Grosset Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills) Chardonnay 2013
For very special Christmas drinking, consider one of Australia’s many ultra-fine but opulent cool-climate chardonnays. The world knows little about them. But we now make dozens of beautiful wines the equal of the originals from France’s Burgundy region. The finest Australian styles come generally from higher, cooler sites in NSW, Victoria and South Australia; the cool southern fringe of the continent (east and west); and throughout Tasmania. A consistent top performer is Jeffrey Grosset’s version from the Piccadilly Valley, Adelaide Hills. This is power with finesse – a succulent, silky, barrel-fermented dry white to savour drop by drop.

Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut Champagne NV $55–$70
We’ve been studying Champagne intensively for 35 years now – awestruck at times by the beauty of the best. Alas, we’re more often than not disappointed by the on-discount non-vintage wines. Many of them show little fruit flavour and scant signs of Champagne’s distinctive structure and texture, derived from long ageing in bottle on spent yeast cells. Perrier Jouet NV, on the other hand, brings delicious, subtle, delicate fruit flavour to the bottle – notably from the pinot varieties (noir and meunier), which comprise 80 per cent of the blend. It’s a delicate, soft, and very youthful aperitif style. This is genuine and good Champagne, albeit without the flavour and structure of long-term bottle ageing.

Hewitson Ned and Henry Barossa Valley Shiraz 2013 $20–$26
Dean Hewitson’s Ned and Henry offers the generosity and distinct flavours of the Barossa shiraz in a subtle, understated way. At a recent tasting, several shirazes out-muscled it. But they, along with several slightly over-oaked wines, didn’t invite a second glass. Hewitson, in contrast, held our interest right to the end. The wine shows the Barossa’s ripe, vibrant and generous fruit character, harmoniously backed by ripe, soft tannins. While it was matured in oak (which no doubt mellowed the tannins), oak flavour remains out of the picture. This is one to savour, lightly chilled at Christmas.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published:

• 20 December 2014 in goodfood.com.au
• 21 December 2014 in the Canberra Times

Gallagher Shiraz 2013 $30
Gallagher vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District NSW
Canberra’s perfect vintage conditions in 2013 produced a great number of really outstanding shirazes across the district, including Gallagher – a gold medallist at the 2014 regional wine show. The best show greater richness and ripeness of fruit and tannin than normal, while retaining their fine-boned, spicy, medium bodied regional style. Gallagher 2013 excites from the first sniff of juicy, red berries, overlaid with the black pepper of cool-grown shiraz. The bright, intensely fruity palate reveals more of the spicy side of shiraz, cut through with fine, ripe, soft tannins.

Gallagher Riesling 2014 $22
Barton Estate vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
Like other Canberra 2014 vintage rieslings, Greg Gallagher’s new release delivers highly perfumed, floral aromas, with generous, juicy, citrus-like varietal flavours. However, there’s a gentle delicacy to the palate and a racy acidity that makes it impressively vibrant and fresh. A modest alcohol content of 11.4 per cent adds to its summer drinking appeal. Based on many earlier vintages, you can enjoy this wine for its youthful fruitiness now, or follow its flavour evolution over the next four or five years – perhaps longer in a cool, dark cellar.

Mount Pleasant Mount Henry Shiraz Pinot Noir 2013 $43.50
Rosehill and Mount Pleasant vineyards, Lower Hunter Valley, NSW
The McWilliam family, owners of Mount Pleasant, first produced this retro-labelled shiraz–pinot noir blend in 2011. They followed up with a second vintage in 2013. The wine salutes winemaker Maurice O’Shea (1897–1956) from whom the McWilliams purchased Mount Pleasant in two trenches, in 1932 and 1941. O’Shea named Mount Pleasant after buying existing vines there in 1921. He subsequently planted pinot noir at the winery site in 1922 and shiraz at the nearby Rosehill vineyard in 1946. These historic vineyards provide the fruit for this wonderfully elegant red, made by Jim Chatto. The bright, limpid colour and delicate, vibrant, fruity–spicy aroma lead to a gentle, sweet and complex palate, reflecting the aroma. This truly is history in a bottle – perhaps reflective of the superb, long-lived reds O’Shea made in the 1940s and 1950s. (Available at cellar door and mountpleasantwines.com.au).

Leo Buring Leopold DW R20 Riesling 2014 $40
White Hills vineyard, Tamar Valley, Tasmania
Leo Buring’s reputation for fine, long-lived Eden Valley and Clare rieslings emerged in the 1960s and 1970s under the ownership of Lindemans and winemaking skills of John Vickery. Today the Leo Buring brand belongs to Treasury Wine Estates, with winemaking in the hands of Peter Munro. Munro continues sourcing riesling from the Eden and Clare Valleys (both located on South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges). But the exciting new frontier for the variety is Tasmania. Munro’s 2014 Leopold shows extraordinary flavour intensity and weight for a young riesling – with finesse, despite the flavour intensity and rich texture. The wine should age well for many years in a good cellar.

