Jacob’s Creek Riesling 2012 $6.90–$12
In 2012 this wine won silver medals in the Melbourne and Hobart wine shows, then golds in Adelaide and Canberra National Wine Show. In October this year, it won the trophy as best riesling at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. Winemaker Bernard Hickin says the fruit comes from the Barossa, Eden and Clare Valleys and Langhorne Creek. The combination gives the wine well-defined lime and lemon varietal flavours and a delicious fruit sweetness – though the wine remains crisp and dry with only about three grams a litre of residual sugar (below our taste threshold). This is an extraordinarily good wine at the price.

Cherubino Ad Hoc Middle of Everywhere
Frankland River Shiraz 2012 $19–$21
Larry Cherubino sourced fruit for this wine from various sites in Western Australia’s Frankland River region – a distinct part of the much larger Great Southern wine zone. Vines endure some of the heat pushing down from the continent, but also benefit from cool afternoon and evening air flowing up from the cold oceans to the south. The unique conditions produce generously flavoured, medium bodied red wines. In Ad Hoc we enjoy ripe, jui, blueberry-like flavours, cut with an attractive savouriness, on a soft, smooth seductive palate.

Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2012 $10.45–$15
Like Jacob’s Creek reviewed above, Wyndham Estate is a brand of France’s Pernod-Ricard. The company’s vast vineyard at Langhorne, established principally for the global Jacob’s Creek brand, provides the fruit for this delicious shiraz. Winemaker Steve Meyer, says he blended Bin 555 Shiraz 2012 using fruit from six different blocks on the vineyard. It shows the ripe, even, generous flavours of the vintage and the full, rich character of Langhorne Creek shiraz. This is one of Australia’s outstanding wine regions and the consumer’s friend when it makes reds of this quality at such a modest price.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2013
First published 10 November 2013 in the Canberra Times

Tim Smith Wines Shiraz 2012 $36
Barossa Valley, South Australia
Wine judges and critics appear to have moved well ahead of wider public tasted in their support of leaner, elegant cool-climate shirazes. Time and again at tastings I see people opting for the riper, fleshier styles from warm areas – particularly the Barossa and McLaren Vale. Tim Smith’s is a succulent example of the latter style. It’s irresistibly, ripe and fleshy – so easy to drink now, yet with years of cellaring ahead. Tim Smith writes, “I source my shiraz grapes from about six vineyards… Vine age is +100 years for the oldest parcel, with the youngest parcel being about 20 years of age”.

Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz 2012 $28–$32
Hilltops, NSW
Heavy rain towards the end of February 2012 destroyed large volumes of ripe, or near ripe grapes in Canberra and surrounding districts. Clonakilla lost much of its Canberra fruit in the event. But, says Tim Kirk, they harvested most of their fruit from the Hilltops region (around Young, NSW), the day before the 200mm deluge arrived. The result is a delightfully rich red combining ripe, dark-cherry flavours with the spice and touch of black pepper we see from cooler areas. The wine’s medium bodied and shows the Clonakilla signature of great harmony and silky, juicy mid palate. Judges awarded it a bronze medal regional show, but I rate it more highly.

Mad Fish Gold Turtle Chardonnay 2012 $14.25–$15
Margaret River, Western Australia
A mad fish and a gold turtle seem unlikely companions in a wine name. But the wine, from Jeff and Amy Burch’s Howard Park Winery, Margaret River, offers extraordinarily good drinking at a bargain price. Sourced from the Wilyabrup and Karridale sub-regions, Gold Turtle Chardonnay offers bright, fresh nectarine-like varietal flavour with lively acidity and a rich texture derived from a natural fermentation in barrel and extended maturation on yeast lees. The screw cap on wines of this calibre enables reliable cellaring for perhaps five years from vintage.

Coldstream Hills Rising Vineyard Chardonnay 2012 $42–$45
Rising vineyard, Yarra Valley, Victoria
Coldstream Hills, now part of Treasury Wine Estates, produces several Yarra Valley chardonnays – a general blend, a “reserve” version and, in 2012, two single-vineyard wines, “Deer Farm Vineyard” and “Rising Vineyard”. The latter demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between top-notch chardonnay and oak. Winemaker Andrew Fleming fermented then matured the wine win in French oak – 60 per cent of it new. That’s a high proportion and works only if the fruit is up to it and the oak exactly right. It’s a beautiful wine, seamlessly integrating intense, vibrant nectarine-like varietal flavours with spicy oak and all the subtle textural and flavour nuances derived from contact with the barrels and yeast lees.

Wilson Watervale Riesling 2013 $19
Wilson vineyard, Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia
John Wilson made wines originally from the Clare Valley’s Polish Hill River sub-region. He later sourced fruit, as well, from Watervale, towards the valley’s southern end. Wilson’s son Daniel now makes several Clare rieslings, including this full-flavoured, finely textured version. The mid-lemon colour and full, upfront flavour make attractive current drinking, though the wine should evolve well for three or four years.

Champagne Taittinger Brut Reserve NV $50–$60
Champagne, France
With a little more chardonnay in the blend than most NV’s (40 per cent versus about 33 – the remainder pinot noir and pinot meunier), good old Taitts giggles on the light and cheery side of Champagne, with seemingly little lees-aged character. Nevertheless, it’s a lovely, delicate aperitif style with the lightness of chardonnay and yummy brioche-like nuances of pinot meunier, the lesser of the two pinots, but indispensable nevertheless. Pinot meunier tends to fill the frost-prone dips in the Champagne region and is more fruitful than pinot noir in this situation as it buds later, giving it better odds of missing the chill. As wine, it matures earlier than pinot noir, thus fleshing out the mid palate of younger Champagnes.

Copyright Chris Shanahan 2013
First published  November 2013 in the Canberra Times and goodfood.com.au

Redbank The Long Paddock Victoria Shiraz 2012 $9.50–$13
Redbank won’t reveal exactly which parts of Victoria this attractive blend comes from. But even at the price, there’s no doubting it includes very good material from high-quality producing regions. Its fragrant, ripe and supple, with medium body and spicy, peppery notes derived from cool climate components of the wine. The winemakers added sangiovese to the blend (six per cent of the total) – injecting savour and grip to the otherwise soft tannins. The wine is made for current drinking, not cellaring. Redbank is a Victorian based brand belonging to the Hill-Smith family’s Yalumba group.

Turkey Flat Butchers Block Barossa Valley White 2012 $19.5–$22
This white style seems well suited to the warm, dry Barossa Valley. Made from three Rhone Valley varieties, marsanne, roussanne and viognier, Butcher’s Block offers texture and savouriness rather than the aromatics and fruitiness cooler regions do better. Christie Schulz polished the style over the years, treating each of the components separately, including skin contact for the viognier, early picking for the marsanne and later picking and whole bunch pressing for the roussanne – with 50 per cent of the blend matured in oak. It’s a full-bodied, richly textured dry white with subtle, underlying nectarine and apricot-like flavours.

Brookland Valley Unison Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 $17–$20
I tasted Brookland Valley alongside Chateau Semeillan Mazeau, a cabernet blend from Bordeaux, selling at double the price. The difference seems partly a question of style and not just one of quality. The French red offered good fruit, tightly bound up in tannin – thus putting texture and structure on an equal footing with that fruit. Brookland Valley, on the other hand puts varietal fruit to the fore – both in the sweet aroma and juicy vibrance of the palate. Tannin supports the fruit but without adding depth or length. It offers simple, fruity drink-now pleasure at a fair price

Copyright Chris Shanahan 2013
First published 3 November 2013 in the Canberra Times

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