Port Phillip Estate Mornington Peninsula Dry Rose 2010 $22
Winemaker Sandro Mosele produces Port Phillip Estate and Kooyong Estate wines at the stunning new Port Phillip Estate winery-cellar-door complex at Red Hill, on the Mornington Peninsula. The winery, and separate sub-regional Kooyong and Port Phillip vineyards, belong to Giorgio Gjergja and family. Both estates contributed shiraz for this lovely dry rose. The juice picks up a whisper of colour before it’s drained from the skins for a spontaneous fermentation in old French oak barrels. After fermentation the new wine rests on yeast lees for four months. The resulting pale-salmon coloured wine shows subtle berry character and a delicate, soft, fresh dry finish.

Crittenden Estate

• Geppetto Pinot Noir 2010 $24
• Mornington Peninsula Estate Pinot Noir 2009 $34
• The Zumma Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir 2008 $49

Rollo Crittenden took over as winemaker at the family estate in 2003. But father Garry “still hovers around like the ghost of vintages past”, writes Rollo. Geppetto, sourced from Patterson Lakes and Balnarring, provides a fruity, up-front pinot experience – delicate, soft and pure with sufficient structure to be a real red. The Estate pinot, all from the Dromana vineyard, offers more flavour intensity, introduces stalky and savoury notes and a deeper, fleshier texture. The Zumma, from a small patch of old vines at Dromana, turns on the magic with its alluring, subtle aroma and taut but very fine, elegant palate.

Pikes Luccio Clare Valley

• Sangiovese 2009 $18
• Pinot Grigio 2010 $18

Neil Pike says both “Luccio” wines come from vines grown on his family’s vineyards at Polish Hill River, a cool sub-region of South Australia’s Clare Valley. Pike’s sangiovese offers a lighter, fruity take on this Italian variety. The colour’s medium ruby, the aroma’s bright and fresh and its cherry-like character carries through to the palate. It’s medium bodied and bright, but not fleshy, and savoury tannins give a pleasantly tart finish. It’s a quaffer – one to enjoy with savoury food. The pinot grigio also offers a dry, pleasant tartness, with a distinctly pear-like aftertaste.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Eden Road The Long Road Shiraz 2009 $21
Canberra and Hilltops districts, New South Wales
There’s a distinct winemaking style at Eden Road under Nick Spencer. The intense, pure restrained wines tend towards austerity in youth – a character notable in the Canberra Riesling 2010, Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2008 and Canberra Shiraz 2009. But the underlying fruit richness suggests they’ll evolve into worthy wines over time. The Long Road Shiraz seems the fleshiest and most easily approachable of the line up. It’s a delicious, fine-boned, cool-climate style showing little oak influence and the appealing aromatics and juicy, fleshy fruit flavour contributed by shiraz from the Hilltops region. It’s a really lovely, juicy quaffer at a fair price.

Eden Road RHE 2009 $21
Canberra District, New South Wales
The fine print on the back label says, “the wine is made up entirely of viognier from Canberra”. A Rhone Valley white variety, viognier makes the complex whites of Condrieu, towards the valley’s northern end, and co-mingles in the vineyard with shiraz in nearby Cote-Rotie – ultimately making up a few per cent of the red wine. Tim Kirk modelled Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier on this wine style. Viognier on its own tends to make richly textured, sometimes oily white wine. But Nick Spencer’s zesty, partially barrel fermented Eden Road captures the variety’s fragrance, juicy apricot-like flavour and rich texture without heaviness.

Ross Hill Pinnacle Series Pinot Noir 2009 $40
Orange, New South Wales
In a recent tasting of the Ross Hill Pinnacle Series, chardonnay and pinot noir performed best, to my palate. The pinot’s pale coloured but delivers so much of the special aromatics, flavours and textural richness of the variety – in its own comparatively high-acid style. We found drinking pleasure galore, but alas not the complexity we’d expect at this price. I see great promise in the wine (it’s only their second attempt at pinot), but don’t see great value in $40 for a one year old – especially when you can buy three and four year old wines of provenance, like Curly Flat, for $48.

