All posts by Chris Shanahan

Lovedale Semillon and the emergence of a Hunter specialty

26 February 2006People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

The release this week of the magnificent McWilliams Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2000, reminds us that greatness is often accompanied by idiosyncrasy.

And in the case of Hunter semillon, idiosyncrasy begins with a paradox. How can a comparatively delicate wine style emerge from such a warm, humid and wet climate? Haven’t we been told for decades that elegant wines come from cool regions?

The answer appears to lie, say McWilliams, in “the humidity, afternoon cloud cover and gentle sea breezes [that] temper the summer and afford excellent ripening conditions”.

Unquestionably, something is up as warm-climate semillon tends to make clumsy wines smelling and tasting of wet hessian.

But the peculiarities of the lower Hunter allow vignerons to harvest semillon at very low sugar ripeness without suffering the green, tart, unripe flavours that generally accompany such early harvesting.

True, very young Hunter semillon has an austere acid edge, but the ‘lemongrass’ and ‘lemon’ fruit flavours underlying the acidity have a sweet, delicious core. While the bone-dry austerity of young semillon may seem at odds with prevailing Aussie wine styles, some makers, like Brokenwood and Margan have succeeded in tempering the austerity without losing the distinctive regional flavours.

Others, like McWilliams Mount Pleasant Elizabeth and Lovedale and Tyrrell Vat 1, persist with the more austere styles that age so beautifully. This style emerged close to its present from in the 1960s.

According to the late Murray Tyrrell, Ray Kidd of Lindemans put modern Hunter semillon firmly on track with the introduction of protective winemaking technology — principally through the use of temperature controlled ferments and inert gas blanketing.

Great and age worthy Hunter semillons preceded Lindeman’s initiatives – the first from the Lovedale, for example, was made in 1950 – but the introduction of protective winemaking enabled the style to flourish.

McWilliams introduced the technology to its Mount Pleasant winery in 1967 and for decades the delicate, lively and long-lived Elizabeth Riesling (as Hunter semillon was often called in those days) became one of Australia’s most popular wines.

Elizabeth’s popularity waned during the eighties and Hunter semillon, despite its extraordinary qualities, appeared to be marginalised: loved only by wine experts, aficionados and part of the Sydney market.

Whether or not there’s widespread commercial hope for the genre, it’s hard to tell. But the core of makers attending the classic style, sourcing small parcels from the Lower Hunter’s great old vineyards, appears to be growing.

And that’s a trend fanned by aficionados and leading wine shows where judges regularly reward the classic long-lived styles.

But is it a style that only the initiated can love? Definitely not. The popularity of Elizabeth in the BC era (before chardonnay) suggests otherwise. And, of course, the sheer glory of drinking a mature Tyrrell’s Vat 1 or Lovedale is the most convincing argument of all.

Given semillon’s waning popularity in the eighties and nineties and the poor returns enjoyed by most makers, we should be thankful that McWilliams persevered with the low-yielding Lovedale vineyard and the stunning wines from it, crafted since 1978 by Phil Ryan.

A wine of Lovedale Semillon’s calibre is rare: it develops slowly in bottle, gradually building richness upon richness as it unfolds over the decades from lean and lemony in youth to honeyed and toasty with age. It sits squarely in the Lower Hunter mould, yet has a unique intensity and power attributable to the drab-looking, sandy site earmarked for semillon by Maurice O’Shea half a century ago.

McWilliams Hunter Valley Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2000 $45
One year before Max Schubert created Grange Hermitage, Maurice O’Shea made the first semillon from the Lovedale vineyard – a flat, sandy and unprepossessing site, planted in 1946. Known variously, over the years, as Lovedale Riesling, Anne Riesling and, finally, Lovedale Semillon, the wine has become a long-lived benchmark of the unique, idiosyncratic Hunter style. This new release, from the very cool 2000 vintage, seems to be particularly slow maturing. Less than a year ago it showed the grassy, sauvignon-blanc-like character of the cool year. It’s now slipped into a more lemony, taut, typical and glorious Hunter semillon mode with decades of life ahead.

