PHI Heathcote Syrah Grenache 2010 $35
About five years ago the De Bortoli and Shelmerdine families launched the PHI label, for wines made by Steve Webber (husband of Leanne De Bortoli) from fruit grown in Shelmerdine family vineyards. The original releases – chardonnay, sauvignon and pinot noir – came from the Lusatia Park Vineyard, Yarra Valley. This new wine – “our first attempt at a Southern Rhone style blend”, says Webber, combines shiraz (= syrah) and grenache from the Shelmerdine’s Northern Heathcote vineyard. It’s a delicious, juicy, spicy, vibrant wine, cut with fine, savoury tannins – the beautiful fruit flavours completely masking its 14.2 per cent alcohol content.

Mr Riggs Adelaide Hills Montepulciano 2009 $25
Italy’s montepulciano grape (unrelated to the Tuscan town of the same name) is best known in the Abruzzi region, on the Adriatic coast. In the rolling hills leading up to the Apennines, it produces, at its best, dark, ripe, full-bodied, tannic, savoury reds. Leading producers, like Dino Illuminati (imported by Woolworths), bring out the best in the variety. Winemaker Ben Riggs sources his grapes from a warm site between Kersbrook and Williamstown in the Adelaide Hills. It’s a big, ripe, plummy, rustic style with herbal and spicy tones and loads of soft tannin – well suited to hard cheeses, like pecorino Romagna, or roasted red meat.

Yalumba Y Series South Australia Viognier 2011 $9.49–$15
Yalumba pioneered viognier in Australia, acquiring cuttings from Montpellier France in 1979, propagating these cuttings, and then establishing 1.2 hectares on the Vaughan vineyard, Eden Valley, in 1980 – probably Australia’s first commercial planting of the variety.  The modestly priced Y viognier delivers on all those years’ experience. The variety’s naturally viscous texture, firmness and lush, apricot-like flavours form its heart. But the winemaking adds layers to this – in particular through controlled oxidation, indigenous yeast fermentation and maturation on yeast lees for a few months afterwards. The wine combines apricot- and citrus-like flavours on a fresh, richly textured, bone-dry palate.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 12 February 2012 in The Canberra Times

Four Winds Vineyard Riesling 2011 $17
Four Winds vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales
This gold medal winner from the 2011 regional wine show could easily pass as a Mosel. The low alcohol (10 per cent), delicate lime-like flavour and high acidity move it way beyond the spectrum of flavours we normally see in Canberra. Just as Mosel vignerons do, winemakers Bill and Jaime Crowe arrested the fermentation, allowing residual grape sugar to mollify the tart acidity. The 13 grams per litre of sugar doesn’t register as sweet – it simply fleshes out the mid palate, creating a delicious tension between the fruit flavour and acidity.

Tintilla Estate Tarantella Sangiovese Cabernet Merlot Shiraz 2009 $30
Pokolbin, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales
If you’re in the lower Hunter Valley, Tintilla’s a must-visit, not just for the wine but also for the estate-grown verjus (made from green-harvested sangiovese), vinegar and olive oil. It’s a bright, medium-bodied red, starting plummy and fruity, then bringing in deeper, earthy, savoury flavours and delicious, dry, savoury tannin – a wine to enjoy with savoury, food laced with roasted tomato, olives, capsicum and anchovy.

McWilliams Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2007 $60
Lovedale Vineyard, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales
Maurice O’Shea selected the Lovedale vineyard site (next to Cessnock airport) in 1939, planted the vineyard in 1946 and made the first semillon from it in 1950. Over the years successive McWilliams winemakers, starting with O’Shea, made magnificent, long-lived semillons from the site. Released at five years (this one was harvested on January 15 2007), by which time Lovedale has emerged from the intense, austere, lemony phase and began to show greater body, texture and a hint of honey. The very fine, harmonious 2007 shows this classic, idiosyncratic style at its best. Should cellar for many decades in the right conditions.

Mount Eyre Three Ponds Shiraz 2009 $24.95
Mount Eyre Vineyard, Broke, Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales
This shiraz – made by highly regarded Hunter vigneron, Rhys Eather – comes from a vineyard at Broke (one valley away from Pokolbin). The vineyard was planted in 1970 by Neil Grosser and today belongs to the Iannuzzi and Tsironis families. It’s a gentle, medium bodied red with subtle, earthy, spicy, plummy fruit flavour and the Hunter’s signature, soft, tender tannins. It’s a modest (for Australia) 13.5 per cent alcohol. It slips down very easily now, but there’s a depth and complexity here to see it through a decade, perhaps more, in the cellar.

