Category Archives: Wine review

Wine review — Chapel Hill, Barwang, Chalkers Crossing and Bremerton

23 May 2010Uncategorized, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Chapel Hill McLaren Vale

Verdelho 2009 $16–$20
Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $27–$30

Verdelho, one of the classic Madeira varieties, made its way to Australia in the nineteenth century. It thrived as both a fortified and table variety. Today it’s valued as niche white variety, partly because it retains acidity in our warm growing regions. This example from Chapel Hill captures the variety’s fresh, crisp sappy edge and makes an interesting diversion from sauvignon blanc. Though robust, tannic and deeply layered the cabernet, from the exceptionally hot 2008 vintage, shows a tease of green, leafy notes among the riper blackcurrant-like flavours. Not for the faint hearted.

Barwang Hilltops Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $17–$20
Chalkers Crossing Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2008 $18–$20
Cabernet sauvignons from the nearby Hilltops region (Young) generally perform well at the Canberra Regional Wine Show. Barwang, the region’s first vineyard, now owned by McWilliams, shows some of that class in its modestly priced 2008 vintage. It shows pleasantly fleshy, minty, chocolaty varietal flavour and has an assertive, firm tannic grip. It’s well distributed and sometimes deeply discounted. And at a recent masked tasting, Chalkers Crossing Chardonnay 2008, from high, cool Tumbarumba rated well. It’s an understated, elegant style built on high-acid cool-climate fruit flavours but with a textural richness derived from barrel fermentation and maturation.

Bremerton Langhorne Creek

Special Release Malbec 2008 $24
Tamblyn Cabernet Shiraz Malbec Merlot 2008 $17–$19

Malbec has a long history in Langhorne Creek, generally playing a support role to other varieties. Occasionally, though, it stands on its own (as it does in Cahors, France, and widely in Argentina), producing fragrant, deeply coloured, supple, fruity wine with firm but fine tannins. Bremerton comes from the Willson family vineyards, established in 1985. It’s made by Rebecca Willson, daughter of founders Craig and Mignonne. The Tamblyn blend, too, shows Langhorne Creek’s generous fruit and juicy depth – clear cabernet notes leading the harmonious blend. The malbec is available only by mail order and at cellar door. See www.bremerton.com.au

Wine review — Rahona Valley, Wynns, d’Arenberg and Hewitson

16 May 2010People, Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Rahona Valley Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir 2006 $27 and Reserve Pinot Noir 2006 $34
Dromana Estate Mornington Estate Pinot Noir 2008 $30
After a few initial misgivings, the Rahona Valley pinots offered delicious drinking for several days after opening. They have the heady aroma, deep flavours and rich texture of good pinot, marred slightly by hard tannins. They’re very good wines, but those hard tannins keep them off the pace of the polished act we’re not seeing from top Mornington makers like Main Ridge and Kooyong. The paler-coloured Dromana Estate leads with varietal and spicy oak aromas, but the palate finally lacks fruit intensity. We tried again and again to love it over several days but finally lost interest.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate

Riesling 2009 $15–$20
Chardonnay 2009 $15–$20
Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2007 $10–$20

Prices of Wynns wines vary enormously, depending on retailer moods. They’re good value at full retail price but become exceptional bargains when on special. Riesling 2009 is taut, acidic and flavour packed – an attractive, dry aperitif style. Chardonnay 2009 shows pure, vibrant melon-like varietal flavour. It’s full-bodied, flavour packed, fresh and dry. The red blend, with the familiar old Essendon red-striped, black label, has the austere, dry tannins of cabernet and merlot, but shiraz fills out the mid palate. The combination is very Coonawarra – deep, ripe-berry flavours with elegant but strong, assertive structure.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale The Twenty Eight Road Mourvedre 2007 $30–$35
Hewitson Old Garden Barossa Valley Mourvedre 2008 $69
Same grape variety, similar very warm growing regions, very old vines – the former planted in the 1920s, the latter in 1853 – but, oh what different flavours they deliver. d’Arenberg’s is firm, savoury, earthy and tannic, with a core of ripe fruit; the sort of rustic wine that needs protein or savoury food as a match. Hewitson’s is stunningly aromatic, with buoyant, bright, well-deep fruit flavours (Dean Hewitson likens the flavour to glacé orange rind) with soft but mouth-filling tannin. In this hot vintage alcohol intrudes a little. But the seductive fruit wins; what a wonderful, distinctive wine from the Koch family’s venerable old vineyard.