Wine review — Hanging Rock, Meeting Place & Houghton

19 February 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Hanging Rock Heathcote Shiraz 2003, about $55
This one’s got class stamped all over it – a wonderful red from one of Australia’s leading shiraz producing regions, stretched along the red-soils-above-Cambrian-bedrock of the Mount Camel Range, Victoria. The label declares an alcohol content of 15 per cent. But there’s nothing heavy about the wine. The colour’s a brilliant crimson-rimmed red and it’s extraordinarily rich and concentrated yet finely structured. The flavours sit in the ripe, cool-climate spectrum with intense, sweet plummy fruit and a savour note. The deep flavour, elegant structure and great balance all point to good medium to long term cellaring.

Meeting Place Canberra Region Viognier 2004 $15
I recommended this last year prior to release and tasted it again recently. It’s terrific. Sourced from a company-managed vineyard at Holt, it’s a blend of tank-fermented and wild-yeast, oak-fermented components. It’s pure viognier from first sniff to last drop. That means an exotic, heady apricot aroma and flavour and a round, soft, slightly viscous texture. There’s certainly a ‘wow’ factor in full-blown viognier, although food matching can be difficult. So drink it on its own or perhaps as winemaker Alex McKay suggests, with pear and Gorgonzola salad. Made to enjoy now.

Houghton Shiraz 2003 $9 to $12
Houghton is the Western Australian arm of Hardy Wine Company, itself a subsidiary of US owned Constellation brands. With over 1000 hectares of vines under its control in the cooler southerly parts of the West, Houghton offers everything from the sublime depths of its Jack Mann and John Gladstones wines to the delicious, big-value white label range, with a lineage going back 60-odd years. Winemaker Rob Bowen tells me the 2003 shiraz comes principally from Frankland River and Mount Barker regions of Great Southern. This explains the wine’s medium body, tight structure and savoury varietal flavour. Brilliant value, especially on special under $10.

Wine review — Penley Estate, Rochford & Madfish

12 February 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Penley Estate Coonawarra Phoenix Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 $19.99
At last year’s Limestone Coast Show, Singapore based writer, Ch’ng Poh Tiong awarded Phoenix the International Judge’s Trophy as his favoured wine of the show. Together with James Halliday, we’d ranked it at the top of the small 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon class, noting its vibrant, sweet, fruity aroma and juicy, fleshy, drink-now palate. Waxing metaphorical at the trophy presentation, Poh Tiong praised its ‘smouldering-ember smoky’ character – fitting for a wine named Phoenix, I suppose. With or without metaphors, it’s simply delicious and made specifically for early drinking. It’s available now at cellar door (08 8736 3211) and fine wine retail outlets.

Rochford Latitude Victoria Chardonnay 2003 & Pinot Noir 2003 $17 to $19
These are stunningly good wines at the price. At three years the Yarra Valley Chardonnay has a delicious crackling freshness to it and a combination of pure, stone-fruit varietal flavour with funky barrel-aged character. The pinot noir – a blend of Macedon and Yarra Valley material – is the best under-$20 Aussie pinot I’ve tried. Like the chardonnay, it’s bright, limpid and fresh with a core of pure varietal fruit flavour. It also captures pinot’s lovely, sweet perfume and soft, fine tannins. And there’s a satisfying savouriness and subtle background of toasty oak. Available at fine wine outlets and cellar door — rochfordwines.com or 03 5962 2119.

Madfish Western Australia Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2005 $13 to $18
Madfish is the amazingly popular budget label of Howard Park, one of the west’s most in-form wineries. From the outstanding 2005 vintage, this white combines near equal parts of sauvignon blanc and semillon from Margaret River, Great Southern and Pemberton. The lightness, zippy freshness and herbal notes of sauvignon blanc set the tone while semillon adds backbone and mid-palate richness to a wine that’s all about high quality, pure fruit and happy summer refreshment. It’s good value at $18, but occasionally hits the discount bins at $13 or $14 a bottle.

Taste your way to wine knowledge

12 February 2006WineChris Shanahan

A number of readers have asked how to gain a better understanding of wine without wading through hundreds of books and journals. That’s too dry a route to knowledge they say. Perhaps they’re on the right track. For no matter how much reading you do, enlightenment lies inside the bottle.