Cullens Cabernet Merlot 2008 $38
Margaret River, Western Australia
In a recent masked tasting, Jeir Creek’s Kay Howell paired this absolutely beautiful, elegant red with its more powerful Margaret River neighbour, Moss Wood Ribbon Vale Vineyard Cabernet Merlot 2008. They’re very good regional wines, but I found the Cullens wines considerably more appealing. Its keynotes were elegance, poise, balance and, of course, lovely, ripe berry flavours. Descriptors like “gentle”, “elegant”, “fine” and “pass the bottle – again” paint the picture. This is a really beautiful wine to savour over the next ten years — and just 12 per cent alcohol!

Brancott Estate Ormond Chardonnay 2009 $24.29–$26.99
Gisborne, New Zealand
On a buying trip to Gisborn once, a local told me these were the world’s easternmost vineyards – and therefore the first to see the sun each day. That romantic view failed to crystallise sales as Marlborough, even back in 1984, proved the stronger drawing card. But Gisborn (at about 38 degrees south on the North Island) makes big, juicy chardonnays like this 2009 made by Brancott Estate (formerly Montana). It’s an unapologetically full-bodied, barrel-fermented style with significant, but balanced oak flavour. It’s a more in-your-face style than is currently fashionable in Australia, but avoids the excesses of those big butterballs we used to make.

Innocent Bystander Sangiovese 2009 $20.65–$22.95
Gateway Vineyard, McLaren Vale, South Australia
Innocent Bystander is the second, big-value label of Giant Steps Winery, located in the Yarra Valley. Where the Giant Steps label focuses on top-end, single-vineyard Yarra Valley pinot noir and chardonnay, Innocent Bystander is a free soul, wandering happily wherever its whims take it. The range includes shiraz, pinot gris, chardonnay, pinot rose, pinot noir, syrah, sangiovese, pink moscato and cordon cut viognier. To date it’s been a 100 per cent reliable choice, offering really good drinking at around $20 a bottle. Their latest sangiovese is on song, too, offering fleshy, cherry-like varietal flavour, meshed with sangiovese’s savoury, persistent tannins.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

d’Arenberg Stump Jump Adelaide Hills McLaren Vale Sauvignon Blanc 2010 $10.79–$11.99
The great flood of New Zealand sauvignon blanc flowing into Australia must scare the pants off Australian winemakers. It’s not just the depressed prices, but also the fact that great swathes of Australian vineyards lie in areas not well suited to producing a competing style. And where we do grow sauvignon blanc well, yields tend to be low and production prices commensurately high. d’Arenberg cleverly leaps this hurdle by blending intensely varietal Adelaide Hills sauvy with presumably cheaper McLaren Vale material. The blend works well, delivering vibrant, fresh passionfruit-like varietal flavour at a competitive price.

Jim Barry Watervale (Clare Valley)

• Riesling 2010 $14.25–$16.95
• Lavender Hill Sweet Riesling 2010 $13.45–$14.95

No matter how much we talk up riesling, it remains a stubbornly niche variety delivering wonderful flavours at bargain prices. In this pair, both from the Clare Valley’s Watervale sub-region, we see contrasting sweet and dry styles. The dry version captures the sub-region’s unique lime-like varietal flavours and delicacy. It’s a great aperitif wine, with potential to fill out and take on attractive honeyed flavours with bottle age. Lavender Hill, with 22 grams of residual grape sugar to the litre, shows the regional lime-like flavours but with a considerable sweetness, balanced by crisp, fresh acidity.

Innocent Bystander Victoria Syrah 2009 $16.95–$22.95
Innocent Bystander is the second label of Giant Steps Winery, located at Healesville in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. The appellation “Victoria” simply indicates sourcing from a number of Victorian regions – presumably cooler ones by the style of this very attractive shiraz. If the deep, crimson colour suggests a burly wine, the spicy, savoury aroma immediately points the other way. The palate supports this message with its savoury, slightly funky flavours, and supple, fine-textured, soft tannins – complexities and textures consistent with wild-yeast fermentation in open vats, whole bunches in the ferments and extend pre-fermentation maceration.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Alkoomi Jarrah Shiraz 2007 $39–$44.69
Frankland River, Great Southern, Western Australia
Because shiraz reveals its beauty in so many different ways in Australia, it’s become our signature variety. Alkoomi’s wonderful flagship – named for the towering jarrah trees (eucalyptus marginata) native to the area – comes from a gravelly site planted to vines over 40 years ago. This is deeply layered, elegant shiraz of a rare dimension – built on intense, varietal cherry-and-spice flavours, bound by fine, soft oak and fruit tannins. It’s an understated wine of many parts, in perfect harmony, looking youthful at four years and destined for a long cellar life.

