Wynns Coonawarra Estate Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 $25–$30
At this year’s Wynnsday tasting in Coonawarra, good old Black Label cemented its claim as one of the best value-for money-wines in Australia – perhaps even the best. This is irresistibly deep, sweet, rich cabernet with an elegance, finesse and harmony far beyond what the modest price suggests. It’s a joy to drink now, barely two years after vintage. But we can predict with near certainty, it’ll provide drinking pleasure for decades if properly cellared – making it a terrific buy not just for wine lovers but for anyone seeking a long-term memento of any 2012 event.

Helm Canberra District Half Dry Riesling 2014 $25
Ken Helm writes, “Two severe frosts in late October [2013] caused widespread damage across our vineyards. However, our vines were more resilient then we gave them credit for and with some TLC we were rewarded with a high quality but reduced crop. Our Murrumbateman fruit was consolidated into this wine and the Classic Dry Riesling”. With a comparatively low alcohol content of 11.3 per cent and18 grams of residual sugar and nine grams of acid per litre, Helm 2014 captures that mouth-watering tension between sweetness and acidity – backed by delicious, clean, fresh citrus-like varietal flavour.

Brookland Valley Verse 1 Margaret River Chardonnay 2013 $13.30–$15
When a company makes cutting edge top-shelf wine, the quality usually flows down to cheaper wines in its portfolio. We can taste this deliciously in Verse1 Chardonnay, little sibling of the far more expensive Brookland Valley Chardonnay and relative of several other classy chardonnays (including Eileen Hardy Chardonnay) in the Accolade Wine group. We bought our supply at Coles, Kununurra, as our daily refresher on a camping, driving tour of the Kimberley. The wine held up well to the heat, dust, and corrugations, providing lively, fresh, peach and melon varietal flavour in our various bush camps.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 27 August 2014 in the Canberra Times

Long Rail Gully Shiraz $25
Long Rail Gully Vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
Canberra winemakers became excited about the local 2013 shiraz even before the ferments began. Now the wines are rolling out, and they’re exciting. Ravensworth, reviewed a few months back, Nick O’Leary’s trophy winner and now Long Rail Gully and Clonakilla all show that extra juicy, ripe flavour of a warm and gentle season. The Parker family’s Long Rail Gully 2013 earns its wine-of-the-week status not because it’s better than Clonakilla 2013 (which remains the regional benchmark), but because it delivers regional character at an affordable price. It captures Canberra’s spicy, sweet, berry flavours, medium body and juicy, soft tannins very well indeed.

Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2013 $90–110
Clonakilla Vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
Winemaker Tim Kirk says he breathed a sigh of relief in the benign 2013 vintage, following very challenging seasons in 2010, 2011 and 2012. The even warmth in 2013 produced perfectly ripe grapes, with intense fruit flavours and ripe tannins. The quality of the grapes shines through in this gentle, elegant, deeply flavoured wine – with its floral, berry, spicy and even peppery notes. Australia’s benchmark shiraz-viognier will grow in status with this vintage.

Majella Shiraz 2012 $30
Majella Vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
In Majella’s latest newsletter, proprietor Brian “Prof” Lynn calls his shiraz “a very underrated wine”. I agree. We’ve been cellaring Majella shiraz at Chateau Shanahan for a couple of decades now and the wines always please with five to 10 years bottle age. Most recently a 2002 outclassed several far more expensive wines. The young wine comes with Coonawarra’s deep, sweet berry flavours cut through with sympathetic oak. Over time, the delicate and lovely fruit steps to centre stage and the oak falls away in this elegant dry red.

La Maschera Pinot Grigio 2013 $17–$18
Limestone Coast, South Australia
Robert Hill-Smith seems to have let his winemaking team off the leash. They’re making all sorts of wonderful wines under his various labels, including Yalumba, Heggies, Pewsey Vale, Running with the Bulls and La Maschera. This is a particularly lush and opulently textured pinot gris from two vineyards, about 50 kilometres north of Coonawarra. A wild yeast ferment of unclarified juice, followed by six months on spent yeast cells, gives the wine its slinky texture and pleasing, slightly wild flavours that mingle with its natural fruit.