Professional judges, tasting thousands of wines each year, develop a broad frame of reference. It’s a long journey to that point. But if you’re new to wine and want to know more, a little systematic tasting, perhaps with a group of friends, brings knowledge and pleasure without intimidation.

If you’re in this position, the first building blocks are the different grape varieties used to make wine. You can explore these one by one. But that takes a long time. Alternatively, marshal a few friends into group tastings/dinners so that you can explore a range of wines at each gathering.

Exploring wines over dinner or lunch means you actually drink and enjoy the wine, have a few laughs and became as engaged or disengaged in wine discussion as you want.

A key to learning is to try a variety of good examples of each grape variety. Bearing in mind that this can become endlessly complex, it’s best to start simple.

Riesling, semillon, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay are the commonest white varieties; and shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot noir the dominant red varieties. Understanding what each of these contributes to aroma, flavour and structure of wine is a great start.

You can learn by trying just one wine at a time. But you’ll move up the learning curve more rapidly by comparing several wines. You could launch your first group dinner, for example, with a little glass each of Clare riesling, Hunter semillon, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Yarra Valley chardonnay in front of each person.

In this instance, we’re selecting classic varieties from regions specialising in each variety. These are called regional varietals. South Australia’s Clare Valley makes distinctive, delicate long-lived dry rieslings; the Hunter makes bone-dry, low-alcohol semillon; Marlborough, New Zealand, makes pungent, fruity, bracing sauvignon blanc and Yarra makes refined but rich barrel-fermented chardonnays.

By lining up the four wines and sniffing and sipping in turn, you’ll easily see the differences. Describing those in words is difficult. But that doesn’t matter. What you’ve done is to lay down clear reference points in your mind for riesling, semillon, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay.

Move onto another food course and repeat the exercise with, say, a Tassie pinot noir, Heathcote shiraz and Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon and you’ll have established more reference points.

Now, bring on dessert. And serve with it a late picked Clare riesling and late picked Riverina semillon. Bingo! Your frame of reference for riesling and semillon just grew. So one variety can be either sweet or dry.

With an insight into varietal flavours, a next step might be to serve several examples of one variety.

These could be from different regions, different countries, different vintages or, indeed from individual vineyards owned by a single producer. With riesling, say, you might trot out the original Clare riesling and line it up with examples from Alsace, Germany and Marlborough New Zealand. You’ll be amazed by the differences.

With just a little structure and a band of sympathetic friends, you’ll find your drinking pleasure increases as your understanding grows.

Wine review — Morris of Rutherglen, De Bortoli Sacred Hill & d’Arenberg

5 February 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Morris Rutherglen Shiraz 2001 $12 to $16
While I suspect the extra bottle age has more to do with sluggish sales than maturation policy, I won’t argue – it’s just so rare to find maturing reds at the right price. A winner of a gold medal and trophy at last year’s Great Australian Shiraz Challenge, Morris 2001 delivers generous Rutherglen Shiraz flavours without the mind numbing levels of alcohol, oak or tannin sometimes seen from hot growing areas. It offers juicy, mouthfilling fruit flavour with ample soft tannins to give structure and real-red drinking satisfaction. At five years’ it’s perfectly mature and ready to enjoy.

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2005 $4.50 to $6
They say you get what you pay for. But the present grape surplus and perennial retail price war means more flavour for your dollar. On special at $4.50 a bottle, Sacred Hill surely gives Chateau Cardboard an edge in the daily-quaffing stakes with its clean, fresh, plummy fruit aroma, generous flavour and soft tannins. It even has a pleasant vanilla-like oak character, attributable, the makers are honest enough to admit, to maturation on oak staves in the tanks, not barrel maturation. A very slight level of sweetness also helps to fill the mid palate.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale Tempranillo Grenache Souzao 2003 $37
In Chester Osborne’s latest red, tempranillo and grenache (familiar blending partners in Spain), join the less familiar souzao, a colourful but coarse native of Portugal, in a decidedly savoury, earthy and exotic blend for the adventurous drinker. The medium colour belies the wine’s great power – suggested by the herbal, earthy nose, then delivered in spades on a deep, tightly structured, every-changing palate. Each sip reveals something new and interesting. And it bears d’Arenberg stamp: a core of ripe, intense fruit flavour completely integrated with complex savoury and earthy characters. I suspect that this one will evolve for many years.