Kalleske Clarry’s Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2010 $16.20–$180
Barossa Valley, South Australia
The Kalleske family settled in the Barossa in the mid nineteenth century and today sixth generation Troy Kalleske makes the wine named for his grandfather, Clarry. Clarry tended the vines from the 1920s to the 1990s. It’s a luxurious, friendly blend – highly aromatic and densely packed with juicy, vibrant mouth-watering fruit flavours. Grenache probably contributes the floral aromatic high notes, while shiraz and mataro (aka mourvedre) contribute body and tannin structure respectively. It’s a rollicking regional specialty to enjoy over the next four or five years.

Campbells Pedro Ximenez 1997 $35
Rutherglen, Victoria
A glass of the lovely, delicate 1991 vintage prompted last week’s feature story on Campbell’s unique dry white – made from Spanish sherry variety, pedro ximenez. A week later samples arrived: the not-yet-released 2007 vintage, under both cork and screwcap, and the currently available, at cellar door, 2004 ($25.90) and 1997 ($35). The small tasting revealed a journey from tartness and austerity in the 2007, to the fresh, delicate honey notes of 2004, to the still fresh, but mellow, richer, toast-and-honey of the 1997. It’s a curio, for sure, but a delightful one enjoyed by most people at the tasting.

Ross Hill Chardonnay 2009 $27–30
Orange, New South Wales
Terri and Peter Robson established Ross Hill in 1994 and planted chardonnay on their home block in 1996. In 2008 Greg and Kim Jones joined the business “to build the Ross Hill winery and plant further, higher elevation vines on the slopes of Mount Canobolas”. Winemaker Phil Kearney then joined the team, and in 2009 produced the first wines to be made on-site. The wines include this wild-yeast, barrel-fermented chardonnay from the home block – a rich, bright, fine-textured chardonnay with a core of sweet, nectarine-like varietal flavour, looking very young at two years.

The Islander Estate Vineyards Old Rowley 2006 $37
Kangaroo Island, South Australia
Frenchman Jacque Lurton grows and makes his grenache, shiraz, viognier blend on an 11-hectare vineyard, planted on Kangaroo Island in 2000. It’s a surprisingly fine, elegant and savoury wine, given the blend – so often in Australia grenache tends to a musky, even confectionary character; and the white viognier can be intensely apricot-like and oily textured. Instead we have a lighter coloured red, of light to medium body with a lean, savoury, spicy palate and persistent, fine, tannic finish.

Rosso di Montalcino (Castello di Romitorio) 2007 $38.50–$54.99
Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy
This is sort of uber Chianti – a magnificent, elegant red made from the sangiovese grosso variety, grown at Montalcino, near Sienna, Tuscany. Brunello di Montalcino, also made from sangiovese grosso, is one of Italy’s great wines and Rosso di Montalcino is its slightly lesser cellar mate. The colour’s medium and limpid and already showing signs of age ¬– though this is common for sangiovese. The aroma and palate, though, are all excitement with sweet, tobacco-like, earthy and gamey flavours underlying a firm, sinewy tannin structure. It’s an elegant, unique wine that grows in interest and, suddenly, regrettably, the bottle’s empty.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Kirrihill Single Vineyard series $15.25–$16.95

• Clare Valley Slate Creek Riesling 2010
• Adelaide Hills Serendipity Pinot Grigio 2010
• Adelaide Hills Barton Springs Sauvignon Blanc 2010

There’s great value in these single-vineyard whites made by Donna Stephens. The riesling, sourced from 30-year-old vines in Watervale, southern Clare Valley, offers full, rich lemony flavours with lively, delicate, refreshing acidity. The sauvignon blanc, from the higher cooler Adelaide Hills to the south of Clare, delivers sauvignon’s familiar herbaceous flavours and little more text and grip than we see in most. Pinot gris, also from the Adelaide Hills, is more spicy and pear-like in flavour, backed by a textural richness, courtesy of extended contact on yeast lees.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale The Stump Jump range  $10.75–$11.95

• Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2009
• Shiraz 2009
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

d’Arenberg’s Stump Jump range delivers true regional flavours at a modest price. They’re ready to drink now, but more complex than most reds you’ll find at the price. In the blend Grenache gives a lighter colour and fragrant high notes, shiraz adds a solid, earthy flavour and richness and mourvedre contributes spice and grippy tannins. The shiraz is all McLaren Vale – its varietal fruitiness wrapped in savoury tannins, managing to be full flavoured but not plump, and finishing fairly firm. The cabernet, too, is purely varietal with its tight, lean-but-tasty palate and firm, tannic finish.

