Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz 2008 $10–$20
It’s just released, the bottle price hit $15.99 by the dozen immediately – and since publishing this review in The Canberra Times has hit $9.90 — a screaming bargain. Stock up as this is an exciting red with a fifty-year pedigree. It’s a beautifully aromatic, vibrant, cool climate shiraz featuring ripe but spicy and juicy fruit flavours and ever-so-fine, soft tannins. It’s sourced from central and northern Coonawarra and matured for just six months in older French and American oak barrels. I suspect, however, that another few months in oak and an extra year in bottle might have taken this to an even higher level. Best drinking from 2010 and for many years thereafter.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate  ‘Black Label’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $26–$32
A severe frost in October 2006 nipped much of the 2007 vintage in the bud, reducing production of Black Label by 80 per cent. What’s left, though, is a world-class cabernet, at the elegant end of the Coonawarra spectrum. The colour’s vibrant and limpid. And though the aroma’s ripe and purely varietal, the palate is medium bodied, with the unique, and delicious, underlying power and structure of Coonawarra cabernet.  It’s already drinkable and showing some savoury notes. But there’s the depth and harmony here for a good ten years, probably more, in a good cellar.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Alex 88 Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 $31–$39
Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 $61–$76
Alex 88 comes from a single vineyard, one kilometre north of Wynns winery. It’s been the source of some of Wynns best cabernet for some years. It contrasts with the more elegant Black Label (even given the general greater richness of the 2006s). It’s matured in all new French oak – a perfect combination – plush, complex wine and appealing now, but with potential to age for decades. John Riddoch 2006 is as good as we’ve seen since the first vintage in 1982. It’s excitingly floral and seductive, silky textured, powerfully concentrated and with authoritative tannins – made unequivocally for long cellaring.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Taylors Clare Valley $14.90–$19

• Shiraz 2007
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2007
• Merlot 2007
  

Bill Taylor established the family vineyard in the Clare Valley in 1972. Today it’s one of our biggest family makers, producing around 600 thousand cases a year, principally from its 550-hectare Clare vineyard. The reds share an earthy savouriness though I prefer the shiraz of the three. It’s ripe, warm, generous and soft but savoury. The merlot is leaner, though ripe, with firm, mouth-drying tannins that’d fit well with savoury food. The cabernet reveals its varietal character more in its firm structure than in the aroma or flavour – a solid red that’d be tempered well by the protein in a slab or rare red meat.

Wicks Estate Adelaide Hills

• Riesling 2008 $18
• Sauvignon Blanc $18
• Chardonnay $18

These and the reds below are brilliant wines at the price – sourced from a 39-hectare Adelaide Hills vineyard, belonging to Tim and Simon Wicks, and made by Tim Knappstein and Leigh Ratzmer. The riesling’s full flavoured but finely structured and ready to enjoy now. The sauvignon blanc’s light and zesty, revealing mainly the herbal end of the sauv blanc spectrum but with a tropical touch and sufficient mid-palate flesh to make it interesting. The chardonnay’s lovely. It’s partly barrel fermented, giving depth and complexity, but it’s also deliciously fresh and fuller flavoured than the sauvignon blanc.

Wicks Estate Adelaide Hills

• Shiraz 2007 $20
• Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $20
• Eminence Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon $60

The shiraz is simply beautiful at this price: ripe, fine, supple and….glug, glug, glug, the bottle’s all gone. Say no more. And for just triple the price, step up to Eminence, a wine worthy of its name – deep, complex, sweet-fruited and harmonious. It’s predominantly shiraz, source of all that richness and the soft, velvety texture; the cabernet component sits in the background, giving backbone but not overtly affecting flavour. The cabernet has a leafy character in the aroma and flavour, a result of the cool growing conditions. It’s a decent drop, a bit soft for cabernet, and not in the league of the shiraz.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Domain Day Mount Crawford One Serious Riesling 2008 $20
Search ‘Mount Crawford South Australia’ on Google Earth and you’ll see that it’s in the hilly country (450 metres altitude) to the east and slightly south of the southern Barossa town of Lyndoch. It just scrapes into the Barossa boundary, but has a significantly cooler climate than the Barossa, or even the elevated Eden Valley, immediately to Mount Crawford’s north and forming the Barossa’s eastern flank. The cool location shapes Robin Day’s wines, including his deliciously fine, intense riesling – a style consistent with the taut, lowish-alcohol, bone-dry end of the Eden Valley spectrum. If serious rieslings put a grin on your face, then this one’s serious.