Wine review — Shingleback, d’Arenberg, Chapel Hill, Brokenwood and Voyager Estate

9 May 2010Uncategorized, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Shingleback Red Knot McLaren Valley Shiraz 2008 $13–$15
d’Arenberg McLaren Vale The Footbolt Shiraz 2008 $16–$20
Chapel Hill McLaren Vale Shiraz 2008 $27–$33
Yum yum yum – there’s flavour galore in these shirazes from the uber-hot McLaren Vale 2008 vintage. They share ripeness, liveliness and a regional savoury undertone. Shingleback’s Red Knot displays the brightest most primary fruit flavours; d’Arenberg’s Footbolt seems slightly earthier – though both provide straightforward, easy drinking without much complexity. Chapel Hill turns up the flavour, savouriness and complexity volume and grows in interest with each glass. It’s smooth and supple in its own robust way.

Brokenwood Beechworth Nebbiolo 2008 $22–$25
Brokenwood Beechworth Indigo Vineyard Shiraz 2008 $45–$55
If any of us still distrusts lighter coloured reds, Brokenwood Nebbiolo is the wine to dispel it. It has the alluring fragrance of Piedmont’s notoriously difficult grape and an Aussie accent in the bright, sweet kernel of fruit lurking under its taut, fine, grippy, savoury tannins. This is a very good, thoroughly enjoyable drink with a difference. The medium bodied shiraz also takes us to new territory. The firm, sinewy tannin backbone reminds me a little shiraz from France’s Hermitage region. But the aroma and flavour are all-Australian, cool-climate shiraz, reminiscent of ripe, dark berries, black pepper and a pleasing earthy note. Outstanding wine.

Voyager Estate Margaret River Shiraz 2008 $30–$34
Voyager Estate Margaret River Chardonnay 2007 $38–$42
The shiraz looked smart in a recent small line up of varied Australian shiraz styles. I’d describe it as in the robust cool-climate style – fairly full bodied but with exceptionally vibrant, spicy, plummy fruit flavours and a tight structure built on high acidity and fine tannins. It was our mutual top wine of the tasting and the only bottle to be drained completely. Voyager’s chardonnay rates among Australia’s best. Winemaker Steve James says that in the hot 2007 he picked the fruit at comparatively low sugar levels, partly accounting for the exceptional vibrancy of this luxurious barrel-fermented white.

Wine review — Plunket-Fowles, Meerea Park, Penfolds, Pooles Rock and Freeman

2 May 2010People, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Plunkett-Fowles Stone Dwellers Strathbogie Ranges Riesling 2008 $18–$22
Meerea Park Hunter Valley XYZ Semillon 2009 $20–$22
Stone Dwellers, from Victoria’s Strathbogie Ranges, delivers huge dollops of juicy, fresh, citrus-like fruit flavours. At 13 per cent it’s at the high-alcohol end of the riesling spectrum. But that just adds to the richness – and, in any event, there’s heaps of acid keeping it fresh and crisp. In contrast, Meerea Park’s 11 per cent alcohol semillon, from the Howard family’s vineyard, is all tightness and restraint. Lemony, crisp, and plank dry, it makes a terrific aperitif now, and has the structure and flavour depth to flourish over time. A glorious follow-up bottle of Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon 1997 reminded us how good this style is with age.

Penfolds Bin 138 Shiraz Mourvedre Grenache 2008 $25–$30
Pooles Rock Hunter Valley Shiraz 2007 $39–$40
Warm climate Australian shiraz reveals more faces than a Tokyo subway. The plush and pure Pooles Rock bears the Hunter’s unique thumbprint: an earthy note hovering over ripe, sweet fruit aromas and, on the palate deep, sweet fruit layered with soft tannins. It’s an easy style to drink young, but becomes finer and more ethereal with age, sometimes over many decades. Barossa shiraz, too, can be juicy and soft. But in Bin 138, mourvedre adds a fine, savoury tannic grip and grenache inserts its aromatic high notes into a complex wine. This one needs a few years bottle age to be at its best.