Henschke Barossa Henry’s Seven 2009 $30.60–$34

This juicy and lovely wine combines shiraz, grenache, viognier and mourvedre – seemingly a blend of blends, combining two distinct Rhone valley styles. In the northern Rhone’s Cote Rotie area, co-fermented shiraz and viognier (a white variety) produce one of the world’s great red styles – shiraz of great fragrance and finesse. Canberra’s Clonakilla is modelled on this style. Further south, grenache, shiraz and mourvedre dominate earthier, medium bodied, multi-varietal blends. In Henry’s Seven, Stephen Henschke captures the high toned fragrance and plump fruitiness of viognier and grenache, but tempers it with the more savoury character of shiraz and spicy grippiness of mourvedre.

Follow me on Twitter @ChateauShanahan

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Brindabella Hills Shiraz 2009 $30
Hall, Canberra District, Australian Capital Territory
Can wine resemble its maker? It’s a far-fetched notion, perhaps. But Brindabella Hills shiraz shares a gentle understatement with its creator, Roger Harris. And the wonderful 2009 vintage seems even gentler and more understated than usual. The aroma’s sweet, fragrant and floral with a spicy edge that carries through to the bright, soft, sweet, gentle palate. This is pure, cool-grown shiraz from one of Canberra’s lowest, warmest sites – a wine that grows in interest for days after opening the bottle. Harris’s reserve shiraz 2008 ($35) offers a fuller, slightly firmer variation on the gentle theme.

Chablis Premier Cru Vaillons (Simmonet-Febvre) 2007 $39.80–$41.90
Vaillons vineyard, Chablis, France
Chablis, the northernmost vineyard of France’s Burgundy region, lies at a chilly 48 degrees north. Its distinctive, flinty, dust-dry chardonnays – generally unoaked and instantly recognisable in masked tastings – offer some of the best value drinking on the planet. Thankfully they haven’t hit the stellar prices fetched by the fuller, riper styles made in Burgundy proper. Simmonet-Febvre’s version, imported by Woolworths, delivers all that’s good in this great regional style. Pure, flinty, minerally and succulently bone dry, it’s the perfect oyster wine, although versatile with food. Under French law the name “Chablis” indicates not only the region of origin but also the grape variety, chardonnay.

Greywacke Pinot Noir 2009 $40–$45
Marlborough, New Zealand
As winemaker at Selaks from 1983, Kevin Judd made some of the first New Zealand sauvignon blancs destined for Canberra, under the Selaks and Farmer Brothers labels. Judd later joined David Hohnen at Cloudy Bay, the brand that sold the sizzle of Marlborough sauvignon blanc to the world – and later developed a superb pinot noir. After 25 vintages at Cloudy Bay, Judd left and launched his Greywacke label, based on mature vines on the southern side of Marlborough’s Wairau Valley. All that experience comes to bear in this fragrant, medium bodied, elegant, luxuriously textured pinot.

Henschke Peggy’s Hill Riesling 2010 $15–$22
Eden Valley, South Australia
Eden Valley’s roller coaster 2010 vintage swung from cold to heat and wet to dry. Ultimately, write Prue and Stephen Henschke, “Lower yields coupled with mild ripening period resulted in incredibly concentrated fruit. The signature varieties of the Eden Valley, riesling and shiraz, once again produced exceptional quality with great acid balance”. The Henschkes source grapes for Peggy’s Hill (named for an Eden Valley landmark) from local growers. The wine offers pure, floral and citrus aromas and a zesty, dry palate, saturated with lemon and lime varietal flavours. This is one to enjoy any time over the next ten years.