Domain Day One Serious Sangiovese 2005, One Serious Pinot Noir 2005, $28
Now flip from Google Earth to domainday.com.au and check what grape varieties Robin Day grows – riesling, garganega, viognier, pinot noir, lagrein, sangiovese, saperavi, merlot, nebbiolo and sagrantino. A few old friends make the list, but it’s made up largely of Robin’s own eclectic mix, selected across almost forty years of travel and winemaking.  The sangiovese’s notably bolder than most we see in Australia, but it’s still medium bodied, featuring rich, savoury flavours with a touch of oak plumping up the mid palate. The pinot belies its pale colour with a full, ripe, savoury, red-wine palate and a kiss of sweet oak. These are complex, interesting wines.

Domain Day One Serious ‘L’ Lagrein 2005, One Serious ‘S ‘Saparavi 2005 $28
Robin describes lagrein as a ‘great surprise hiding away in the north of Italy among all those savoury, meaty Italian reds’. It’s deeply coloured, still crimson rimmed at four years with bright, juicy berry flavours and layers of soft tannins. It’s easy to love, teasingly familiar, but not quite like any of our known wine flavours and textures. Saparavi, says Day, is the main red variety of the 500 natives grown in Georgia, the probable cradle of grape cultivation. It’s a big, deep, purple-rimmed, sweet-fruited (but dry) drop – definitely serious – but bright, fresh and lively, finishing with a lovely wave of very, very serious tannins.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

McLean’s Farmgate Eden Valley Riesling 2008 $25
Bob McLean’s Farmgate topped my list of 14 South Australian 2008 rieslings judged at the recent Winewise Small Vignerons Awards here in Canberra. It’s a fresh, taut, finely structured, dry and lively style based on delicious lime-like varietal flavours. It should drink well for years, as these fine, intensely flavoured Eden Valley rieslings tend to do. It’s made by Colin Forbes. A couple of McLean’s reds looked good, too – the savoury Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2006 and sturdier Mourvedre Shiraz Grenache 2007, both from the Eden Valley (the hills on the Barossa’s eastern flank). The wines are available from Bob’s website at www.mcleansfarm.com

Mount Majura Canberra District TSB 2008 $21, Tempranillo 2008 $35
As the Canberra District matures we’re seeing increasing numbers of beautifully made wines of real depth and character – and not always from the same old varieties. Majura’s Tempranillo, for example, could hold its own with Australia’s best from this Spanish variety. There’s an intensity and purity to the fruit flavour in its own special savoury, peppery, firm-but-fine way. There’s pepper, too, in the fragrant, supple, gold-medal-winning TSG (tempranillo, shiraz, graciano) blend. These are more than just curios. They’re niche reds (for Australia) delivering mainstream drinking pleasure. Great winemaking here from Frank van der Loo. www.mountmajura.com.au

Cullen Margaret River

• Kevin John Chardonnay 2007 $70
• Diana Madeline [cabernet blend] 2007 $105

Big prices, sure, but Vanya Cullen’s two flagships, named for her late parents, offer jaw-dropping quality.  The subtle chardonnay (entirely barrel fermented and matured) grows in interest as you sip, slowly revealing layers of complexity. It’s a harmonious wine capable of developing in bottle for many years. The cabernet blend (cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot) is an old favourite – but none of the earlier vintages can equal the 2007.  It’s ripe, pure, elegant and unbelievably soft and gentle for a cabernet possessing such flavour concentration – it’s all about the harmony between the fruit flavour and the mellow tannins. See www.cullenwines.com.au