Freeman Rondinella Corvina Secco 2005 $27–$30
This is a brilliant Aussie take on the classic reciotto della Valpolicella Amarone style of Verona, Italy, made from dried grapes. Brian Freeman established his vineyard at Young from just six cuttings each of the Veronese varieties, rondinella and corvina in 1999. Rather than go the whole hog like the Valpolicella Amarone makers, Brian uses mainly fresh grapes, adding a portion of dehydrated berries during fermentation. The 2005 vintage seems a little less full bodied than the 2004 reviewed here last year, but the underlying cherry-like fruit flavours are similar. Five years’ bottle age gives a lovely mellowness to match the grippy Italian savour.

Antinori comes to Canberra

28 April 2010People, Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

In 1385 Tuscany’s Antinori family commenced winemaking, Giovanni di Bicci de Medici, founder of the famous dynasty, turned 25 and Columbus hadn’t been born, let alone set sail. And given the squabbles on the peninsula, the notion of a unified Italy might’ve been less imaginable to a fourteenth century Florentine than a fabulous new world across the sea.

Indeed, the new world came and flourished long before Italy united. By the time Tuscany escaped Austrian rule and joined a united Italy in 1860, the American republic was 84 years old and Europe’s winemaking traditions, mainly French and German, had taken root on the planet’s oldest continent.

In 1849, as Antinori celebrated 464 years in the wine trade, an Englishman, Samuel Smith, founded Yalumba wines in the Barossa Valley. One hundred and thirty five years later, Robert Hill-Smith, Smith’s fifth generation descendent, established Negociants Australia – Yalumba’s import and wholesale arm. Hill-Smith included Antinori in his list of imports (now managed by 26th generation Piero Antinori).

Hill-Smith was Yalumba’s marketing manager at the time and driving the company’s modernisation. A year later he became managing director and five years later, with his brother Sam, bought out the other family shareholders.

It was a time of great turmoil in the industry. The end of retail price maintenance ten years earlier had unleashed a competitive wave that drove industry consolidation as producers struggled for market share and margin in a glutted market.

Producer consolidation in turn drove retail consolidation, a process that continues today, delivering Coles and Woolworths ever-greater market power. Retail consolidation then forced more producer consolidation. In conjunction with a currency-driven collapse in exports and overproduction, this consolidation continues to destroy value across the Australian wine industry.

Across these turbulent years, though, Hill-Smith focussed on his brands and along with other larger family owned companies, including Tyrrell’s, Brown Brothers, McWilliams and De Bortoli, gained market share as once-great brand names languished.

In this stable environment, with the long-term focus essential in the wine industry, Yalumba’s wine quality increased steadily. In every market segment they occupy, their quality is as good as it gets – and this includes traditional styles as well the alternative varieties now being pursued.

The Antinori story may be older, but its modern achievements share much with Yalumba’s – patience, innovation and a focus on quality, built from the vineyard up. As trading partners they’re a good match.

Antinori’s modern reputation intertwines with the creation of the so-called ‘super Tuscans’ in the early seventies. In 1971 Antinori thumbed its nose at Italy’s wine classification system. It voluntarily downgraded its flagship Tignanello from “Chianti Classico Riserva” to mere “table wine”.

By adding cabernet to the blend, they’d breached the Chianti Classico rules. However, Tignanello proved to be a great wine and word-of-mouth marketing quickly took it to the world, creating a new genre of Chianti spin-offs – blending classic Bordeaux varieties with the indigenous sangiovese grape. (In 1991 I enjoyed a bottle of the original 1971 Tignanello at a restaurant in the Tuscan town of Tavernelle. It was still drinking beautifully).

But the Antinoris didn’t drop “Chianti Classico” altogether. Indeed, they’ve polished the quality to extraordinary heights – and expanded their range into the nearby appellation of Brunello di Montalcino and to the coastal Bolgheri region.

Twenty-six years after Robert Hill-Smith established Negociants Australia, Piero Antinori’s godson, Jacopo Pandolini, arrived in Canberra, pulling the corks on the latest Antinori vintages for a trade tasting at Italian and Sons, Braddon.

They were jaw dropping, thrillingly good. Few single-maker lines ups in the world could match this range for drinking pleasure.

Peppoli Chianti Classico 2006 $32.90
This is the modern face of Chianti and a salute to the fruity wines of the new world. A little syrah (shiraz) and merlot in the blend, a touch of American oak, sweetens the aroma and fattens out the palate a little (sangiovese, the base wines, can be very austere). An enjoyable wine, but if you’re used to traditional Chianti, you might find Peppoli a little too “new world”.