Schmolzer and Brown Pret-a-Rosé 2014 $26
Beechworth, Victoria
Rosé styles range from sweet and sickly to dry and svelte; and their colour spectrum moves through light and vibrant pink, to light red, to mauve and even onion-skin brown. They can be made from any red variety on earth; though paler skinned varieties like grenache, pinot noir and sangiovese seem to work best. Tessa Brown and Jeremy Schmolzer make theirs from pinot noir and sangiovese, wild fermented (and matured briefly) in old oak barrels. The resulting pale pink wine offers a mouth-caressing, smooth texture with an undercurrent of bright fruit pushing through its savoury flavours. A gentle bite of tannin completes the finish of a very good rosé.

Hardys Sir James Pinot Noir Chardonna9 Cuvee Brut $9.95–$16.65
Riverland, Limestone Coast, Sunraysia and Adelaide Hills, SA and Victoria
Failing Dom Perignon for $10, where do we go for a sparkling quaffer that sits in the sweet spot, between cheap and nasty and good but expensive? It’s most rewarding, I believe, to head for the big companies making top-end wines as well as cheaper, large-volume products. The quality trickle-down effect – combined with strong competition among retailers for popular brands – keeps quality high and prices low. In this instance Hardy’s Sir James delivers the flavour and structure of a bubbly made from the right varieties by someone who knows what they’re doing. With a recommended retail price of $16.65, currently discounted to $9.95, it’s an excellent buy.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published:

• 16 December 2014 in goodfood.com.au
• 17 December 2014 in the Canberra Times

Majella Coonawarra Sparkling Shiraz 2008 $30–$35
At the 2014 Limestone Coast Wine Show, Chinese judge Fongyee Walker awarded her International Judge’s Trophy to Majella sparkling shiraz. ABC Rural quoted Ms Walker, “It is the one wine of the whole set [of 418 wines] that I could safely give to every single person in China and they would like it”. Majella make and barrel age a normal Coonawarra shiraz, before being bottled for secondary fermentation and maturation on yeast lees for about four years. After they disgorge the spent yeast cells from the bottle, the winemakers add a splash of fortified wine and reseal it. The result is Australia’s traditional Christmas sparkler: an effervescent but real red with a lick of sweetness and a load of fruit flavour.

Oxford Landing Estates Shiraz 2013 $8–$9
Few wines at this price originate from a single vineyard. But Oxford Landing actually exists. Established on South Australia’s hot Riverland in 1958 by Yalumba’s Wyndham Hill-Smith, it remains in family hands today and is the base of the Oxford Landing Estates wine range. From a hot, dry growing season, 2013 delivers notably richer, riper fruit flavours than the previous two vintages, especially the leaner 2011. A small amount of white viognier co-fermented with the shiraz gives an aromatic lift to this generous, soft, drink-now wine, with flavors reminiscent of juicy, ripe, black cherries.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Wigan Riesling $28.50–$32
In November, the Griffith based Casella family announced its purchase of Peter Lehmann Wines. Across all the years, from the building of the winery in 1979, Andrew Wigan, worked as winemaker, then as chief winemaker, eventually giving his name in 2003 to the company’s reserve riesling. The 2009 vintage, from the Petney family’s Eden Valley vineyard, pours a shimmering, green-tinted, pale golden colour. The flavours are fresh and lively and lime-like, with the delicious “toasty” note of bottle age – providing glorious Christmas drinking at a modest price for a wine of such rare dimension.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published:

• 13 December 2014 in goodfood.com.au
• 14 December 2014 in the Canberra Times

Lerida Estate Shiraz Viognier 2013$49.50
Lerida Estate vineyard, Lake George, Canberra District, NSW
Lerida Estate led an impressive Canberra District performance in the 2013 shiraz class at the 2014 National Wine Show of Australia. Eight of the 64 wines in the class came from Canberra. Six of the eight wines won medals. And Canberra wines won three of the seven gold medals awarded – one gold each to Nick O’Leary Bolaro Shiraz 2013, Collector Reserve Shiraz 2013 and Lerida Estate Shiraz Viognier 2013. Judges rated Lerida as top wine of the class. And it went on to win the Chair of Judges’ trophy. Clearly it tickled Chair Jim Chatto’s fancy. A slow-evolving style, it offers bright, red-berry fruit, seasoned with typical Canberra spice, with underlying savoury characters and quite tight, though fine, tannins. Owner Jim Lumbers expects to release the wine mid 2015. Put this one on your wish list.

