Tellurian Viognier 2014
Eastern Mount Camel Ranges, Heathcote, Victoria
$27
Tellurian Viognier 2014 topped the “other whites varietals and blends” section in February’s Winewise Championship. The Canberra-based championship rates gold-medallists from other Australian wine shows – a sort of best-of-best taste-off, judged in small groups of no more than seven wines. Tullurian topped the viognier class before advancing to the finals against four other varietals and a blend, each a winner of its own class. Viognier can be big, brash and overbearing. But barrel-fermented Tellurian captures pure apricot- and ginger-like varietal flavour on a silky, richly textured. harmonious palate. It’s a juicy and loveable example of the variety, best drunk within three or four years of vintage. I rated it top in both the heat and the final. It’s available at tellurianwines.com.au.

Josef Chromy Fumé Blanc 2015
Relbia, Northern Tasmania
$28
Another white that impressed while judging at the Winewise Championship, was Joseph Chromy’s oak-fermented sauvignon blanc, labelled as “fume blanc”. The wine retains fresh sauvignon blanc flavours, but against the rich texture and flavours derived from fermentation and maturation in oak barrels. We rated it the best of the sauvignon blancs or sauvignon blanc dominant blends in the competition. Californian vigneron Robert Mondavi coined the name “fume blanc” in the 1960s to differentiate dry sauvignon blanc from sweeter versions. Australian winemakers flirted with it in the 1980s. It still pops up occasionally in Australia and generally indicates, as this one does, an oak-fermented sauvignon blanc.

Stockman’s Ridge Rider Shiraz 2014
Stockman’s Ridge vineyard, Orange, NSW
$23
I’m not as excited by Stockman’s Ridge 2014 as the judges at the 2015 Australian Highlands Wine Show, where it won a gold medal and three trophies. But it’s a pretty shiraz, displaying pure, sweet, berry fruit flavours on a medium-bodied, lively, soft palate. It offers pleasant, fruity current drinking. The wine comes from Jonathon Hambrook’s 20-year-old shiraz vines located at 800 metres above sea level on the north-west slopes of Mount Canobolas.

Redbank Fiano 2014
Myrrhee, King Valley, Victoria
$21.95
With more romance than reality the back label depicts fiano as a variety “dating back to the days of Roman viticulture”. More prosaically, Jancis Robinson and Jose Vouillamoz in Wine grapes – a complete guide to 1368 varieties, including their origins and flavours, dismiss as futile attempts to link ancient names to modern varieties. They do, however, point to its origins in Campania and mentions of it as early as 1240. At Myrrhee, 700-metres up in Victoria’s King Valley, it produces a full-flavoured, melon-scented dry white with a rich texture and tangy, lemony dryness. At the recent Winewise Championship, Redbank ranked second in my score sheet to the delicious, but sold-out, Briar Ridge Limited Release Fiano 2015.

Saltram “The Journal” Old Vine Shiraz 2010
Schultz vineyard, Mount McKenzie, Eden Valley, South Australia
$133–$175
Buried among Treasury Wine Estate’s vast portfolio are beautiful regional gems, including Saltram The Journal, made from Eden Valley vines planted in Australia’s federation year, 1901. This high (472-metre), cooler section of the Barossa produces perfumed, comparatively elegant shiraz with very long-term cellaring potential. In the solid 2010 vintage, Shavaughn Wells made a powerful, brooding wine from these old vines. Despite its power, The Journal is an harmonious red with deep, bright fruit flavours meshed with strong but soft, persistent tannins. It’s a wine to marvel at and savour as it evolves over the next half century.