Badia a Passignano Chianti Classico Riserva 2005 $62
This is a single-vineyard wine from the 325-hectare Badia a Passignano estate, purchased by the Antinoris in 1987. Rare for Chianti, it’s 100 per cent sangiovese. – a selection of the best berries, picked late in the season at full ripeness. It’s a beautiful Chianti Classico, austere, bone dry and elegant, with a delicious core of ripe, sweet fruit.

Pian delle Vigne Brunello di Montalcino 2001 $92
This is another 100 per cent sangiovese, sourced from Antinori’s Pian delle Vigne estate, six kilometres south of the town of Montalcino. In a word, it’s stunning – elegant, fine, ethereal. A great wine from a great vintage.

Tignanello 2006 $125
This blend of 85 per cent sangiovese, 10 per cent cabernet sauvignon and five per cent cabernet franc from the Tignanello estate seems soft and juicy in comparison to the straight sangioveses. The cabernets have a big impact on the aroma, flavour and structure – a wine that’s still firm in the scheme of things, but elegant and refined. A distinctive and utterly seductive wine.

Tenuta Guado al Tasso Bolgheri $115
This is a cabernet sauvignon, merlot syrah blend from Bolgheri, on the Tuscan coast. It’s fragrant and sweet fruited, driven by cabernet’s ripe-berry character, and elegantly structured. The sweet fruit flavour lingers on and on.

Solaia 2004 $420
Solaia combines cabernet sauvignon (75 per cent) and cabernet franc (five per cent) and sangiovese (20 per cent) sourced from the top blocks of the Tignanello vineyard. It reverses the Tignanello blend, putting cabernet to the fore, although it doesn’t dominate. This is a powerful, taut wine. But the solid tannins work harmoniously with the intense, fine fruit flavours. It’s another great wine ¬and built for long-term cellaring.

Wine review — Brindabella Hills

25 April 2010People, Vineyard, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Brio $20
Sometimes food, company, setting and wine combine in a magical way – as they did at Brindabella Hills late afternoon on Canberra’s mild, sunny Easter Monday. Nibbling Faye Harris’s tapas, taking in the green Murrumbidgee Valley hills and blue Brindabellas from the new cellar door patio, Brio and Argentius couldn’t have tasted better. Brio, meaning verve and vigour, is a pure, unforced expression of sangiovese – medium bodied but with a sweet, ripe kernel of cherry-like varietal flavour and firm, savoury tannins. Roger Harris says this is the noble Brunello clone of the variety, sourced from a neighbouring vineyard at Hall.

Brindabella Hills Canberra District Argentius 2008 $20
Gewürztraminer, riesling and pinot gris? Strange bed partners perhaps, but they work in Argentius – especially washing down fresh, savoury tapas at the winery (and no doubt with the ripe, soft cheese or light, spicy Asian dishes suggested by winemaker Roger Harris). High-toned, musky gewürztraminer dominates the aroma, suggesting perhaps a touch of sweetness and viscosity to come. Yes, to an extent, but the palate’s more complex – citrusy and tangy, velvety and slick. It’s off dry, with a savoury grip of tannin from the gewürztraminer and pinot gris. And thumbs up after a subsequent road test with Thai food. See www.brindabellahills.com.au

Brindabella Hills Canberra District

Sauvignon Blanc 2009 $18
Riesling 2009 $25
Shiraz 2007 $25

These are big value wines, looking very good indeed six months after release. The riesling is intensely aromatic, with lime and lemon-like varietal character; an intense, lime-like palate backs up the first impressions, finishing long and bone dry – a classy riesling, with good cellaring potential. The sauvy’s light and tangy, tending to herbal, and ready to drink. The shiraz, always one of Canberra’s best, comes in this vintage from Wayne and Jennie Fischer’s Nanima Vineyard, backed by a little viognier from Brindabella. It’s a dark, aromatic, more savoury than usual wine, with the characteristic firm tannins of the season. Atypical but outstanding red.

Wine review — Red Knot, McHenry Hohnen, Dowie Doole and Main Ridge

18 April 2010Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Red Knot McLaren Vale Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $13–$15
McHenry Hohnen Tiger Country Margaret River Tempranillo Petit Verdot Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 $28–$31.50
Here we have the quintessential and quirky of Australian winemaking. Red Knot Cabernet, from the Davey family’s Shingleback vineyard, McLaren Vale, evokes words like ripe, juicy, fruity, varietal and soft – a bright, fresh, flavoursome, lovable, red to enjoy now. McHenry Hohnen’s quirky blend of Spain’s tempranillo with Bordeaux’s petit verdot and cabernet sauvignon leads with the green, unripe aroma of cool-grown cabernet – then a more attractive funky, earthy note kicks in, suggesting a substantial palate. Alas, though, the green cabernet flavours take over again, diminishing, to my taste, the wine’s other virtues. It’s an adventurous style that may work with a little more ripeness.