Hill-Smith Estate Chardonnay 2010 $23.95
Eden Valley, South Australia
The Eden Valley, slightly north of the Adelaide Hills on the Mount Lofty Ranges, produces beautiful riesling but is generally seen too warm to match the elegant chardonnays of its southerly, cooler neighbour. If not at chardonnay’s cutting edge, Hill-Smith 2010, presents a juicy, lovely, more-peachy face of the variety, backed by the smooth texture of wild-yeast fermentation and oak maturation.

Yering Station MVR Marsanne Viognier Roussanne 2009 $25
Yarra Valley, Victoria
This is a blend of three Rhone Valley white varieties, all fermented and matured in five-year-old, 225-litre French oak barriques. The older oak contributes no detectable woody flavours, instead allowing controlled oxidation that makes the wine more complex and contributes to its silky texture. Marsanne (50 per cent of the blend) contributes the generally citrusy flavour, while viognier and roussanne between them inject notes of apricot and honey and some of the smooth texture. This is a full but subtle wine of unique appeal.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 8 February 2012 in The Canberra Times

Helen’s Hill Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010 $30
Helen’s Hill “old block” vineyard, Coldstream, Yarra Valley, Victoria
Helen’s Hill, established in 1997, is an elevated 60-hectare Yarra property, with 44.5 hectares under vine and a winery producing under two labels – Ingram Rd and Helen’s Hill. When they established the vineyard, the owners paid great attention to matching grape varieties to soil types and microclimates – successfully, judging by this wine. There’s a floral high note over the ripe, cherry-like varietal aroma. The cherry character follows through on a ripe, juicy palate, with earthy, savoury undertones and firm but velvety tannins.

Yangarra Estate Cadenzia 2010 $28
Yangarra Vineyard, McLaren Vale, South Australia
Some years back, a number of McLaren Vale producers adopted the name “Cadenzia” to promote its blends of grenache, shiraz and mourvedre. Yangarra’s version, based on grenache from old bush vines planted in 1946, offers generous, ripe flavours in a supple, fleshy palate, cut by the savoury, firm tannins of mourvedre. The 100-hectare Yangarra vineyard, consisting of 35 blocks, is located in McLaren Vale’s Blewitt Springs sub-region.

Yalumba Y Series Shiraz 2010  $9.49–$14.95
South Australia
Wineries around the world use animal-derived products to soften their wines. These “fining” agents include egg white, casein (dairy) and isinglass (fish). In a vegan-friendly move, Yalumba’s Y Series wine now come free of these products, meaning a little more grip in the whites and perhaps a rustic bite to the reds. The latest shiraz delivers full, ripe, vibrant, plummy shiraz flavour, with a spicy note and a good load of drying, slightly edgy tannins.

O’Leary Walker Watervale Riesling 2011 $17.50
Grace family vineyard, Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia
David O’Leary and Nick Walker produce two Clare rieslings, one from the Watervale sub-region, the other from the cooler Polish Hill River, nine kilometres away. In the cool 2011 vintage we prefer, by a small margin, the Watervale wine. It appeals for its intense, pure, delicate, lime-like varietal flavour and racy, fresh, drying acidity. It’s an aperitif wine now, with the bracing acidity to handle the briny attack of oysters; with bottle age the texture and fruit flavour will build, making it suited to a wider range of foods.

Capital Wines The Whip Riesling 2011 $19
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales
Canberra’s 2011 rieslings need bottle age. They have flavour. But as the lovely Whip riesling demonstrates, the flavour’s still pushing through the austere acid of the cold season. I find the Whip a little too austere to enjoy in its own right now, although all that acidity and lemony varietal flavour work well with salty, savoury and fatty foods (fish and chips, for example). But the powerful riesling flavours underlying the acidity ought, with time, dominate and push the mature wine higher up the star-ratings.