Tim Adams Riesling 2015
Clare Valley, South Australia
$18.90–$22
Tim Adams riesling offers absolutely delicious current drinking and outstanding cellaring potential. A year on from vintage, it shows appealing floral and lime varietal aromas and a shimmering, fresh palate. A combination of intense lime-like varietal flavour, light body (11.5 per cent alcohol), pure, refreshing acidity and bone-dry finish add up to pure drinking pleasure. The light colour, delicacy, freshness and high acidity all point to interesting flavour development in the years ahead. Buy a dozen, throw it somewhere cool and dark, and enjoy a bottle every now and then over the next ten years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 9 and 16 March 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Logan Weemala Orange Riesling 2015 $16–$20
Mudgee-based Logan wines sources grapes from a range of altitudes across a swathe of the NSW central ranges, including Orange. Winemaker Peter Logan writes, “Logan’s vineyards sit particularly high above Orange. At altitudes ranging from 850 to 1,050 metres above sea level these are some of the highest vineyards in Australia”. The high altitude means comparatively low temperatures during the ripening period. In the great 2015 vintage, these conditions produced a highly aromatic, intensely flavoured riesling of great delicacy. The wine’s high natural acidity gives it a racy, fresh, dry finish.

Shaw Vineyard Estate Canberra Riesling 2015 $22.50–$25
Graeme Shaw writes, “I craft my wines with my customers in mind and I’ve rarely seen a wine judge in my cellar door buying wine. However, I can’t help but be a smidgen proud that this wine won three trophies at the 2015 Australian Cool Climate Wine Show, including best wine in show”. This is a fuller bodied riesling than the delicate Logan wine reviewed above. It offers strong, lemon-like varietal flavour on an assertive, dry palate. Refreshing acidity combines with warm alcohol and a light astringency to the finish.

Ad Hoc Middle of Everywhere Frankland River Shiraz 2014 $19–$21
The quirky name reflects winemaker Larry Cherubino’s belief in shiraz from Western Australia’s Frankland River region. He writes, “Some people might think Frankland River’s a little isolated – but if you want to make great shiraz in WA, it’s right where you want to be”. The region feels the continent’s hot breath which, on its own, might be too much heat for shiraz. But the southern ocean counters with lovely cold air – and the result is savoury, spicy, medium-bodied cool-climate shiraz. Ad Hoc is a drink-now version of the style. Cherubino captures vibrant fresh berry flavours, laced with pepper and spice, on a smooth, savoury palate.

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

McKellar Ridge Shiraz Viognier 2015
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$33–$35
Due for release at the April Harvest Festival, Brian and Jane Johnston’s shiraz-viognier shows the exceptional fruity depth of Canberra’s 2015 vintage. ­­Round, plush and seductive, the palate ripples with vibrant, ripe-berry flavours. Brian Johnston says he accentuated the fruit flavour by using more new French oak than usual, but reducing the time in oak by about five months. It’s a noticeable change and one that worked deliciously in the outstanding 2015 season. The wine remains medium bodied and spicy in the Canberra mould, with a special buoyancy and depth.

Four Winds Vineyard Shiraz 2014
Four Winds Vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$30
Graeme and Suzanne Lunney planted the 13.4-hectare Four Winds vineyard in 1998 and 1999, during BRL Hardy’s tenure in Canberra. Hardys are long gone, but the family now makes and markets wine under the Four Winds label. Daughter Sarah Collingwood looks after marketing and husband John Collingwood manages the vineyard. Another Lunney daughter, Jaime Crowe, and husband Bill Crowe, make the wine. The family’s 2014 reveals a fragrant and gentle side of Canberra shiraz. Vibrant, berry fruit flavours, a touch of spice and savoury oak, and a round, soft, palate complete an appealing, medium-bodied style.

Swinging Bridge Mrs Payten Chardonnay 2014
Orange, NSW
$32
Tom Ward’s Swinging Bridge chardonnays demonstrate the varietal intensity achieved in Orange’s high-altitude vineyards. His current releases include this lovely Mrs Paytens 2014 and a reserve bottling (4.5 stars–96 points, $38), also from the 2014 vintage. Mrs Payten – a richer, rounder style for Orange – seduces with ripe, nectarine-like varietal flavour and refreshing, brisk acidity. The reserve version echoes those nectarine-like flavours in a leaner, tighter style of great intensity. These are classy drops from a region that makes excellent wines, yet struggles to create a clear style identity as Canberra has with its shiraz and riesling.