Dowie Doole McLaren Vale G & T Garnacha Tempranillo 2009 $22–$25
McHenry Hohnen Margaret River 3 Amigos 2007 $21–$24
We love our grenache, shiraz, mourvedre blends. They’re Rhone in origin but thoroughly adapted to Australia’s hot, dry climate. But now we have to throw another variety in the blending pot – Spain’s tempranillo. In Spain, it’s often blended with garnacha (aka grenache), as it is in this attractive McLaren Vale red – a plush, lively youngster with a surprisingly savoury, dry richness. In 3 Amigos, a blend of shiraz, grenache and mourvedre, earthy, spicy fruit flavours lurk beneath the pleasantly astringent tannins. It’s intensely dry and savoury and works well with savoury food.

Main Ridge Estate Mornington Peninsula

Chardonnay 2008 $52
Half Acre Pinot Noir 2008 $65

Few pinot noirs and chardonnays in the world match the purity and finesse of those made by Nat and Rosalie White at Main Ridge Estate, Mornington Peninsula. They’re subtle, harmonious wines, built on deep, sweet, pure fruit flavours and barely revealing the hand of the winemaker. The rich, but delicate 2008 chardonnay combines pristine, cool-climate varietal flavour with the texture and complexity that could only come from full barrel fermentation and maturation – but the flavour components are inseparably combined. The equally glorious pinot 2008 starts with ripe varietal flavour; then, as you sip the silky texture builds and the assertive, fine tannins declare it as a classic for long cellaring.

Wine review — Tyrrell’s, Coldstream Hills, Printhie and Voyager Estate

11 April 2010Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Tyrrell’s Hunter Valley Vat 47 Chardonnay 2007 $40
Coldstream Hills Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2008 $29
Printhie Orange MCC Chardonnay 2008 $35
Voyager Estate Margaret River Chardonnay 2008 $38

This is a run of beautiful, luxurious chardonnays, all fermented and matured in oak barrels – but in every case the oak simply disappears into a wonderful amalgam of fruit-led flavours. My pick, by a small margin, is Tyrrell’s ultra fine, ripe-but-taut Vat 47 – a proven keeper. The others run in a tight pack, with Coldstream and Printhie sharing intense nectarine-like varietal flavour – the Printhie being a little tighter and steelier in structure. Voyager Estate delivers riper, peach-like flavours but, as in all of the above, harmoniously enveloped in barrel-derived complexities.

Craggy Range Hawkes Bay Block 14 Gimblett Gravels Syrah 2007 $28–$32
Hermitage (Domaine des Martinelles) 2005 $72–$80
Collector Canberra District Reserve Shiraz 2008 $45–$50

And for luxurious fine-boned, cool-climate shiraz try these contrasting styles from New Zealand, France and Canberra, all purchased in local liquor stores. NZ and shiraz, you ask? Isn’t it too cold? Yes, generally, but at Hawke’s Bay a little pocket of land, the Gimblett Gravels, makes intense, succulent, fine versions of our favourite variety in warm, dry years like 2007. Craggy Range is a good example of it. Hermitage, Rhone Valley home of shiraz (syrah to the French), makes a more potent, sinewy style – well illustrated in this modern, clean example. And Collector Reserve shows the fine, spicy intensity of the Canberra style at its best.

Pewsey Vale Vineyard Eden Valley Riesling 2009 $13.49–$23
It won’t be long before the 2010 rieslings trickle into the market. But if you’re after absolutely outstanding drinking right now, mop up the rest of Pewsey Vale’s extraordinarily delicious 2009. I’ve seen it as low as $13.49 but more commonly on discount at $15-$16 (though you can pay more if you want). It’s from the Hill-Smith family’s 50-hectare Pewsey Vale vineyard, located on the edge of the Eden Valley. Louisa Rose makes the wine just a few kilometres down the hill at the Yalumba Winery, Angaston, centre of the Hill-Smith wine operations.