Louis Roederer Brut Premier Champagne $75–$85
Champagne, France
Family-owned Louis Roederer shows, deliciously, why real Champagne remains the benchmark. It has the assertive pinot flavour and structure more typical of a vintage Champagne, with a unique and lovely elegance, freshness and lightness – courtesy of the chardonnay component. There’s nothing hit and miss about this. It gets back to great grapes from the company’s highly rated vineyards, skilled winemaking and blending – including the use of two-to-five-year-old reserve wines – and a minimum three years’ maturation in bottle. This was our favourite of several New Year’s eve NVs.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 1 February 2012 in The Canberra Times

Capital Wines The Abstainer Canberra District Rose 2011 $19
As a show judge I’ve copped my fair share of rose classes – line-ups of wines ranging in colour from pale onion skin to lurid lipstick pink; from cloyingly sweet to achingly dry; and from flabby soft to searingly acid. The better ones, of whatever shade, display fresh fruit flavours, rather than just sweetness, and finish clean and fresh, whether slightly sweet or very dry. The Abstainer, made from early-picked cabernet franc and a touch of merlot, sits at the pinker end of the spectrum and delivers the lovely floral, fruity high notes of cabernet franc, a savoury grippy undercurrent and a refreshing dry finish.

Capital Wines The Swinger Canberra District Sauvignon Blanc 2011 $19
O’Leary Walker Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2011 $16.50–$18
“I’d like to say it’s selling like hotcakes”, writes Capital Wines’ Jennie Mooney, “but it’s more than that, it’s selling like sauvignon blanc”. Here we see two contrasting styles of the white variety currently sweeping all before it. The Swinger (from Lawson Vineyard, Hall) presents a fuller bodied, off-dry, citrusy, still quite tart fresh face of the variety. O’Leary Walker (from the O’Leary Vineyard, Oakbank), at just 11 per cent alcohol, is more aromatic, featuring an intense passionfruit-like character that carries right through a delicate, herbaceous, bone dry palate – finishing with the brisk intensity for fresh lemon juice.

O’Leary Walker Clare Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 $22
This is an exceptional cabernet, sourced from two Clare sub-regions – the Doctor’s block in the cool Polish Hill River area; and 50-year-old, dry-grown vines at Armagh, near Clare township. Winemakers David O’Leary, Nick Walker and Keeda Zim the wine undergoes a spontaneous ferment in small vessels, hand plunging the cap and pumping juice over to break up the cap and control the temperature. A post-ferment maceration on skins helps soften the tannins before the wine’s pressed off into new and used oak barrels for maturation. The result is a deep coloured, aromatic wine of pure cassis-like varietal aroma and flavour, rich mid-palate and firm cabernet tannins.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 29 January 2012 in The Canberra Times

Man O’ War Dreadnought Syrah 2009 $45–$50
Eastern Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Waiheke Island, to the east of Auckland, lies at about the same latitude as Bendigo, Victoria, and Naracoorte (just north of Coonawarra), South Australia. The three regions, though, produce starkly different cool-climate shiraz styles – probably driven by significant climate variances. The flavour alone suggests Waiheke as the coolest site. The intense, white pepper character of Man O’ War syrah (shiraz) suggests very cool ripening conditions – barely warm enough to struggle across the ripening line. But having done so, it’s a glorious example of fine-boned, supple, silky-textured shiraz.

Jip Jip Rocks Shiraz 2010 $16–$19
Padthaway, South Australia
There’s nothing like a masked tasting to strip away the pretence of wine, allowing a modestly priced red like Jip Jip to rate in the Sydney International Top 100 – and earn a “Blue Gold” medal for its compatibility with food. Sourced from the Bryson family’s 170-hectare estate at Padthaway, and made by Ben Riggs, Jip Jip leads with appealing floral high notes. These come through, too, on a delicious fruity, supple, mid-weight, softly tannic palate. It’s a lot of fun to drink right now and should hold for several years.

PHI Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010 $65
Lusatia Park Vineyard, Woori Yallock, Yarra Valley, Victoria
PHI is a joint venture, established in 2005, between Leanne De Bortoli and husband Steve Webber (winemakers) and Stephen and Kate Shelmerdine, grape growers. PHI pinot comes from selected rows of vines on the Shelmerdine’s elevated Lusatia Park vineyard, in the cool south-eastern edge of the Yarra. Webber makes the wine at De Bortoli winery, Yarra Valley. PHI 2010 made history in November 2011 as the first pinot to carry off the wine-of-show award at the National Wine Show. The name PHI means perfect harmony and balance – and the wine delivers it. This is great pinot noir by any measure.