Wine review — Pizzini

29 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Pizzini King Valley Arneis 2005 $20, Verduzzo 2005 $18
The 2005s, due for release in February, taste even better than the lovely 2004s. Arneis, a Piedmontese variety, can be neutral but this one’s full of character with nashi-pear-like flavour and the extraordinarily zesty, pleasantly tart bite to make a mouth-watering aperitif or refreshing, all-purpose summer food wine. Verduzzo, originally from north-eastern Italy, delivers voluptuous, apricot-like aromas and flavours and rich, silky-textured palate – partly derived from the variety and partly from fermentation and maturation of a very small component of the blend in oak barrels. The 2004 displayed more oak influence but this lighter touch works better, in my view.

Pizzini King Valley Sangiovese 2004 $24, Sangiovese Rosetta $14.50
The full-bore, red sangiovese is bright and clean and kicks off with the variety’s delicious ‘bitter black cherry’ flavour. However, a wave of savoury, fine tannins soon ripples across the palate, drying out the finish and giving the grip necessary to accompany food. This is heaps better than most of the basic Chianti’s kicking around bottle shops – although you might find it interesting to serve it alongside a decent Chianti Classico to compare the style difference. The rosé is a fresh, light, crisp and dry style, still offering some cherry-like varietal flavour – a wine to chill and quaff any time. Cellar door phone 03 5729 8030.

Pizzini King Valley Nebbiolo 2000 $45
Nebbiolo, the noble red grape of Piedmont’s Barolo region, all too often disappoints, even on its native soil. But the great examples deliver incomparable perfume and an elegance, combined with power, that belies the often light colour. In the Pizzini vineyard, wallabies love the vine shoots, often decimating a crop that’s hard to set and ripen even under ideal conditions and, even then, difficult to turn into great wine. This 2000 has the variety’s lighter colour but captures some of the aromatic magic, savoury flavours and elegant, very firm structure. I was completely happy drinking it until Fred showed me the Reserve 2003 due for release in a few years at $80 to $100.

King Valley Australia — Pizzini leads the Italian charge

29 January 2006People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

Grape production figures for Victoria’s King Valley (stretching thirty kilometres northwards up the King River roughly from Milawa at 170 metres above sea level to the Whitlands plateau at 800 metres) reveal the tiny scale of some the most interesting wines in the valley – tiny plots of Italian varieties like sangiovese, nebbiolo and arneis.

In the King Valley, as in virtually every region in Australia, some, or all of, shiraz, cabernet, merlot, pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc and semillon contribute the majority of output.

But because everyone, everywhere grows these varieties, we might be excused for not hanging a King Valley sign on any one of them – as we do, say, for Hunter semillon, Clare riesling or Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon.

No, the King Valley’s specialty, to date, lies in Italian red and white varieties even though these make up only a small portion of its annual fifteen thousand tonne grape crush.

Although Brown Bros pioneered some Italian styles in its ‘kindergarten’ winery — designed for small, experimental wine batches — Mornington based Gary Crittenden took Italian diversity and quality to another level before local Italian-descended small growers made the transition from grape-growing to winemaking.

During a downturn when Brown Bros reduced its grape intake, cousins Fred and Arnie Pizzini and another grower, Guy Darling, established King Valley Wines at Whitfield. Fred says they built the winery because, “We all wanted a winery, but thought, why build three? We didn’t want our grapes going to distant places. And we wanted to maintain the premium image of wines, mostly whites at the time, coming out of the area”.

Today, KWV is a major contract winemaking centre for the district and includes its local shareholders — Pizzini Wines (Fred Pizzini), Chrismont Wines (Arnie Pizzini) and Darling Estate Wines (Guy Darling) – as customers.

During a half day visit to the King Valley last week, Fred Pizzini said that when his father, Roberto, arrived from Italy in 1956 the area grew mainly tobacco and hops.

In 1976, Roberto and Fred planted riesling – for Brown Bros — on the river flat beside the family tobacco crop. Over time, tobacco disappeared as the vines spread along the river and westwards up the gentle slopes of the valley.

