Australia’s Best Skin Contact Whites

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  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best Skin Contact Whites

    What does a ‘skin-contact white wine’ mean in Australia in 2025? It’s certainly a much tougher question to answer now than it was when we first took a Deep Dive into the topic back in 2019. Following in the wake of a handful of trailblazing definers of the genre, a much more diverse array of winemakers – at all points on the spectrum from ‘natural’ to ‘conventional’ – are now macerating some or all of their white grapes on skins during fermentation. The resulting wines are as diverse as their makers: some so deeply coloured they could be mistaken for light reds, and others so light-on they could slip into the white by the glass section of your local bistro’s list. With such a huge palette of colour and flavour for makers to play with, we thought it was time to revisit the subject and do another Deep Dive.

  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best Mataro / Mourvèdre / Monastrell

    Whether you call it by its Australian, French, or Spanish name, this grape variety makes intensely flavoured wines that are sometimes challenging – but always intriguing. Mataro is often relegated to the role of a bit-player as the ‘M’ in Australia’s favourite red blend, GSM, and has a long history of discreetly working its magic in the background of some of Australia’s most popular fortified wines. But in Australia’s warming climate, and with a new generation of viticulturists and winemakers ready to tackle this variety’s sometimes-difficult traits in order to make wines of unique complexity and character, mataro is finally stepping out of the shadows. With so much potential to be found in Australia’s mataro-based wines, we thought it was time to go on a Deep Dive into the heart of this mysterious variety.

  • Wines Of Now

    Hunter Valley’s Best Aged Semillon

    Hunter Valley semillon is one of Australia’s great vinous treasures – but it needs time in bottle to truly reveal its brilliance. Traditionally styled Hunter Valley semillons are bright, fresh, and relatively simple wines on release, but after a few years in bottle they start to develop layers of complexity and intrigue, building rich notes of honey, toast, lanolin, and nuts. The best news is that you don’t need either a personal cellar or a large fortune to drink properly aged Hunter Valley semillon – many producers hold back portions of their stock to sell as a ‘museum release’ when the wines reach maturity, and these wines generally remain reasonably priced. With so much value ready to be found in this misunderstood region’s unique aged semillons, we thought a Deep Dive was called for.

  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best Merlot

    Merlot’s reputation in Australia is mixed, to say the least. On the one hand, the variety is the source of one of the world’s most highly regarded (and therefore most expensive) wines, Petrus. On the other, the shelves of Australia’s chain bottle shops groan under the weight of cheap and cheerful bulk-produced merlots, self-professed wine aficionados love to hate it, and the infamous line about “not drinking any f**king merlot” from the 2004 film Sideways still hovers over any discussion about it. Now that Australian winegrowers can plant a diverse range of genetic material for their merlot, and as a new generation of winemakers discovers the virtues of the variety, merlot now has its chance to shine – which means a Deep Dive into the subject is in order.

  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best Albariño

    Australian wines made from the Iberian grape variety albariño were the cause of a worldwide wine scandal in 2009 when our ‘albariño’ vines were discovered to be an impostor variety. That fiasco may have set back Australia’s albariño industry by about a decade – but with the identity crisis behind it, and a host of new bottlings set to land on the market there’s never been a better time to take stock of Australian albariño, which is why we felt a Deep Dive was in order.

  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best GSM Blends

    While grenache, shiraz and mourvèdre have long been blending partners in France’s Southern Rhône region, ‘GSM’ blends as we know them are a quintessentially Australian invention. A success story of the late 80s and early 90s, Australia’s GSM blends came about via necessity – but spoke to a wine market looking for new-world takes on old-world traditions. As a new generation of winemakers rediscovers and reinterprets the Australian tradition of blended red wines, the well-known GSM blend is starting to demand reconsideration – which is why we felt a Deep Dive into the subject was in order.

  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best Mencía

    The Iberian red wine variety mencía is a recent arrival to Australia, first landing in our vineyards just over a decade ago. But in that short amount of time it has made quite a name for itself as a leading candidate for ‘next big thing in alternative varieties’ status. With a host of new release mencías poised to land on the market, we thought a Deep Dive was called for. We gathered every Australian mencía we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most.

  • Wines Of Now

    Australia’s Best Savagnin

    Savagnin is an underdog of a variety: perennially mistaken for sauvignon blanc by consumers, accidentally brought to Australia by the CSIRO who had ordered another variety from their Spanish supplier, and genetically intertwined with the deeply unfashionable gewürztraminer. Fortunately, Australians love barracking for an underdog – and savagnin is an underdog worth betting on. With its mistaken-identity era now firmly behind it, and with a small but dedicated collective of winemakers crafting exciting wines from it using a number of interesting techniques, it’s savagnin’s time to shine. As Australian savagnin finally comes of age, we thought it was time to take a Deep Dive into the subject.

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Australia’s Best Savagnin

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