Seville Estate The Barber Pinot Noir 2010 $16.95–$22
Yarra Valley, Victoria
Even the cheapest of Seville Estate’s three pinot noirs rates very highly in the pinot stakes. It’s sourced from “30 year old vines off the original Morgan’s vineyard”, declares the black label. Good winemaking captures the lovely flavours of this fruit in a medium to deep coloured wine of enticing perfume, plush, black cherry varietal flavour, silky texture and fairly firm tannic backbone. We found a little more to like every time we returned to the bottle. It should evolve well with another five or six years bottle age, perhaps longer.

Yalumba Y Series Pinot Grigio 2011 $9.49–$14.95
Multi-regional blend, South Australia
In the great Australian tradition, Yalumba sources grapes widely for its outstanding Y series blends. Pinot grigio sourcing extends in some years to the Barossa and Eden valleys, Limestone Coast, the Adelaide Hills, Northern Adelaide Plains and Riverland. Winemaker Louisa Rose says the cooler areas provide the aromatic high notes and warmer areas body and texture. A wild-yeast ferment also contributes to the texture. She says the 2011 comes mainly from the cooler Limestone Coast, Eden Valley and Adelaide Hills regions – creating a wine with pear-like varietal aromatics and a richly textured, off-dry, savoury palate.

Jeir Creek Viognier 2010 $30
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, New South Wales
Rob and Kay Howell’s cellar-door only viognier captures the variety’s unique, lush, juicy, apricot-like flavours – without descending into the oiliness or hardness that often mars the viognier experience. Rob Howell says he fermented and matured the wine in new French oak barrels. Too much new oak can overwhelm viognier. But in this instance the water-bent oak’s subtle, spicy flavours complement the vibrant, fresh fruit. The wine’s available at the cellar door, Gooda Creek Road, Murrumbateman or at www.jeircreekwines.com.au

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 25 January 2012 in The Canberra Times

Brokenwood Beechworth Pinot Gris 2011 $20.89–$25
We’re seeing excellent pinot gris from the 2011. The variety prefers a cool climate and in vineyards that avoided the fungal diseases of the cool, wet vintage, varietal flavours really sing. This version, from Brokenwood’s Indigo Vineyard, Beechworth, compares pear-like and citrusy flavour with just a hint musk. The full, richly textured palate is soft, but exceptionally vibrant and fresh. A tiny kiss of residual sugar (5.3 grams a litre) adds subtly to the richness, making the wine suited to quite rich foods such as terrine, pate and, as Brokenwood suggests, foie gras.

Capital Wines Canberra District

• The Backbencher  Merlot 2010 $25
• Kyeema Vineyard t Reserve Merlot 2010 $46

What is merlot? Is it dry or sweet; soft or firm? Few varieties create more confusion, a fact not helped by the misidentification in Australia of cabernet franc as merlot, just as the variety gained some momentum. It’s a key variety of Bordeaux, more often than not blended with others, but capable of standing on its own as rich, but elegant, with abundant, sometimes firm, tannins. It’s a specialty of Capital Wines – the Backbencher revealing a plummy, elegant, soft face of the style; and the flagship, from the Kyeema Vineyard, showing greater power and chewier tannins – but nevertheless an elegance as a great and unique Canberra red.

Stefano Lubiana Collina Chardonnay 2008 $60
WOW! We decanted Collina a couple of hours before enjoying it, slowly, with a meal. It’s an extraordinary chardonnay, giving more weight to my belief that our finest chardonnays are destined to come from Tasmania. An intensity of varietal fruit flavours (grapefruit and white peach), both generous and ethereally fine, put this in the top ranks of Australian barrel-ferment and matured chardonnays. Winemaker Steven Lubiana says the vineyard site is rocky and gravelly, “providing plenty of sun, and just enough miserable soil for a plant to put down its roots and maintain a tenuous grip on life”. It’s available at www.slw.com.au

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 22 January 2012 in The Canberra Times

Mount Langi Ghiran Cliff Edge Shiraz 2008 $22.79–$30
Mount Langi Ghiran Vineyard, Grampians, Victoria
For the first time Mount Langi Ghiran’s popular Cliff Edge shiraz comes entirely from estate-grown fruit, some of it from the estate’s oldest vines. It’s about as sexy as shiraz gets at the price – beautifully, sweetly aromatic with a vibrant, fruity palate to match. A spicy, savoury flavour undercurrent and silky tannins make it the complete red for early drinking – though the flavour intensity and layers of tannin mean good short to medium-term cellaring.