Wine review — Montana, Vintage Cellars, Michel Chapoutier and Penfolds

4 April 2010Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Montana South Island Pinot Noir 2008 $18–$22
Vintage Cellars Central Otago Pinot Noir 2008 $12–$17
Montana – Marlborough pioneer, New Zealand’s largest wine producer and now part of France’s Pernod Ricard group — set its sights on large-scale pinot noir production in the late nineties. They planted broad acres of the variety and developed winemaking systems specifically for this difficult-to-make variety — with convincing results. The latest vintage delivers pleasing, clearly varietal fruit and flesh and sufficient red-wine structure, albeit in pinot’s medium bodied way. Vintage Cellar’s version presents the less fleshy end of the pinot spectrum — the perfume and varietal flavour are there, but the palate’s more taut tannin, again in pinot’s fine-boned way.

Michel Chapoutier

Cotes-du-Rhone 2007 $16.90–$17.80
Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2006 $59.80–$62.90

These clean, modern wines from France’s Rhone Valley feature grape varieties familiar to Australian drinkers – grenache, shiraz and mourvedre, and probably half a dozen more in the Chateuneuf. This is a fine wine indeed – medium bodied, subtle, earthy, savoury and elegant; a wine that grows on you with every sip, and is quite unlike any Australian grenache based red. It’s fully priced, but a genuine and good example of the style. The cheaper wine’s fuller flavoured, if a little rough around the edges. It’s enjoyable enough but not in the league of its cellar mate – though the importer’s catalogue (Dan Murphy) scores them almost equally, which is nonsense.

Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2008 $25–$34
Max Schubert made the first Bin 128 in 1962, maturing it in American oak barrels. But in 1980 Don Ditter switched to French oak. This proved more in tune with Coonawarra’s comparatively delicate fruit. In the 2008 vintage Bin 128 sits at the ripe end of the Coonawarra flavour spectrum. It’s very bright with sweet berry flavours, wrapped in layers of soft tannins. But if it shows the bigger, riper side of Coonawarra, it’s not over ripe and the elegant structure is already emerging. I suspect it’ll really strut its origins and class within three or four years and drink well for decades.

Wine review — Tyrrell’s, Pizzini and Grosset

28 March 2010Uncategorized, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Tyrrell’s Lost Block whites $14–$19

Hunter Valley Semillon 2009
Frankland River Sauvignon Blanc 2009

The popular vote’s with sauvignon blanc at present and Tyrrell’s version – sourced from Frankland River, Western Australia – scrubs up better than most as it has flesh and texture to match the tropical-fruit-like varietal flavour. Almost apologetically, Bruce Tyrrell’s press release calls it “the result of commercial necessity”. I suspect Tyrrell’s heart and palate are more in tune with the semillon. It’s a refreshingly low 11 per cent alcohol and features appealing, delicate, lemon-like regional flavour. But instead of the bone-dry austerity often seen in young Hunter semillons, especially those built for decades of cellaring, Lost Block’s round and soft and quite juicy, despite the low alcohol.

Pizzini King Valley

Pinot Grigio 2009 $18.50
Whitefields Pinot Grigio 2009 $25
Nebbiolo 2005 $45

Pinot gris, pinot grigio – same grape, but understandably the Pizzini family adopts the Italian name and northern Italian winemaking style. The cheaper version always rates well against its Aussie peers. But the new Whitefields 2009 offers a lovely extra fruit concentration – and the textural richness and complex flavour derived from barrel fermentation (with wild yeasts). At a recent tasting people quaffed the Whitefields down in preference to the Tyrrell’s semillon reviewed above. At the same tasting Pizzini Nebbiolo 2005 upstaged the other reds. It’s an exciting expression of this powerful, elegant and tannic Piedmontese style.

Grosset

Piccadilly Chardonnay 2008 $53
Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2008 $66
Clare Valley Gaia 2007 $60

We tasted Grosset’s Piccadilly after a run of very good chardonnays. And it stood out – not because it was bigger or bolder; but for its delicacy and harmony. It’s a wine of great underlying power and richness – and it’s seamlessly absorbed all the winemaking inputs that often build layers of distinct flavours around chardonnay. One bottle seemed hardly enough. Likewise Grosset’s pinot delivered buckets of flavour and in the most subtle, enjoyable, more-ish way. And Gaia, a blend of cabernet sauvignon franc and merlot, delivered juicy, ripe berry flavours cocooned in firm, dry tannins.