The first Italian varieties arrived in the 1980s and today the red sangiovese and nebbiolo occupy plum spots on the estate near the white arneis and verduzzo and all those other more familiar varieties.

As well, the Pizzini’s grow the white pinot grigio and red brachetto. While these are of French origin, the northern Italians have long made a steely, dry version of what the French call pinot gris. And the obscure brachetto is cultivated more in Italy than in France. Fred says he’ll be producing a Piedmontese style, low-alcohol, sparkling brachetto from the first commercial crop this year.

Even with familiar grape varieties, it takes decades for vines and winemaking skills to mature in any new region. In the King Valley, Fred Pizzini has been steadily developing the distinctive range reviewed in Top Drops.

While each of the wines is a work in progress, there’s a delicious consistency to the arneis, verduzzo, sangiovese and sangiovese rosato — despite continuing fine-tuning in the vineyard and winery.

Nebbiolo, the noble variety of Piedmont’s Barolo, has proven more problematic in Australia, perhaps, than any of the other Italian varieties. The Pizzini’s, however, have begun to hit the mark, although the very best vintages have yet to be released.

Wine review — Wynns, Framingham & Brookland Valey

22 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 $21 to $30
City Supa Barn last weekend offered a sky-high stack of Wynns 2002 at $20.99 – a bargain price for this satisfying, long-cellaring Coonawarra classic. It was one of my twelve gold-medal rated vintages at a recent tasting of all the Wynns cabernets back to the 1954 vintage. 2002 was a mixed vintage in Coonawarra as the cool conditions that favoured warmer areas further north caused some ripening problems and resultant greenish flavours. You won’t find these in Wynns, however. Low yields and careful fruit selection produced a particularly aromatic and concentrated cabernet with crystal clear varietal definition, good mid-palate richness, firm structure and velvet smooth tannins. It’s a joy to savour. And it’s built to last.

Framingham Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2005 $17 to $20
Judging at the New Zealand Top 100 Wine Show last year revealed the great superiority over 2004 of the 2005 sauvignon blancs. Not surprisingly at Marlborough’s southern latitude, vintage variation is quite marked. But when nature smiles, Marlborough makes fabulously fruity, distinctive whites across an increasing spectrum of subtly different styles. Using fruit from various points within the Wairau Valley (one of the two major valleys of Marlborough – the other is the Awatere Valley to the south), Framingham combines the herbaceous, in-your-face pungency of the cooler sites with the fuller, more tropical warm-site characters. The result is pure Marlborough refreshment.

Brookland Valley Estate Margaret River Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 about $60
If cabernet has a bad name in Australia at present, blame the proliferation of green and weedy wines from areas not suited to the variety. To restore your faith in the glory of this great grape, try the modestly priced Wynns wine above. Or splash out on this beautiful wine from Hardy’s Brookland Valley Estate, Margaret River. This is complete cabernet from the blackcurrant/black olive fruit aroma and flavour to the firm, tight, tannic structure to the powerful but not fat palate. At five years’ age it’s still youthful and fresh but and has years, if not decades, of development ahead.

How the Casella family built the Yellowtail brand

22 January 2006People, WineChris Shanahan

An air picture of Casella’s Yellowtail winemaking facilities shows rows of stainless steel tanks, each holding 1.14 million litres of wine! And there’ll soon be 68 of them.

Gigantic as they seem, they’ll hold less than half of the 200million litres of wine stored at this site – home to a brand launched in the USA in 2001.

Just five years later, it’s the number one imported wine in the world’s biggest wine market; the number one Australian wine in that market; and the fastest growing imported wine in US history – with annual sales projected by the owners at 8.5 million cases in the US this year and over 10 million globally.

To feed that demand, the winery will this year process 142 thousand tonnes of grapes (about 10.7 million dozen bottles) and supplement production by purchasing bulk wine.

Who is it? No, not any of the big four: Foster’s, Hardy’s, Orlando-Wyndham or McGuigan-Simeon — but Casella Wines of Griffith, owner of the extraordinary Yellowtail brand.

Yellowtail came from nowhere, overtook everyone and continues to dazzle the wine world as it achieves greater volume in five years than Jacob’s Creek, Australia’s other huge global wine brand, did in thirty.