Dominique Portet Pinot Noir 2010 $42
Leongatha South, Gippsland, Victoria
Leongatha South, to the south east of Melbourne, produces at times dazzling pinot noirs, exemplified by those made at Bass Phillip by Phillip Jones. Dominique Portet captures some of the region’s magic with this lovely, lighter-bodied pinot noir. It’s highly aromatic, expressing the cooler, stalky end of the varietal spectrum. This character comes through, too, on a delicious, silky palate that grows in interest with every sip until, all too quickly, the bottle’s gone.

Seppelt Drumborg Riesling 2011 $27–$35
Drumborg Vineyard, Henty, Victoria
In 1964, well ahead of Australia’s table wine boom, Karl Seppelt planted grapes at Drumborg, southern Victoria, first landfall north of Antarctica. The cool site struggled for decades but ultimately produced outstanding grapes and elegant, potentially long-lived table and sparkling wines. In the very cool 2011 vintage, the vineyard produced this extraordinary riesling with intense but delicate lime-like varietal character and lean taut structure (pH2.88 and acidity of 9.6 grams per litre, for the technically minded). It’s a wine destined for greatness over time and worth considering if you’re after a wine to cellar for a special event decades in the future.

Vasse Felix Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 $30–$40
Margaret River, Western Australia
Virginia Wilcock’s outstanding red combines cabernet sauvignon (88 per cent) with 11 per cent malbec and one per cent merlot. There’s a violet-like floral lift to an aroma that includes varietal blackcurrant and a sweet, cedary character from the French oak. All these flavours flow through to the elegant palate, which, despite its supple smoothness and fleshy, fruity, core, finishes with the fine, lingering bite of the variety. It’s easy to drink now but has the intensity and structure to cellar well.

Atlas Riesling 2011 $25
Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia
Winemaker Adam Barton sources grapes from sites he favours in the Clare and Barossa Valleys – in this instance from “a single patch of old, dry-grown riesling, situated on sheltered east-facing slope”. Hand picking, de-stemming and low juice extraction rates produce a delicate riesling with lime-like varietal aroma and flavour and pleasant minerally touch. The palate’s delicate, fine and dry and likely to reveal more over the coming years. This is a brand to watch. See www.atlaswines.com.au for purchasing details.

Redbank Garganega 2010 $25
Myrrhee Ridge Vineyard, King Valley, Victoria
Garganega is the principal variety used in Soave, a well-known savoury dry white from near Verona in Italy’s Veneto region. Redbank’s first vintage was fermented with wild yeast, matured in older oak barrels and blended with 10 per cent fiano, another Italian white. The result is full-bodied dry white with pleasing melon rind and citrus flavours and pleasantly tart, firm finish. It’s a long way from our usual fare and worth trying.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 18 January 2012 in The Canberra Times

Seppelt Salinger NV $19–$25, Salinger Vintage 2008 $23.75–$30
Non-vintage Salinger – sourced mainly from the Adelaide Hills, Henty and Tumbarumba – ticks all the boxes for bottle-fermented, complex bubbly made from the classic varieties. It’s a soft, delicate, drink-now style, revealing good underlying fruit flavours and the complexities of ageing on yeast lees. Vintage 2008, too, is in the delicate aperitif style, but the palate reveals more intense pinot flavour and even livelier, finer acidic freshness.  Salinger almost faded from view during a decade of turmoil at Southcorp, then Foster’s. The quality, however, never faltered, and there’s hope of commercial revival with Treasury Wine Estates now separated from the beer business.

Mr Riggs Adelaide Hills Yacca Paddock Tempranillo 2009 $22–$23
This is a deep, dark, juicy and firm Australian expression of Spain’s tempranillo variety. Winemaker Ben Riggs writes that the variety, “ has big bunches and very thick skins that can be hard to bite into, but which produce good colour and tannins”. In this instance the wine echoes the grape description – deeply coloured with very bright and appealing fruit flavours; and, yes, you have to bite through layers of tannin to reach the fruit. This sets Mr Riggs tempranillo apart from other varieties. The rich, bright, supple underlying fruit flavour is all Australian; the savoury, firm tannins provide the exotic difference.