Hay Shed Hill Shiraz Tempranillo 2013
Margaret River, Western Australia
$19–$22
Michael Kerrigan fermented and matured shiraz and tempranillo separately before combining the two in this solid, loveable blend. At 86 per cent, shiraz dominates the blend, giving a sweet, mid-palate ripeness and flesh. But the tempranillo brings earthy, savoury characters and assertive tannins that cut through the bright, berry flavours, giving a long, grippy finish. Kerrigan writes, “Margaret River has experienced an unprecedented sequence of outstanding vintage – all with their own twists and turns but all of the highest quality. 2014 will prove to be another highlight in this run”.

Pike and Joyce “Separe” Gruner Veltliner 2015
Lenswood, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
$28
Austria’s national white variety, gruner veltliner, now grows in several cool Australian regions, including Canberra and the Adelaide Hills. The Clare based Pike family source theirs from Lenswood, a particularly cool part of the Adelaide Hills which, like Clare, lies on the Mount Lofty Ranges. The 2015 gruner tingles and pleases with its richly textured palate and tart melon-rind and pear-like flavours. It finishes dry and refreshing with a distinctive spicy aftertaste.

Toppers Mountain Gewurztraminer 2015
Toppers Mountain vineyard, Inverell, New England, NSW
$35
Gewurztraminer’s remarkable aroma – reminiscent of musk and lychee – tends to attract at first, then repel with its unrelenting attack on the senses. I’ve toyed with the variety for about 40 years, since falling in and out of love, in one evening, with a particularly heady version from Alsace. The fascination returned recently with tastings of the 2014 and 2015 vintages from Mark Kirkby’s Toppers Mountain vineyard. The 2014 tasted so pure and delicate at the Winewise Championship; and a few days later the new-release 2015 showed similar class. This is dry, intense gewürztraminer of the highest order. It’s a wine to admire, but probably not drink much of.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 8 and 9 March 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Tim Adams Reserve Riesling 2010
Clare Valley, South Australia
$29
Tim Adams’ brisk, sometimes searingly acidic rieslings benefit from bottle age. His currently available reserve bottling, now six years old, retains a razor-sharp edge of acidity that accentuates its intense, yet delicate, lemon- and lime-like varietal flavours. Bottle age has also added smooth texture and subtle honeyed notes to a delicious wine with years, perhaps decades, of flavour development ahead of it.

Tyrrell’s Lost Block Merlot 2014
Limestone Coast, South Australia
$16–$18
Tyrrell’s Lost Block range offers enjoyable drinking – and quite often retailer discounts – across the range. Each comes from a region well suited to a variety, in this instance merlot from the Limestone Coast – that vast area of cool, coastal south Australia stretching from the Coorong in the north to Mount Gambier in the south. The medium bodied wine combines bright fruit flavours with earthy–savoury notes and a satisfying bite of fine, drying tannins.

Torbreck Woodcutter’s Shiraz 2014
Northwestern Barossa Valley, South Australia
$22.80–$25
Woodcutter’s shows the richness and smoothness that comes from attention to detail in the vineyard and winery. Ripe, but not over-ripe, shiraz gives the wine its mouth-filling richness. And the natural quality of the fruit – combined with varied fermentation and oak-maturation techniques – provide mellow, smooth, soft tannins that perfect the generous, warm, satisfying drinking sensation. More please.

Moss Wood Amy’s Cabernet Merlot Petit Verdot Malbec 2014
Margaret River, Western Australia
$32.30–$38
Could there be a juicier, more seductive cabernet blend? I doubt it. Moss Wood puts a friendly, smiling face on what can be an austere blend. Led by cabernet sauvignon, Amy’s beguiles with its joyous, sweet, berry-laden aroma. The fleshy, deep palate reflects this vibrant fruitiness. However, serious, grippy tannins wash through the fleshy fruit, giving structure, length and a satisfying finish – completely in harmony with the overwhelmingly fruity character of the wine.