Managing Director, John Casella, says, “I would’ve been happy with a fifteen thousand tonne winery and 100 thousand case brand”. But he and the family fulfilled the unanticipated and explosive American demand, maintained family control and leveraged the American success to launch Yellowtail domestically and in other export markets.

Casella is unrecognisable from the business founded by John’s parents, Philippo and Maria, in the 1960s. More remarkably, it’s unrecognisable from the business that exported its first wines to the USA, under the Carramar Estate label, in 1998.

Says John, “we crushed 200 tonnes in 1993 and 20,000 tonnes in 2001”.

By 2001, John perceived more scope for growth in exports than in the crowded domestic market. As part of a planned export push, in 2000 he purchased the Yellowtail brand name and distinctive packaging from Adelaide designer, Barbara Harkness.

However, with the Yellowtail due for launch in the US in June, 2001 and the first year’s sales projected at 50 thousand cases, Casella sold much of the 2001 production into the bulk market.

Just thirteen months later US exports passed the one million case mark. But there couldn’t have been a better time to misjudge sales! Rosemount’s exit from the Australian bulk wine market after its takeover by Southcorp, meant easy availability and low prices for bulk wine.

John attributes that early US success partly to the low Aussie dollar at the time but principally to the appealing nature of the wine and an outstanding partnership with long established US distributor, W.J. Deutsch & Sons.

Such conspicuous success in the US drove interest in other markets. Yellowtail is now growing in the UK, number one Aussie import in the large Canadian and emerging Japanese markets respectively, and achieved sales of 130 thousand cases in the year following its domestic release in 2003 – with compound growth since of 30-40 per cent.

Continued extension of the Yellowtail range (there’s a new riesling and other varieties in the pipeline) and the successful launch (250 thousand cases) of the Yellowtail Reserve range in the US ($US11 a bottle versus $US 6 for the standard wines) suggest further growth for this family business.

Although a weak dollar combined with low bulk-wine and grape prices helped in establishing Yellowtail, John Casella believes that the brand’s future remains bright. It continued to grow as the Aussie dollar appreciated. And with growing numbers of long-term grape contracts, John says the brand is not reliant on the unsustainable prices of recent years.

Wine review — Krinklewood, Gosset Champagne & Margan

15 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Krinklewood Vineyard Hunter Valley Chardonnay 2003 $25
This is a delicious example of how top-notch grapes and sensitive winemaking produce a first-class wine that’s truly expressive of the variety and region. Suzanne and Rod Windrim grew the fruit on their biodynamic Krinklewood vineyard at Broke in the lower Hunter Valley; Jim Chatto made the wine at Monarch Winery. It’s a full but delicate chardonnay of striking varietal purity and stunning freshness — enhanced by a subtle nutty flavour and textural richness derived from fermentation and maturation on lees in barrel. It’s screw cap sealed and at three years combines a mature integration of fruit and barrel flavours with drink-me-now vivacity. Available through Candamber, Vintage Cellars or phone 02 9969 1311.

Gosset Brut Excellence Champagne NV $60
The Ginger Room at old parliament house offers Gosset at $15 by the glass – a delightful way to rediscover Champagne from this great, but not widely distributed, old Ay-based producer. Having been stung by a tricked-up NV from one of the major producers at Christmas it was a delight to taste a beautifully fresh example of the real thing, based on the classic rich but delicate blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier from top vineyards. Distributor David Burkitt says it’s available at Georges Liquor Stable and Benchmark as well as at The Ginger Room.

Margan Hunter Valley Semillon 2005 $18
Andrew Margan sources this from a low-yielding Broke vineyard planted by Lindemans in about 1970. It’s notably more fragrant than the semillons of nearby Pokolbin and a tad fuller on the palate, too. But it has similar, taut acid backbone, and lemon-like varietal flavour. The combination of delicate, lemony fruit, low alcohol (about 11 per cent) and bracing acidity is at odds with the prevailing Aussie ‘fruit bomb’ style. A pleasant tartness in the finish adds to its appeal with food. And, of course, it has the ability to age for many years, even decades, given correct storage. Cellar door phone number is 02 6574 7216.