Helm Classic Dry Riesling 2014 $35
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
“Our vineyards and some of those in our region and other parts of NSW and Victoria suffered pretty badly as a result of the frosts in October”, writes Ken Helm. As a result, Helm dropped one riesling (his Premium) from his Canberra line up for this season. But he added two more from surrounding Tumbarumba and Central Ranges regions, which I’ll review in future. Helm’s standard Classic Dry impresses for its brightness, clean citrus-like varietal flavour, and steely, dry finish. It’s one percentage point lower in alcohol than the Clonakilla reviewed today. This contributes to the wine’s lean, delicate nature and demands some patience from drinkers as the wine will fill out after about another six months in bottle.

Clonakilla Riesling 2014 $28–$35
Murrumbateman and Hall, Canberra District, NSW
Winemaker Tim Kirk says an October 2013 frost wipe out much of Clonakilla’s riesling, located on low-lying land. Kirk, however, topped up his own small crop with fruit from the Parker family’s nearby Long Rail Gully vineyard and a few other sources, including Phil Williams’ vineyard at Hall. The resulting wine shows appealing floral and citrus-like aroma with a powerful, though delicate, palate, with a bit more meat on the bone than the Helm wine, courtesy of a very small amount of residual sugar. The sugar fattens the wine without adding detectable sweetness.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 13 August 2014 in the Canberra Times

Holm Oak Tasmania Pinot Noir 2013 $32
At Holm Oak in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley, husband and wife team Tim and Rebecca tend the vines and winemaking respectively. Rebecca Duffy notes a big Tasmanian vintage in the warm, dry 2013, with fruit flavours arriving in the fruit at comparatively low sugar levels. She also writes, “our new clones of pinot continue to perform well and this has resulted in a pinot with perfumed aroma and superior tannin structure”. The wine is of pale to medium colour density, with tonnes of ripe cherry-like pinot aroma, tinged with savoury character. The rich, smooth-textured palate reflects the aroma and finishes with quite firm but fine tannins.

Long Rail Gully Murrumbateman Pinot Gris 2013 $22
The Parker family’s Long Rail Gully vineyard quietly goes about making excellent wines at modest price. They attract little publicity, but I suspect attention will grow as more people cotton on to the quality of wine Richard Parker makes from the vines he established with his parents, Barbara and Garry, in 1998. Pinot gris provides a good test and grape growing and winemaking skills. The lacklustre variety tends to make plain wine. But Long Rail Gully’s fresh, dry version captures a meaty richness and slinky texture of great appeal.

Grant Burge Fifth Generation Barossa Shiraz 2012 $16.15–$18
We bought several bottles of this juicy shiraz at Coles, Kununurra, Western Australia. It then bounced around in the back of our four-wheel drive for a couple of weeks as we shuddered westwards on the stony Gibb River Road (and its endlessly corrugated tributaries). Even 250 kilometres of the notorious Kalumburu Road and track to the Mitchell Falls failed to dent the rich, soothing, fruity smoothness of this keenly priced Barossa gem. Alas, the corrugations did shake one part from our rented vehicle. Fittingly we left a Grant Burge bottle with our rescuer – Mitchell Plateau park ranger, John Hayward.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 10 August 2014 in the Canberra Times

Heggies Vineyard Eden Valley Chardonnay 2012 $21.85–$$30
The Eden Valley sits on the Mount Lofty Ranges and forms the eastern boundary of the Barossa region. Although the best chardonnays now come from further south on the ranges, in the cooler Adelaide Hills, Heggies Eden Valley vineyard consistently produces an exciting chardonnay at a fair price. The vineyard, belonging to Robert Hill-Smith’s Yalumba group, hosts “seven different variants of chardonnay, with three favoured Burgundian selections providing the majority of the vines”, writes winemaker Peter Gambetta. The intense flavour of those low-yielding vines comes through in this generous, shimmering fresh, smooth-textured wine.

Larry Cherubino Ad Hoc Middle of Everywhere Frankland River Shiraz $19–$21
Larry Cherubino sourced fruit for Ad Hoc from various sites in Western Australia’s Frankland River region – a distinct part of the much larger Great Southern wine zone. Vines endure heat pushing down from the continent, then 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, often with quite a savoury, tannic bite. In Ad Hoc 2013 we enjoy exuberant, juicy, blueberry-like flavours, cut with an attractive savouriness, on a soft, smooth seductive palate. This truly is a fruit festival in a bottle.