Bremerton Verdelho 2010 $16–$18
Langhorne Creek, South Australia
Next sauvignon blanc occasion, try verdelho from one of Australia’s warm growing regions. These areas can’t succeed in a sauvy shoot out with cool Marlborough or the Adelaide Hills. But verdelho, first planted in Langhorne Creek in the mid nineteenth century, adapted well to Australian conditions. It retains good acidity in the heat and makes delicious, crisp full-flavoured dry whites. Like sauv blanc, it’s racy and fresh but has what I call a “sappy” note rather then herbaceous and tropical fruit characters. The Wilson family’s Bremerton is an excellent example of the style. Rebecca Wilson made it using only free-run juice from grapes grown on the family vineyard.

Alkoomi Shiraz 2009 $14.30–$15.89
Frankland River, Great Southern, Western Australia
Alkoomi – a 110-hectare estate at Frankland River in Western Australia’s Great Southern region – makes a typically Australian wide range of wine styles. But its best to me are shiraz and riesling. Even their entry-level shiraz bears the regional style stamp – closer to the refined Canberra style than it is to brawny Barossa, but still its own beast. Like Canberra shiraz it’s limpid and medium bodied and based on vibrant berry flavours; unlike the Canberra style, there’s a deep, savoury vein and an associated tight, tannic structure.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Sauvignon Blanc 2010 $20
Sauvignon blanc is Australia’s most popular white wine style. But in Canberra’s vineyards, where riesling rules, it’s a niche variety, struggling for identity and seldom performing well at our local wine show. A consistent exception has been Roger and Faye Harris’s gentle, lovely version. Year after year it’s been on the money. The 2010 vintage, sourced from Brindabella Hills and neighbouring Pankhurst vineyard at Hall, continues the cellar style. It’s comparatively low in alcohol at 12 per cent and deliciously delicate, fresh and dry. The flavour’s subtly but clearly varietal, expressing the passionfruit-like warmer end of the cool-climate spectrum.

Greywacke Marlborough Wild Sauvignon 2009 $35
Greywacke’s Kevin Judd and sauvignon blanc go back to 1983. As winemaker at Selaks, Judd made some of the first New Zealand sauvignon blancs to be promoted in Australia, starting here in Canberra under the Selaks and Farmer Brothers labels. Judd then joined David Hohnen at Cloudy Bay, the brand that sold the sizzle of Marlborough sauvignon blanc to the world. After 25 vintages at Cloudy Bay, Judd left and launched his own wines – including this thrilling interpretation of the region’s signature variety, fermented by wild yeasts in old oak barrels. This is high acid, intense Marlborough sauvignon of great textural richness.

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Pinot Gris 2010 $20
Winemaker Roger Harris describes pinot gris as “more phenolic [tannic] than the other white varieties I’m used to working with”. Properly managed, says Harris, the tannins give pinot gris a firm backbone and silky texture – a unique and appealing feature of the variety. However, the tannins can also be astringent, throwing the wine off balance. Striking the right balance therefore has much to do with “fining” the wine – stripping out hard tannins using natural products like casein. The spritely, fresh 2010 vintage, sourced from the Mount Majura and Hall’s Crossing vineyards, truly captures the variety’s flavour, distinctive tight structure and rich texture.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Domain Lucci Pinot Noir 2010 $30
Basket Range, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Lucy Margaux Vineyards, a small, biodynamic operation in the Adelaide Hills, makes brilliant, sumptuous pinot noir from several individual vineyards in the area. Of four sent to us recently by winemaker Anton van Klopper, our favourite, by a small margin, was this highly perfumed, generously flavoured, slightly sappy but silky wine from his Basket Range vineyard. Van Klopper says he uses spontaneous fermentations and makes no additions, apart from sulphur at bottling. The pinots in particular are slurpily irresistible. Available at cellar door, see www.lucymargauxvineyards.com

Katnook Founder’s Block Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 $15–$20
Coonawarra, South Australia
Cabernet sauvignon covers almost half of Katnook’s 197-hectare Coonawarra vineyard, despite the variety’s declining popularity in recent years. It’s a case of a regional specialty riding out swings in fashion by being the best. Indeed, Founder’s Block might easily woo drinkers back to cabernet. It presents the variety’s alluring, pure ripe berry aroma and flavour on a gentle, elegantly structured palate that grips without rasping as young cabernet sometimes does. It does this without diminishing the varietal character and drinking satisfaction. It’s simply made to enjoy right now rather than in ten or fifteen years.

