Home > Wines We Love > 2024 Whispers of Chaos Sangiovese Cabernet Sauvignon

From the Barossa’s newly crowned Best New Act at the 2026 Young Gun of Wine Awards: a sangiovese-cabernet blend that trades the region’s traditional power for restraint, detail and quiet arresting charm.

Producer
Whispers of Chaos
Region

Barossa Valley
RRP

$35
Vintage

2024
Variety/Varieties

Cabernet sauvignon Sangiovese
Alc./Vol.

13.5%

Juicy cherry up front, both sweet and tart, with a core of blackcurrant and a touch of spice – think nutmeg and warm baking spice. The tannins are fine but have real grip, with a lively, blood orange tang.

Marcus Torzi just won Best New Act at the 2026 Young Gun of Wine Awards, and the 2024 Whispers of Chaos Sangiovese Cabernet Sauvignon shows exactly why. It’s one of the most quietly arresting wines to come out of the Barossa Valley in recent memory – a claim made more remarkable by the fact that Torzi was still completing his viticulture and oenology degree when he made it.

The Barossa is a region at a crossroads. Its reputation was forged on dense, concentrated shiraz and grenache – wines built for power, prestige and the cellar – but the world has moved toward freshness, lightness and accessibility, and a warming climate is making the old model harder to sustain besides. The makers who’ll lead the region forward are the ones with an instinct for restraint and a nose for what’s actually delicious, and Torzi is exactly that kind of maker. His label pairs sangiovese and cabernet sauvignon from Moppa Hill – a distinctly Italian idiom, leaning on Tuscany’s own long-proven blend – and matures it primarily in Italian stoneware, with a portion in seasoned oak for roundness and integration. It’s unfined, unfiltered and unforced: a calibrated lightness of touch that producers twice his age are still reaching for, and it’s announced Whispers of Chaos as one of the most exciting new wine projects in the country.

Tasting note

Cherry-edged, with a nice balance of sweet and sour versions of fleshy cherry in the nose. Cabernet comes through as a core of cassis underneath and a faint green edge of blackberry leaf and bay leaf. Lovely spice here – nutmeg and kola nut, and a blood orange tang too. Fine tannins that have surprising persistence and grip, sherbet-like acidity that gently fans across the palate, with a tiny touch of pickled watermelon rind on the finish.

When to drink

Pour for your hipster mates who still think ‘Barossa’ only means big and brawny – preferably at a barbecue, bonus points if there’s a spicy Italian sausage or two smoking away nearby. Or don’t wait for an occasion at all: enjoy it whenever you damn well please, because every night is pizza night, and this bright blend is the perfect cue. Attack it with the same abandon you’re about to bring to that capricciosa.

Themes of this wine

Barossa Valley

The Barossa Valley is Australia’s most famous red wine region, built on old vines, a warm continental climate and a long tradition of powerful, full-bodied shiraz. Some of the country’s oldest producing vineyards, planted well over a century ago, still bear fruit here, giving the region a depth of vinous history few places in the world can match.

New-wave Barossa

Alongside its old guard, the Barossa has in recent years become home to a growing cohort of producers rethinking what the region’s wines can be — favouring earlier picking, whole-bunch ferments, neutral oak and single-vineyard sites over ripeness and power. The movement doesn’t reject the Barossa’s history so much as widen it, proving the region can produce wines of real freshness and finesse alongside its more traditional style.

Sangiovese

Sangiovese is Italy’s most important grape, by both volume and reputation, and it has travelled the world, establishing serious outposts across the New World. In Australia, sangiovese didn’t really start making inroads until the late 1980s, but with improved genetic material, it is now making quite an impression. The key flavour component mentioned when people talk about sangiovese is cherry, generally red, but sometimes black, with that primary profile generally accented with savoury notes of dried berries, hardy herbs, dried earth, leather and cedary notes.

