak also injects spicy and vanilla-like characters that compliment the cherry-like flavours, solid tannins and background savouriness.

Holm Oak Riesling 2015
Holm Oak and Lipoto Springs vineyards, Tamar Valley, Tasmania
$21.75–$25
Who can argue when winemaker Rebecca Duffy spruiks the virtues of Tasmanian riesling and oysters. Their unique crackling acidity seasons the briny tang of oysters as surely as a squeeze of lime or lemon juice. The steely acidity also accentuates a varietal flavour reminiscent of lime and tart green apples. Indeed the acid is the structure that holds the wine together and also suggests good cellaring ability.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 12 and 13 January 2016 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times