Tyrrell’s Rufus Stone Shiraz 2012 $19–$22
Tyrrell vineyard, Heathcote, Victoria
In a recent shiraz tasting, Rufus Stone 2012 appealed for its lovely fruit and sheer, juicy drinkability. Reds from Heathcote tend to be medium bodied and loaded with savoury tannin. But, perhaps as a result of the cooler season, Tyrrell’s 2012 shows less of that savoury character which, in turn, allows the supple, bright fruit to flourish. Tyrrell’s grow fruit for the wine on their 26-hectare vineyard at Heathcote, Victoria, and truck it to the Hunter Winery, where it’s fermented, matured, blended and bottled.

Freeman Dolcino 2013 $35 500ml
Freeman vineyards, Hilltops region, NSW
Brian Freeman’s luscious and lovely Dolcino won the trophy as best sweet wine at the 2014 Winewise Small Vignerons Awards. Freeman made the wine from viognier grapes harvested at very high sugar levels (42 per cent of the berry weight, he says) fermented by wild yeasts in a combination of old and new oak barrels. The intensely luscious result shows viognier’s distinctive dried-apricot and ginger-like flavours, subtle overlaid with orang-peel/marmalade character derived from the presence of noble rot (botrytis cinerea) on about half of the harvest. Despite its lusciousness, the wine remains delicate, with a high level of acidity balancing the sweetness. It would be wonderful with a stinky, ripe blue cheese.

d’Arenberg The Dry Dam Riesling 2014$16–$18
McLaren Vale, South Australia
At the 2014 National Wine Show, the Dry Dam Riesling 2014 won a gold medal and the Best Value White Wine trophy. And to prove its provenance (and keeping ability) the 2008 vintage won a silver medal and 2010 vintage a bronze. The success demonstrates yet again the outstanding drinking, and value, offered by Australian dry rieslings. The 2014 offers floral and citrus varietal aromas and flavours on a full but delicate palate.

Xanadu DJL Chardonnay 2013 $24
Margaret River, Western Australia
Xanadu won gold medals for four of its chardonnays at the National Wine Show of Australia, plus a trophy for its flagship Stevens Road Chardonnay 2012. DJL Chardonnay 2013’s national gold followed similar success at the 2014 Perth Royal Wine Show. The wine – named for Xanadu founder, Dr John Lagan – comes from several vineyards in Margaret River’s Wallcliffe and Karridale sub-regions. DJL delivers flavour-packed refreshment in the sophisticated modern Australian chardonnay style: brilliant, pal-lemon colour; medium bodied; fresh stone-fruit and citrus-like varietal flavour; subtle textural and flavour influences from oak fermentation and maturation.

Houghton Crofters Shiraz 2013 $16–$18
Frankland River, Western Australia
Crofters won a gold medal in the same National Wine Show shiraz class topped by today’s wine of the week, Lerida Estate Shiraz Viognier 2013. Just half a point out of 60 (55.5 versus 56) separated the two wines. The quality gap, however, is greater than that slim margin suggests – highlighting what a “bumpkin calculus” wine scores can be. If the Houghton wine lacks the finesse of the Lerida, it offers – at one-third the price – pure drinking pleasure with its sweet, perfumed aroma, vibrant palate and fairly solid, savoury tannins, typical of Frankland River.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published:

• 9 December in goodfood.com.au
• 10 December in the Canberra Times

Jacob’s Creek Barossa Pearl $12–$15
In his 1992 book The Grapes of Ralph, UK cartoonist Ralph Steadman sketched a matronly, imaginary “Barossa Pearl” presiding over a Barossa soup kitchen. Alas, Orlando Barossa Pearl – once fruity, sweet, vibrant and sparkling – had popped her last bubbles nine years earlier, in 1983. Today’s wine industry owes much to Pearl. Released in 1956, she and similar lightly sparkling “pearl” wines introduced a generation of beer and fortified drinkers to table wine. Resurrected Pearl is made, like the original, from Barossa riesling and semillon grapes. Whether it’ll click with grandchildren of the original drinkers remains to be seen. It’s a blander and sweeter drink than I remember the original being. But that’s a long time ago. And sweet, sparkling wines under various guises remain one of the perennial winners of the Australian wine market.

Majella The Musician Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz $17.10–$20
The Lyn family’s song of fruit, The Musician, provides a floral, juicy expression of 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. The 2013 vintage seems even juicier and fruitier than the excellent 2012 reviewed last year and would make an excellent Christmas lunch wine, served slightly chilled.

Leo Buring Eden Valley Dry Riesling 2014 $18–$20
The Leo Buring brand goes back to the first half of last century. But its reputation for fine, long-lived riesling came during the sixties and seventies after Lindemans bought the business following Leo Buring’s death. Winemaker John Vickery, still active today, made all those early Burings, setting a standard still admired and emulated today. Burings now belongs to Treasury Wine Estates and under winemaker Peter Munro, continues to make exceptionally fine rieslings. This version, from the company’s own Eden Valley vineyards, displays floral and citrus varietal character and a generous, finely textured palate. Vibrant acidity gives a juicy, dry, refreshing finish.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 7 December 2014 in the Canberra Times