Cabernet sauvignon

Cabernet sauvignon is the world’s most planted grape variety and is grown all over the wine world, with it even persisting in some of the cooler margins of viticultural zones. When things get properly cold, cabernet has little chance of ripening, but many warm regions have long histories with the grape, even if some purists argue that it loses varietal definition if it gets too ripe. Bordeaux in France’s south-west is the spiritual home of cabernet sauvignon, where it is almost always blended with one or more of its Bordelaise compatriots: cabernet franc, merlot, petit verdot and malbec, and where it forms part of some of the world’s most expensive and sought-after wines. Cabernet has been in Australia about as long as any variety, coming across in the Busby Collection of the 1830s. It has since found its most successful homes in Coonawarra, Margaret River and the Yarra Valley, but the oldest plantings are to be found in the warmer zones of the Barossa and Clare Valleys. It can surprisingly produce wines of distinction even in some of the coldest regions, such as Tasmania and Macedon – though a beneficial site is essential for success.

Oval-shaped fermenters

Amphorae are some of the most ancient winemaking vessels, and the modern practice of using ovoid fermenters is a very similar idea, with the shape encouraging ferment vectors to swirl and tumble. While amphorae are typically made from clay, eggs come in a range of materials, from concrete to ceramic to steel.

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Winemaker profile

Marcus Torzi

Marcus Torzi was 21 years old and still completing his Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology at the University of Adelaide when he launched Whispers of Chaos – already making two of the most quietly arresting wines to come out of the Barossa Valley in recent memory. The label debuted in August 2025 from the family farm at Mt McKenzie with two wines: a roussanne, riesling and semillon white blend, and a sangiovese and cabernet sauvignon red. Both are unfined, unfiltered and made with Italian stoneware as the primary maturation vessel. Both have a delicacy and lift that feel like a deliberate, considered answer to the questions the Barossa is currently asking itself. In a region wrestling with its own identity, Torzi’s project is less a debut label than a signpost.

Awards

20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards Winners

Twenty years of championing young Australian winemakers. Six trophies. One unforgettable night. Meet the makers who took home the silverware at the 2026 Young Gun of Wine Awards.

Region Guide

Barossa

The Barossa, encompassing the Barossa and Eden Valleys, is the cradle of South Australian winemaking, being home to some of Australian wine’s most venerable names and the home to some of the world’s oldest productive grape vines. First surveyed in the 1830s, the Barossa’s fertile land presented a tantalising prospect for Silesian Lutheran immigrants escaping religious persecution, who quickly identified its suitability for viticulture. That Germanic influence remains to this day, both in place names and the feel of some of the historic buildings, from Lutheran churches and chapels to stone farm buildings and wineries. With around 500 growers and 90 cellar doors, the Barossa is a wine visitor’s paradise, and when you throw in the longstanding traditions of farming and fine produce, it is also a food lover’s mecca. While the Barossa and Eden Valleys are both distinct regions with individual characteristics, they are also inseparable in many ways, sharing some similarities and correlations, and with key wine producers often spilling into both. So, while the regional differences are essential to note, it is helpful to consider them together, especially when visiting.

Home > Wines We Love > 2024 Good Intentions ‘Magnolia’

In the hands of winemaker Andrew Burchell, the highly aromatic gewürztraminer has been tamed through a thrilling and deeply hued skin contact white. Tangy fruit and spice meet a complex profile of nuts, caramel and savoury notes.

Producer
Good Intentions
Region

Wrattonbully
RRP

$35
Vintage

2024
Variety/Varieties

Gewürztraminer
Alc./Vol.

13.7%

Amber-copper coloured, with hypnotic aromas of tangy fruit, exotic spices and Turkish delight. It tastes of orange marmalade, with some walnuts and a little bitterness like orange peel, and a dry, tea-like finish that lingers.

Andrew Burchell has made at Good Intentions Wine Co. Burchell has built a reputation as one of the Limestone Coast’s most exciting emerging producers, farming the vines himself and working with a minimal, old-world hand. This gewürztraminer is a genuine reinterpretation of the variety: tamed, textured and thrillingly deepened by skin contact.