Sassafras Fiano 2015
Ricca Terra Farms, Barmera, Riverland, South Australia
$24
Fiano 2015 accompanied two other new releases from Paul Starr and Tammy Brook’s tiny, Canberra-based Sassafras label: the lightly sparkling Canberra District Savagnin Ancestral 2015 (reviewed last week) and Sassafras Canberra District Sagrantino 2013, a rustic red with the eye-popping tannins associated with this Italian variety. The lovely white comprises Southern Italy’s fiano and a splash of Canberra-grown savagnin. It’s a highly distinctive, full-bodied dry style that’s at once savoury, leesy, and slippery smooth textured.

Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2006
Avize, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger, Cramant and Chouilly, Champagne, France
$284–$350
Being in the right place at the right time – and a handful of hastily collected cash – put three vintages of Comtes de Champagne on our palate in quick succession. The sublime and powerful 2005, enjoyed at Penfolds Magill Estate, rates as our most memorable wine of 2015. The equally sublime, if more subtle and elegant, 2002 graced a Chateau Shanahan tasting in November: 10 of us shared the $280 buying price from Jim Murphy Airport Cellars. Then in early January, the importer, McWilliams Wines, provided a taste of the 2006 – a beautiful wine, sitting in body between the 2002 and 2005, with a unique combination of delicacy, richness and backbone, derived from prolonged ageing on yeast lees. The all-chardonnay blend comes from some of the best vineyards on the Cotes des Blancs, south of the Marne River.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 2 March 2016 in the Canberra Times

Curly Flat Williams Crossing Macedon Pinot Noir 2014 $27.90–$30
You can buy good shiraz from around $10 a bottle. And there’s lots of it. But the real pinot noir experience comes at a higher price. The best Australian versions come from cool growing regions: on the south-eastern tip of the mainland, from high-altitudes, and Tasmania. A favourite, Curly Flat, comes from the high, cool Macedon ranges near Melbourne. You can pay around $50 for the company’s flagship pinot. But Williams Crossing, a blend from barrels not suited to the flagship style, provides a satisfying pinot experience. The 2014 offers ripe, juicy varietal flavour with underlying savouriness and a silky satisfying texture.

Freeman “Secco” Rondinella Corvina 2011 $35
For the adventurous or well-travelled palate, Brian Freeman’s Secco offers an Australian take on the idiosyncratic “Amarone” wines of Italy’s Valpolicella region. He says the late-ripening rondinella and corvina grapes “were still green during the nerve-wracking downpours” of the disastrously wet, cold 2011 vintage. They ripened in more benign conditions “three months after the other varieties…from almost leafless vines, clean and ready for the neighbour’s prune dehydrating shed”. Use of partially raisened grapes give the wine exotic prune- and fruit-cake-like flavours on an intensely savoury palate with firm, mouth-puckering tannins.

Kirrihill Regional Range Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2015 $10.90–$13
Chardonnay remains Australia’s biggest volume white wine. Our vignerons crushed 376 thousand tonnes of it in 2015 – more than four times the 89 thousand tonnes of sauvignon blanc they processed. However, Australians consume far more sauvignon blanc than they do chardonnay, largely through the runaway success of imports from Marlborough, New Zealand. While Australia can never hope to out-sauvignon Marlborough, we now make an extraordinary range of chardonnays to equal the world’s best. At a very modest price, Kirrihill shows a rich, juicy, fruity side of the variety. Smooth textured and full of vitality it brims with unoaked nectarine-like varietal flavours.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 28 February 2016 in the Canberra Times