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Jacob’s Creek $7–$11.40

• Sauvignon Blanc 2008
• Pinot Grigio 2008, Pinot Noir 2008
  
• Tempranillo 200

Sauvignon blanc is to wine what lager is to beer – light, crisp, refreshing and best enjoyed ice cold. The Jacob’s version captures the variety’s herbal flavours and zesty, dry palate very well at the price. Pinot grigio is even more impressive as it’s so difficult to capture its pear-like flavour. This modestly priced shot at the variety succeeds in a subtle, dry, easy-to-drink way. The medium bodied pinot noir and tempranillo both provide easy drinking and good varietal flavour, the pinot with a little savoury edge and the tempranillo in a more pure, fruity way.

Stanton and Killeen ‘The Prince’ Reserva 2008 $45
If you tasted this13 per cent alcohol, fragrant, fruity, silk-smooth, elegant wine masked, you’d never pick it as a Rutherglen red. It’s inspired by some of the modern wines coming out of Portugal. And given Stanton and Killeen’s long connection with Portuguese varieties, albeit used in fortified wines, the Prince’s arrival is not surprising, but still a flash of genius. It’s a blend of four Portuguese varieties – souzao, tinta roriz, touriga nacional and tinto cao usually ripened more fully and sent to the port barrels. The Prince sets and inspired new direction for Rutherglen, well removed from the region’s traditional ponderous, alcoholic monsters.

Winbirra ‘The Brigadier’ Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir 2007 $35
To my taste Mornington’s pinots fall into two broad style categories – those featuring high-toned aromas and flavours reminiscent of red berries like raspberry and strawberry; and those leaning  more to flavours like dark berries. Winbirra falls into the latter style. And if the aroma seems deep and brooding rather than bright and musky, its flavour and structure more than make up. It’s full of dark berry and savoury flavours, backed by a solid but fine tannin structure.  The aroma and flavour build in complexity over time, making Winbirra a particularly satisfying pinot, with little echoes of Burgundy in its savoury flavours and grippy structure.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Cimicky Trumps Barossa Valley Shiraz 2007 $17–$20
Charles Cimicky, based at Lyndoch in the southern Barossa Valley, has been on the money with his rich, savoury, regional reds for decades. In the early days they enjoyed a cult following, but as the wines are now distributed nationally by Angoves you’re more likely to find them on retail shelves. Cimicky’s Trumps Shiraz, at around $20, provides a big value introduction to the house style — full, ripe and inviting, in the general Barossa mould, but with complex savoury flavours and a grippy finish that goes so well with food. This is a sophisticated, drink-now regional red at a fair price.

Tapanappa ‘Tiers’ Vineyard Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay 2008 $71.50In 1978
Brian Croser released Petaluma Chardonnay 1977, a pioneering oak-fermented, oak-matured wine of striking quality. It came from warm Cowra and was the forerunner of later Petaluma vintages sourced from Croser’s vineyards in South Australia’s cool Piccadilly Valley. Over time ‘Tiers’, the earliest of those Piccadilly vineyards, produced distinctive wines and ultimately became the flagship Petaluma chardonnay. Today the ‘Tiers’ vineyard remains in Croser family hands and contributes fruit to both Petaluma and Tapanappa. Tapanappa shows the ripe, peachy flavours of the warm year – in a distinctive fresh, very fine style, incorporating the deep texture and flavour complexities of barrel fermentation and maturation.