Gewürztraminer is one of the most instantly recognisable grapes in the wine world, and one of the most divisive. Its name gives it away – “gewürz” means spice in German – and in the glass it delivers exactly that: a heady rush of lychee, rose petal, Turkish delight and warm spice, usually paired with a plush, oily texture and a low-acid, off-dry sweetness that’s made it a love-it-or-leave-it proposition for decades. Done conventionally, it can tip into blowsy, perfumed excess. Done with restraint, it’s one of the most hedonistic aromatic whites you can pour.

Skin contact winemaking – leaving white grape skins in contact with the juice during fermentation, the way red wine is made – has quietly reshaped Australian white wine over the past decade and a half. What started as a fringe, natural-wine curiosity has become one of the most interesting technical conversations in the country, as winemakers use skin contact to bring texture, grip and savoury complexity to grapes that might otherwise lean simple or one-dimensional. Tannin, colour and a certain wild, unpolished energy are the trade-off for the bright, clean fruit of conventional whites — and for the right grape, in the right hands, it’s a trade worth making.

Few grapes reward that trade like gewürztraminer. Skin contact takes all that natural perfume and sweetness and gives it a spine — fine, tea-like tannins reining in the aromatics, oxidative “rancio” characters adding a savoury, almost sherry-like edge, and the sweetness recast as texture rather than sugar.

Tasting note

Deep amber-copper in the glass, glowing like evening light through a stained-glass window. The nose is a Turkish sweet shop in full swing – rosewater, jasmine and Turkish delight tangle with cut mango, orange blossom and a whisper of clove. Cognac-like warmth and dried apricot add an old-world, almost Madeira-edged complexity, while the palate turns savoury with orange bitters, bergamot tea and pomegranate. Fine, black-tea tannins give it grip and length, finishing long, spiced and utterly moreish.

When to drink it

If you were at a wine bar, you’d be ordering this faster than you can say ‘charcuterie,’ and enjoy it alongside the croquettes and all sorts of toasted snacks. Or maybe it’s BYO to your favourite yum cha, where you slurp it alongside servings of dumplings and that smoked duck bao bun you’ve just eyed on the menu. Or maybe it’s at the beach: seagulls overhead and sand between your toes while you reach for the esky to sneak another dose of this liquid bliss. You’re feeling charitable so there might even be some left when your mates get back from their kiosk-run with the Chiko Roll you were promised. Jeez, how good’s summer?

Themes of this wine

Skin contact

The skins hold the colouring matter and lots of tannin. Leave them in contact with the juice/wine and you’ll extract those elements. Most conventional white wine sees no skin contact, rosé a little bit to get a blush, and red wine plenty to get the colour and structure. Skin-contact whites… well, they have some skin contact. Yep. More colour, more tannin and a different flavour profile.

Gewürztraminer

Gewürztraminer is a pungently aromatic grape, scented with lychees, rose petals and musky bath salts. It’s a variety that has long been thought of as ‘nanna’ wine, perfumed and often sweet, but the best expressions from Alsace are some of the world’s greatest wines, and cutting-edge makers in this country are fine-tuning it into exciting new expressions, both solo and as a part of blends.

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Deep Dive

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.

Wine 101

Gewürztraminer

Gewürztraminer is a pungently aromatic grape, scented with lychees, rose petals and musky bath salts. It’s a variety that has long been thought of as ‘nanna’ wine, perfumed and often sweet, but the best expressions from Alsace are some of the world’s greatest wines, and cutting-edge makers in this country are fine-tuning it into exciting new expressions, both solo and as a part of blends.

Home > Wines We Love > 2025 Yelland & Papps ‘Stone Well’ Syrah

From one of the poster children of new-wave Barossa, forget everything you thought you knew about shiraz from this region. This is a mind-bending, paradigm-shifting expression of the variety — incredibly svelte, and utterly its own thing.

Producer
Yelland & Papps
Region

Barossa Valley
RRP

$54
Vintage

2025
Variety/Varieties

Shiraz (Syrah)
Alc./Vol.