Tapanappa Foggy Hill Pinot Noir 2014
Foggy Hill vineyard, Fleurie Peninsula, South Australia
$55
After losing control of Petaluma Wines to Lion Nathan (now Lion Co) early this century, founder Brian Croser established Tapanappa Wines, based on existing vineyards in the Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills) and Wrattonbully, near Coonawarra. In 2003, Croser planted a pinot vineyard at Parawa, “the highest point of the Fleurieu Peninsula half way between Victoria Harbour and Cape Jervis”, he writes. Eleven years and several vintages later, the vineyard at last produced a pinot of stunning quality, revealing the unique power, elegance, firm-but-fine structure, and earthy richness of this great variety.

Sassafras Savagnin Ancestral 2015
Quarry Hill vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$24
Be prepared to wrinkle your nose and pucker your lips. Paul Starr’s cloudy bubbly challenges the senses with it lemony tartness and green-apple sharpness. Made from barely ripe savagnin grapes, the wine was lightly filtered towards the end of its fermentation and transferred to bottle. There the remaining yeast cells converted residual grape sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. (The spent yeast cells give the wine its cloudiness). The wine shows fresh fermentation aromas, while the palate combines lemon and sour apple flavours, with a tart, grippy, bone-dry finish. Noma restaurant selected Sassafras Savagnin for its Sydney wine list – perhaps to pair its idiosyncratic tartness with particular foods.

Ravensworth Garnacha Tinta y Cinq-sao 2015
Quarry Hill and Euroka Park vineyards, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$32
Press the “Weird stuff” tab on ravensworth.com.au to buy Bryan Martin’s delicious young red. He writes, “I was eating a pretty neat paella when I was writing the label” – hence the Spanish names of two red varieties we know as grenache and cinsaut. These southern French vines thrive in hot, dry climates and clearly ripened beautifully in cooler Canberra in 2015. Martin used whole-berry ferment, in the Beaujolais style, to create a unique, mouth-watering style: fragrant and juicy, with a range of sweet-berry flavours, a touch of spice and savour, round, plush palate and dry, fresh finish.

Cupitt Semillon 2014
Cupitt vineyard, Ulladulla, Shoalhaven Coast, NSW
$26
Cupitt winery and restaurant complex perches on a gentle slope, to the west of Ulladulla, with views to Burrill Lake and the Budawangs. Fresh local food, smart service, and delicious wine and beer made on site match the beautiful setting. Griff Cupitt raises Black Angus cattle, Rosie Cupitt makes cheese, and their sons Wally and Tom produce wine and beer. At a recent lunch, we enjoyed 2012 and 2014 vintage semillons from the Cupitt vineyard and a 2014 shiraz from Hilltops. They’re all enjoyable wines, but our pick on a hot day, the 2014 semillon, provided ultra-fresh, light-bodied drinking (10 per cent alcohol), with zesty lemon-like flavours and bone-dry finish.

Pikes Traditionale Riesling 2015
Clare Valley, South Australia
$17.90–$25
The Pike family’s blend from various Clare Valley sub-regions provides a rich, soft, drink-now expression of Clare’s great white specialty. Lemon- and lime-like aromas and flavours, combined with brisk acidity, give the wine tremendous vitality. The combination of delicate, citrus characters with that acidity make it a great pre-dinner refresher or good company with seafood, especially oysters. We enjoyed our bottle with fresh Clyde River oysters at Lake Conjola.

Bremerton Special Release Tempranillo Graciano 2014
Langhorne Creek, South Australia
$24
Down in Australia’s “middle palate”, Langhorne Creek, sisters Lucy and Rebecca Willson have a bit of fun with the Spanish red varieties tempranillo and graciano, solo and blended together. Their 2014 combination of the two varieties produced a medium-to-deep coloured wine with satisfying, Langhorne Creek fleshiness. However, the savoury character of the varieties and rustic tannins flow across the palate, too, giving a firm but gentle, dry finish.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 24 February in the Canberra Times