Tahbilk Nagambie Lakes Marsanne 2011 $12.35–$17.75
If you’re driving to Melbourne, it’s worth the detour, via Violet Town, to Nagambie and on to Tahbilk. The historic property, on an anabranch of the Goulburn River, claims to have the largest planting of marsanne in the world, with some vines dating from 1927. At Tahbilk this Rhone Valley variety makes a distinctive, potentially very long-lived dry white. The aroma and flavour have often been described as honeysuckle-like – something I don’t always detect, but do in the 2011. The style’s grown slightly finer and more delicate over the last decade. But behind the honeysuckle and citrus flavours lie tangy acidity and a firm, savoury bite.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2012
First published 15 January 2012 in The Canberra Times

Seppelt St Peters Shiraz 2008 $52.25–$69
St Peters Vineyard, Grampians, Victoria
Legendary winemaker, Colin Preece, managed Seppelt’s Great Western cellars from 1932 to 1963. Although perhaps more famous for his sparkling reds than still table wines, Preece made glorious long-lived reds from the old shiraz vines that still surround the winery. I suspect he’d approve of Emma Woods’ magnificent 2008 from those old vines. It captures the elegant but powerful regional style – vibrant, dark-berry fruit flavours with deep, spicy, savoury vein and a firm but gentle grip of tannin. For a comparatively modest price you get a wine of great complexity with a long pedigree. It’s built to last, but with a good splash in the decanter will provide superb Christmas drinking.

Pol Roger
Extra Cuvee de Reserve Champagne Vintage 2000 $81–$114
Great Champagne starts with great grapes but includes the patina of aromas, flavours and textures that come from skilful blending, the inclusion of special reserve wines and prolonged ageing on yeast lees in bottle. In great wines these winemaker add-ons never overwhelm the superior fruit that, finally, separates the greats from the also-rans. Pol Roger 2000 (a 60:40 blend of pinot noir and chardonnay) ranks among the greats. The pale golden colour, persistent mousse, teaming, tiny bubbles, mature pinot and chardonnay aroma and intense but oh-so-delicate palate thrill like few wines do. Few Champagnes at this price match the quality.

Majella Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 $30–$33
Majella Vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
Majella appeals on several fronts, starting with its vivid, crimson colour. But the aroma really draws us in. It really sings, thanks, in part to a perfect matching of oak and fruit. The combination lifts the fruit aroma, adding sweet floral notes to a wonderful cedar-like character that combines oak with Coonawarra’s beautiful, vibrant blackberry-like varietal flavour. The very friendly, juicy palate closely reflects the aromas. It has the harmonious, drink-now appeal for Christmas. But it’s a wine of substance and complexity, capable of cellaring for many years.

Curly Flat Pinot Noir 2008 $48–$54
Curly Flat Vineyard, Macedon Ranges, Victoria
We’ve revisited Phillip and Jenny Moraghan’s lovely 2008 pinot several times this year, bought a case for the cellar and have it on Chateau Shanahan’s Christmas lunch menu. It bears the thumbprint of the hot vintage, but not in the most obvious way – as the alcohol’s just 12.6 per cent. The fruit flavour, however, sits more in the dark-berry and than red-berry spectrum. And the firm tannins holding the fruit in check also reflect the warm growing conditions. So, rather than a big, hot wine, we have a fragrant, complex, savoury, elegant pinot with delicious fruit under the taut structure.

Penfolds Reserve Bin 09A Chardonnay $71.25–$90
Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Penfolds “white Grange” project of the early nineties produced the company’s flagship white, the multi-region Yattarna Chardonnay, and this superb sidekick from the Adelaide Hills. Putting the two in a Burgundy context, we might compare the oh-so-refined Yattarna with Montrachet and the more robust Reserve Bin A with Meursault. In 2009 the style seems a little less powerful than the 2008 – the aroma combining “struck match” character with intense grapefruit and nectarine-like varietal notes. The intense palate presents the same flavour characters, all tied together by lean, taut, brisk acidity. It’s a complex, distinctive wine to enjoy for many years – or luxurious company for your Christmas lobster.

Grosset Springvale Vineyard Watervale Riesling 2011 $36
Despite widespread crop losses to mildew and botrytis, the wet, cold 2011 vintage delivered stunning quality in some white varieties where growers kept disease at bay and processed only clean fruit. The cool growing conditions produced higher than average acidity which, when combined with fully ripened fruit, meant the sort of intense, fine flavours seen in Jeffrey Grosset’s two rieslings from Clare sub-regions Watervale and Polish Hill. For Christmas drinking we favour the delicate Watervale over the more austere Polish Hill wine. We love its delicate lime-like flavours and bone-dry finish.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011
First published 21 December 2011 in The Canberra Times