13.3%

Black cherry, ripe plum and blackberry, with a cooling herbal edge and a savoury dash of white pepper and tobacco running underneath. The tannins are fine and so silky. The wine feels refreshing on the palate, but delivered with substance to the fruit. From the warm climes of Barossa, this is something that will please cool climate wine lovers.

Yelland & Papps has become one of the defining names of new-wave Barossa, the loose movement of producers reworking a region long associated with big, ripe, oak-driven shiraz into something fresher, lighter-framed and more site-specific. This single-vineyard release comes from grower Pete Sonntag’s block in Stone Well, planted in 2000 on heavy loam over red clay scattered with quartz — a small, half-hectare parcel.

The fruit is entirely hand-picked and fermented with a healthy portion of whole clusters, then left on skins for a patient thirteen days before ageing for ten months in seasoned French oak — oak chosen deliberately for its neutrality, so it frames the wine rather than flavours it. The result leans into restraint over power: gentle handling throughout, aimed at letting the Stone Well site speak clearly rather than layering the wine with winemaking artifice. Production is tiny, at just 540 cases.

Tasting note

Inky, earthy aromas sit beneath black cherry, perfectly ripe black plum and blackberry leaf, with a savoury edge of white pepper and tobacco leaf running through the middle. The gentle handling in the winery is obvious from the first sip — tannin is coating and fine, giving real lift and mouthfeel alongside blackcurrant, raspberry and plum on the palate, all grounded by a earthy, mineral thread. It’s a wine that trades power for precision, svelte and composed where so much Barossa shiraz reaches for size. You’ll be forgiven for forgetting this wine is from the Barossa at all.

When to drink

This wine offers good cause to slowly contemplate over the course of an afternoon, as it challenges your prejudices about the Barossa. Or maybe you’ve spent the whole bloody weekend making that short rib ragu, and your folks are on their way. Relax. Open this wine. The gnocchi’s done, the house is passably clean, and they’re going to love every mouthful — and you too, for spoiling them.

Themes of this wine

Syrah, or shiraz

Same grape, two names — syrah in its French homeland and much of the world, shiraz in Australia and South Africa, where it built its reputation on power, ripeness and generous oak. Increasingly, Australian producers making leaner, fresher, more site-driven versions of the variety are choosing to label it syrah instead, a small but deliberate signal that the wine inside is reaching for something different to the Barossa blockbuster stereotype.

Barossa Valley

The Barossa Valley is Australia’s most famous red wine region, built on old vines, a warm continental climate and a long tradition of powerful, full-bodied shiraz. Some of the country’s oldest producing vineyards, planted well over a century ago, still bear fruit here, giving the region a depth of vinous history few places in the world can match.

New-wave Barossa

Alongside its old guard, the Barossa has in recent years become home to a growing cohort of producers rethinking what the region’s wines can be — favouring earlier picking, whole-bunch ferments, neutral oak and single-vineyard sites over ripeness and power. The movement doesn’t reject the Barossa’s history so much as widen it, proving the region can produce wines of real freshness and finesse alongside its more traditional style.

Whole-bunch fermentation

Rather than removing every grape from its stem before fermentation, some winemakers choose to ferment a portion of the fruit as whole clusters, stems included. Handled well, this technique lifts savoury, peppery and herbal characters and lends a fine, textural grip to the tannins, adding a layer of complexity beyond straightforward fruit. Here, a healthy portion of whole clusters plays directly into the wine’s white pepper and tobacco leaf character, and its notably fine, coating tannin.