Wirra Wirra Woodhenge McLaren Vale Shiraz 2012 $26.60–$35
Wirra Wirra’s winemakers produce several shirazes and regard Woodhenge as their, “classic McLaren Vale style. The fruits are darker, the chocolate notes bitter and the olives black in a full-bodied style with trademark regional richness”. Sourced from the Seaview, Whites Valley and McLaren Flat sub-regions, the wine pulses with ripe, black-cherry-like flavours on a big, rich, warm palate. Though assertive, the tannins remain silky and sit well with the lovely fruit flavour. Oak flavours – derived from American and French barrels complement the rich, ripe fruit flavours. This is a big but well-balanced wine for drinking over the next 10 years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 3 August 2014 in the Canberra Times

Wynns Coonawarra Estate V and A Lane Cabernet Shiraz 2012 $47.50–$60
Wynns V and A vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
It’s a hard concept to convey (short of taking a mouthful), but wines can have enormous concentration of fruit flavour but remain medium bodied and graceful. This is the classic, but not always achieved, Coonawarra standard of delivering power with elegance. Sue Hodder’s lovely blend achieves that. She co-fermented cabernet sauvignon and shiraz from the company’s V and A vineyard, Coonawarra, and subsequently matured the wine in a combination of new and older French oak barrels. Cabernet lends savoury, black-olive-like undercurrents and a firm, fine structure to the supple palate, featuring the sweet red-cherry-like fruit of the shiraz. Oak gives great buoyancy to the fruit, adds its own spicy flavours and contributes to the fine structure.

Mistletoe Reserve Semillon 2013 $25
Pokolbin, Lower Hunter Valley, NSW
Mistletoe makes three Hunter semillons – the traditional bone-dry Reserve, the half-dry Home Vineyard and the quite sweet Silvereye. The latter two come as quite a shock to lovers of the traditional dry style, though proprietor Ken Sloan writes, “these three wines continue to surprise and delight visitors to our cellar door”. The sweeter wines are worth trying, but the dry Reserve really stands out as an exceptional wine in the outstanding Hunter Vintage. At 11 per cent alcohol, it’s light bodied and the austere, lemony acid accentuates the intense but delicate lemongrass-like varietal flavour to delicious, mouth watering effect. I suspect this will evolve into a classic toasty Hunter style over many, many years.

Yering Station Chardonnay 2011 $32–$38
Yering Station, Yarra Valley, Victoria
The Rathbone family’s Yering Station consistently makes some of the Yarra’s most exciting chardonnays – even in the cool, wet 2011 season. The aroma presents a notable “struck match” character (naturally occurring sulphur compounds) now commonplace in Australian chardonnays. Their presence provokes a good deal of discussion among show judges, mainly some wines lack the fruit to carry such pungent seasoning. Yering Station does, however. And that’s what’s so delicious about it – that seasoning, aided by spicy oak – becomes part of the intense fruit and luxurious smooth texture.

De Bortoli Vinoque Pinot Noir 2012 $25
Dixons Creek and Tarrawarra, Yarra Valley, Victoria
Australia’s maturing pinot-making ability shows when our makers pack so much goodness and sheer “pinosity” into a wine at this price. Steve Webber’s Vinoque excites for its complex, earthy, beetroot-like aroma, and the fruit power and firm tannin structure of the palate. Webber writes, “2012 was a stonking season for pinot noir in the Yarra Valley with near perfect growing conditions”. Find out what “stonking” means – try Vinoque.

Brand’s Laira Cabernet Merlot 2012 $ 16–$24
Coonawarra, South Australia
The late Eric Brand bought the Laira vineyard in about 1950 and sold grapes until making his first wine in 1996. In 1990 he sold a half stake in the business to McWilliams, who took full ownership in 1994. The vineyard holds now extend well to the west of the original plantings, while the older vines contribute to the company’s flagship and far more expensive wines. The 2012 Laira cabernet merlot, a full-bodied Coonawarra style, offers ripe plummy flavours, tinged with mint and herbal notes. Strong, firm tannins give a satisfying grip to the workmanlike regional style.

Le Cirque Wine Co Whiz Bang Barossa Shiraz 2013 $16–$18
Barossa Valley, South Australia
The Angove family offers two full-bodied, warm climate shirazes under its Le Cirque Wine Company label – this Barossa version and the more savoury McLaren Vale Muscle Man 2013, reviewed last week. Should you see them together in store, perhaps grab a bottle of each as they illustrate the regional differences clearly and at a realistic price. Whiz Bang offers the sweet, black-cherry aroma of fully ripened Barossa shiraz. The sweet fruit flavours flow onto the opulent palate, coated in the Barossa’s tender, soft tannins.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 30 July 2014 in the Canberra Times