Tinpot Hut Gruner Veltliner 2010 $25
Marlborough, New Zealand
What happens to Austria’s gruner veltliner transplanted to Marlborough? Well, it’s a surprisingly robust dry white – somewhat bigger and fatter than we see in the Austrian originals. It’s sort of pudgy but lovable, featuring nice, juicy fruit flavours – reminiscent of peach seasoned with candied orange – but still finely textured, crisp, fresh and dry. Zapping off for another New Zealand vintage this week, Kate Day said Tinpot Hut’s interesting new white should be on retail shelves and in some restaurants in the next few weeks.

Brancott Estate “T” Terraces Pinot Noir 2009 $22–$27
Brancott Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand
In 1973 Montana Wines established Marlborough’s first modern vineyards at Brancott in the Fairhall Valley, part of the larger Wairau River valley. In the nineties the company planted broad acres of pinot noir, gambling on it as the red most likely to succeed in the area. Pernod Ricard later bought Montana and partly because of naming rights in the USA, renamed the company Brancott Estate. After an enormous amount of hard work, the pinot gamble paid off. As we see in this lovely, reasonably priced wine, sourced principally from the Brancott vineyard. It’s pale coloured, delightfully perfumed and delivers rich pinot flavour on a fine, silk-textured dry palate.

Domaine A Stoney Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 $35
Coal River Valley, Tasmania
When we close our eyes and think of Tasmania, cabernet’s usually out of scope. We think mainly of chardonnay and pinot noir. But down in Campania, just north of Hobart, Peter Althaus makes two substantial cabernets, his flagship “A”, and “Stoney Vineyard” – a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot – released as a mere pup six years after vintage. It’s a highly distinctive wine built on intense, ripe, dark-berry flavours – like a blended essence of blackcurrant and mulberry. Almost three years’ maturation in oak sets this syrup-rich fruit in a matrix of fine, firm, elegant tannins and, in conjunction with the fruit, produces an exotic cedar-like aroma. Grew classier and classier with each passing day.

Parker Terra Rossa Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 $40
Southern Coonawarra, South Australia
Parker Coonawarra Estate, Xanadu Margaret River, Yering Station Yarra Valley and Mount Langi Ghiran Grampians form the Rathbone Wine Group – an elite collection of great regional wines, each polished close to perfection under Rathbone family ownership. The Coonawarra cabernets in 2006 are sensational. The graceful, elegant $40 wine – mostly cabernet sauvignon, with a splash of petit verdot – has at its heart the most beautiful, sweet berry fruit flavours. These are tightly wound with oak flavours and tannins into a single, delicious flavour. Parker First Growth Cabernet Merlot 2006 ($110) shares the familial poise and elegance, with even sweeter, richer fruit and more powerful but balanced tannins.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Stonier Mornington Peninsular

• Pinot Noir 2009 $25–$28
• Chardonnay 2009 $24.20–$26.90

Stonier, one of the oldest Mornington Peninsular wineries, began under Brian Stonier, became part of publicly listed Petaluma group and was later acquired by Lion Nathan. The ownership changed, but Brian Stonier keeps an eye on operations and the Stonier wines remain as good as ever – up there with the best from the region. In 2009 the fine-textured chardonnay reveals ripe, sweet melon- and nectarine-like varietal flavours, set against a subtle backdrop of barrel derived aromas and flavours. The pale coloured but intense pinot noir delivers one of the best pinot experiences possible at the price.

Jim Barry Lodge Hill Watervale Riesling 2010 $16–$20
This beautiful white, from the Barry family’s Lodge Hill Vineyard (one of the highest in the Clare Valley), won the Douglas Lamb Perpetual Trophy at this year’s Royal Sydney Wine Show. Despite the modest price, Lodge Hill shines on all fronts – floral aroma, pure, vibrant lemon-like varietal flavour, fine texture and zingy fresh finish – all the marks of a good riesling. It’s a fitting trophy as Jim Barry, winemaker, and Douglas Lamb, wine merchant, were contemporaries and shared a love of good wine. Both are now dead, but their children carry on the family enterprises founded by their fathers.

