A warm dry 2017 growing season produced comparatively strong, full-flavoured shiraz in the Hunter Valley, albeit within the area’s medium-bodied mould. Our panel of four tasted Andrew Thomas’s vintage offerings and found considerable style variation – from taut and savoury to soft and opulent. We tasted the wines masked and in random order.  We knew … Continue reading Wine review – Andrew Thomas Wines, 2017 shiraz →

If Australia owns any one wine grape variety, it’s shiraz. We grow around 40,000 hectares of it. Our shiraz vineyards cluster either side of the 4,000 kilometres from east to west coast, through 16 degrees of latitude (from south-eastern Queensland (27 degrees) to southern Tasmania (43 degrees) and from near sea level to 700 or … Continue reading Savouring magnificence – three beautiful Aussie shirazes: John Duval, Tyrrell’s, Clonakilla →

WHITES Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling 2018 $40 Maturation:Three months, stainless steel. Pale, green-tinted straw colour; pure, citrus-like riesling aroma, precisely mirrored on an intense, powerful but very finely-textured palate, backed by assertive acid. An invigorating drink now in its fruity youth, Bin 51 also has potential to gain rich secondary flavours and texture with … Continue reading Wine review – the Penfolds collection 2018 →

The tasting notes in this post represent a wide range of wine styles from regions sprinkled along the Great Dividing Range in southern New South Wales: Tumbarumba, Orange, Gundagai, Hilltops and the Canberra District. I wrote the notes for Jugiong Wine Cellar website. The cellar (located at Jugiong, between Yass and Gundagai) lies at the centre … Continue reading Wine reviews – the high country of southern New South Wales →

Clonakilla Canberra District Syrah 2016 $120 Clonakilla Syrah comes from T&L block, the warmest site on the Kirk family’s Murrumbateman vineyard. From its earliest vintages the block, planted in 1999, ripened early than its neighbours and produced a distinctive, comparatively robust shiraz, albeit within the medium-bodied Canberra District spectrum. On first opening the 2016 showed … Continue reading Wine review – Clonakilla wines for release 1 May 2018 →

Tasting Wynns Cabernet – vintages 1954 to 2017 A sixty-vintage tasting of Wynns Coonawarra Estate cabernet sauvignon on 12 and 13 July 2017 proved the amazing beauty and keeping power of this great Aussie red. Not that this was any news to the tasters. Many of us gathered at Wynns had participated in a similar tasting in … Continue reading Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet – 60 vintages tasted →

Canberra’s one and only blue-chip wine, Clonakilla Shiraz–Viognier, has a rival. And it’s from the same winery. This is its story. In 2010, Canberra’s Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier joined the blue chips of Australian wine – alongside Penfolds Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace. Clonakilla’s ranking in the “Exceptional” category of Langton’s Classification of Australian Wine … Continue reading Birth of a Canberra bluechip – Clonakilla Syrah →

Of the many beautiful Canberra shirazes produced in 2015, nothing equalled Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier. But the coming release of Clonakilla Syrah 2015 on 27 April, throws down a mighty challenge to the district’s world-renowned benchmark. Tim Kirk, son of Clonakilla founder John Kirk, made the first Syrah in 2006 as an alternative style to the … Continue reading Clonakilla Syrah 2015 – a beautiful Canberra shiraz →

Collector Shoreline Rosé 2016 Hall, Canberra District, NSW $24 Alex McKay makes his savoury, dry rosé from sangiovese grapes grown in the comparatively warm Hall sub-region. Even rosé sceptics like yours truly find much to like in this one. The pale pink, slightly bronze-edged colour suggests more than just fruit, though it has that in … Continue reading Wine review – Collector, Long Rail Gully, Clonakilla, Freeman →