Tapanappa Fleurieu Peninsula Pinot Noir 2008 $47
South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula gives its name to a wine zone embracing the warm McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek regions – source of generous ripe wines. But the peninsula juts further south, swinging westward into the Great Southern Ocean, producing towards its tip the significantly cooler, wetter climate that lured Brian Croser into planting pinot noir in 2003. This is the second Tapanappa wine from those young vines – and it makes a strong case for Croser’s choice of site. It’s early days yet, and we’ll have to see how the wines mature. But right now it’s a gem – fragrant, finely sculpted and lusciously flavoured, featuring bright fruit notes as well as savouriness and with loads of soft, persistent tannins giving structure.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Ravensworth Murrumbateman Marsanne 2008 $21
Ravensworth Murrumbateman Viognier 2008 $21
These amazingly good whites cement Bryan Martin’s place as one of Canberra’s best winemakers. They’re Rhone varieties, grown at Murrumbateman and made by Bryan at the Clonakilla Winery – a top environment, it seems, for making every notable variety in the district. Both taste as if they’re barrel fermented – a useful winemaking technique when, as in these wines, the aerobic environment boosts texture and complexity without inserting overt oak flavours. The marsanne is the more restrained of the two, but deep, complex and fresh, without the fatness of chardonnay. Viognier is tame (for the variety) with delicious white peach/nectarine flavours.

Ravensworth Murrumbateman Sangiovese 2008 $21
The aroma’s appropriately hand waving, ebullient Italian – bursting bright, fruity and friendly from the glass. The palate starts with the same dazzling, fresh charm. But there’s a deeper undercurrent of firm, gripping tannin, giving the wine an enjoyable, savoury, bone-dry grip. It’s a medium-bodied red, in the Canberra mould, revealing clearly the flavour and structure of this ancient, indigenous Italian variety. The bright, pure fruit gives a modern Aussie accent to a grape that dominates the Italian landscape, most notably in Chianti country, Tuscany. See www.ravensworthwines.com.au

Mount Majura Canberra District Shiraz 2007 $26
Frank Van Der Loo’s 2006 shiraz topped (in my notes) a recent masked line up of three striking shirazes. The other two, Langhi Ghiran Grampians 2005 and Delacolline Port Lincoln 2003 (a very peppery newcomer made for the vineyard owners by O’Leary Walker) were impressive in their own ways. But the Majura wine charmed for its silky, supple texture and deep, pure spicy varietal flavour. It’s a classy, distinctive drop and though sold out reminded me how very good the more solid, and still available, 2007 vintage is. What really impressed in the tasting was how easy it was to pick it as a Canberra wine – a sure sign of a maturing regional specialty.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Maipenrai Canberra District Pinot Noir 2006 $23.33–$28
Maipenrai Canberra District Amungula Creek Pinot Noir 2004 $10–$12
Astronomer Brian Schmidt peers into the furthest corners of our expanding universe (see http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~brian/) but maintains a terrestrial base near Sutton. From his small vineyard, at 760 metres above sea level, Brian handcrafts the attractive, savoury, and complex Maipenrai Pinot Noir.  It’s a little more taut and grippy than most Australian pinot and improves for a couple of days after opening, a good sign of ageing potential, in my experience. In 2006 he made just two barrels. The mature Amungula Creek wine includes purchased as well as estate-grown fruit and offers terrific value at $10–$12 a bottle. See www.maipenrai.com.au

Brown Magpie Geelong Pinot Noir 2005 $22
This comparative newcomer, located near the Princes Highway a little to the southwest of Geelong, was established by Shane and Loretta Breheny in 1998. It’s a significant achievement to hit this quality, especially at such a modest (for pinot noir) price, in less than a decade. And it’s a bonus for drinkers that we can still buy the wine four years after vintage. It flicks most of the right pinot switches for fragrance, range of pinot varietal characters, structure and drinkability. I’d love to see this against Curly Flat’s Williams Crossing from Macedon, my top-rated budget pinot to date. See www. www.brownmagpiewines.com

Joseph Perrier Cuvée Royale NV Brut Champagne  $45.90–$50
Joseph Perrier is a consistent performer at the lower end of the market for real Champagne. Its flavour strongly reflects the company’s holdings of pinot meunier near its press house in the village of Cumieres, on the Marne River to the west of Epernay. It shows meunier’s brioche-like aroma and flavour and round soft texture. It’s an old favourite and seems to have maintained its style and quality over the thirty-three years that I’ve been familiar with it. To my taste it beats the pants off other fighting-price Champagnes like Mumm and Piper-Heidsieck. It’s imported by Woolworths and sold through its Dan Murphy chain.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009