Juniper Estate Semillon 2009 $22–$26
Margaret River semillon generally has a distinctive aroma and flavour, described variously as “pea pod”, “canned pea” and even “cat’s pee”. These can be turbo, in-your-face flavours or just a subtle undertone that’s part of cool-grown semillon. In Margaret River winemaker often use semillon, with great effect, to flesh out and give structure to sauvignon blanc. In this version Mark Messenger coaxes the best from semillon using a wild yeast ferment, “in tight grained French oak and maturation yeast lees, to build texture and structure”. The result’s very pleasing – recognisably semillon, but with great complexity and a tight, firm structure.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011

Lawson’s Dry Hills Riesling 2008 $19–$21
Waihopai Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand
There’s an echo of Germany’s Mosel in this juicy, off-dry white. It’s aromatic and delicate with amazingly luscious fruit, a subtle overlay of mandarin-like flavour, courtesy of botrytis – all balanced by racy, fresh acidity. Australia’s warm conditions generally can’t produce this style successfully. But in the Waihopai Valley, a feeder arm of Marlborough’s Wairau Valley, a sunny but very cool ripening period retains that crucial acidity, at the same time producing intense grape flavours. Despite the salute to Germany, Lawson’s remains entirely its own beast – a unique and lovely wine with a modest residual grape sugar of 11 grams per litre.

Hesketh Perfect Stranger Gruner Veltliner 2009 $23.35–$25.95
Krems, Austria
Gruner veltliner, Austria’s most widely planted variety, is gaining a toehold in Australia, including Canberra, at Lark Hill vineyard, high on the Lake George escarpment. It’s an aromatic variety, one of its parents being traminer, and generally made for early consumption, although long-lived versions exist. It can be thought of as a fat riesling. This one – made by Australia’s Hesketh family, in conjunction with Austria’s Berthold Salomon – comes from Salomon’s Wachtburg and Sandgruber vineyards, near Krems. It’s pleasantly citrusy and spicy with a plump, soft and fresh drink-now palate.

Brown Brothers Patricia Chardonnay 2008 $39.90
Whitlands and Yarra Valley, Victoria
This is the first chardonnay in five years in Brown Brothers flagship Patricia range – based on multi-regional sourcing. The idea seams old hat now as Australia shifts to regional, sub-regional and individual vineyard marketing. But there’s no denying Patricia’s beauty. She’s an oak fermented and matured blend from two very cool sites – Brown Brothers vineyard at Whitlands, on a plateau above Victoria’s King Valley, and the Coombe Farm vineyard, Yarra Valley. The cool sites provide Patricia’s core, delicious, white-peach flavour and bracing fresh acidity. It’s a fine textured, slow evolving chardonnay with several years of life ahead of it.

Water Wheel Shiraz 2009 $18
Bendigo, Victoria
Water Wheel’s Mark Murphy says the vineyard owner, Peter Cumming demanded “more berries and fewer plums”. Roughly translated that means picking red grapes earlier to capture the more vibrant berry end of the varietal spectrum. The approach shows in this pure, fragrant, vibrant, berry-laden shiraz from the very small 2009 vintage. Murphy says they harvested just 1.2 tonnes a hectare across Water Wheel’s 120 hectares of vines. Sounds like a lot of effort for a small amount of wine at such a modest price. What a great bargain it is.

Black Jack Major’s Line Shiraz 2008 $22–$25
Faraday, Bendigo, Victoria
What a contrast this is to Water Wheel shiraz, the other Bendigo red reviewed here today. Black Jack – from a different site (David and Ruth Norris’s vineyard at Faraday) and a much hotter vintage – moves squarely to the ripe plum and black cherry end of the varietal spectrum. Despite being big and powerful, it’s balanced, complex and satisfying with discernible spice and black pepper cool-climate characters. Winemakers Ian McKenzie and Ken Pollock describe 2008 as, “our vintage from hell, easily the most difficult one we have experienced in Blackjack’s 20-plus years”.

Parker Estate Terra Rossa Merlot $40
Southern Coonawarra, South Australia

Merlot earned its confused identity in Australia by being too sweet, too simple, too oaky, too soft or too extracted – and sometimes by not even being merlot at all, but cabernet franc. Parker’s, though, is the real thing, from a small clay pan in Southern Coonawarra. Winemaker Peter Bissell pointed the vineyard out to me once, theorising that the clay retarded growth of the vines and its canopy, allowing them to concentrate on the fruit. Having recently visited Bordeaux’s home of merlot, Chateau Petrus, with its boot-clogging clay and spindly vines, the theory gelled. More importantly, the wine stacks up – so fine, so elegant, so fragrant, so packed with berries, yet so firm and assertive.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2011