Explore Further

Deep Dive

Australia’s Best Whole-Bunch/Cab-Mac Reds

The most exciting thing happening in Australian red wine right now is also the oldest trick in the fermentation book. Whole-bunch fermentation and carbonic maceration – techniques that predate every piece of modern winery equipment – are producing a new generation of reds that are crunchy, perfumed, energetic and impossible to put down. It’s been a long time coming. The seeds were sown in the reaction against the Parker era’s obsession with power and oak, and in the slow rehabilitation of techniques that Beaujolais Nouveau had turned into a global punchline. A generation on, what began as quiet experimentation in wineries around Australia has found its moment – riding a wave of consumers actively seeking lighter, fresher and more fruit-forward styles of red wine. But how do these techniques actually show up in the finished wine? And are they the destination, or merely part of the journey? We took a Deep Dive to find out …

Deep Dive

The Best ‘New Wave’ Barossa Shiraz

The Barossa has long been the source of Australia’s most revered red wines, drawing on a proud viticultural and winemaking history to present the wider world with a well-defined regional style of shiraz. But every region has its rule-breakers and iconoclasts – and the Barossa is no exception, with a cohort of young and emerging winemakers seeking to craft wines that are lighter, fresher, and lower in alcohol than the regional norm. With so many producers looking to expand the range of possibilities for the Barossa’s signature variety, we thought a Deep Dive was in order to get to the bottom of what ‘new wave’ Barossa shiraz might mean.

Region Guide

Barossa

The Barossa, encompassing the Barossa and Eden Valleys, is the cradle of South Australian winemaking, being home to some of Australian wine’s most venerable names and the home to some of the world’s oldest productive grape vines. First surveyed in the 1830s, the Barossa’s fertile land presented a tantalising prospect for Silesian Lutheran immigrants escaping religious persecution, who quickly identified its suitability for viticulture. That Germanic influence remains to this day, both in place names and the feel of some of the historic buildings, from Lutheran churches and chapels to stone farm buildings and wineries. With around 500 growers and 90 cellar doors, the Barossa is a wine visitor’s paradise, and when you throw in the longstanding traditions of farming and fine produce, it is also a food lover’s mecca. While the Barossa and Eden Valleys are both distinct regions with individual characteristics, they are also inseparable in many ways, sharing some similarities and correlations, and with key wine producers often spilling into both. So, while the regional differences are essential to note, it is helpful to consider them together, especially when visiting.

Home > Wines We Love > 2024 L’Anima ‘Sobremesa’ Passvm Muscat Blanc

Winner of the Danger Zone trophy at the 20th Annual YGOW Awards, this could be filed under “dessert wine” — but we’d rather pour it as an aperitif, the thing that kicks an evening off. Built from three separate picks of fruit and layered vinification, it carries serious complexity in the glass.

Producer
L’Anima
Region

McLaren Vale
RRP

$40
Vintage

2024
Variety/Varieties

Muscat blanc à petits grains
Alc./Vol.

13.5%

Imagine apricot jam on hot toast, a splash of orange marmalade and a ginger snap crumbled in — sweet, sure, but with a savoury, salty edge that keeps it from ever feeling heavy. Delicious cold from the fridge with a wedge of cheese, any time of day you fancy.

Michael Williams launched L’Anima from the 2024 vintage, distilling a winemaking education built across Ngeringa, several years in Tuscany, SC Pannell, Moorilla and time as winemaker under Andre Bondar into a small, considered range from McLaren Vale. The label is built entirely around climate-appropriate Mediterranean varieties — fiano, vermentino, sangiovese, grenache, nero d’avola and muscat blanc — chosen because they demand less water in the vineyard and fewer inputs in the winery, with a genuine focus on reducing the label’s carbon footprint through packaging as well. Wines are fermented and matured in clay and sandstone amphora and large-format Slavonian oak, built around the idea of wine as something made for the table.

The ‘Sobremesa’ Passvm is Williams’s nod to the sweet muscats of southeastern Sicily, made using the passito method: hand-picked Muscat Blanc à Petit Grains, brought in across three separate picks — one for drying, one at normal ripeness, one left extra time on the vine — then hand-sorted onto racks and dried in the sun for six weeks before four weeks of skin maceration and maturation in old French oak. The wine took out the Danger Zone trophy at the 20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards, recognising exactly this kind of risk-taking, original winemaking.

Tasting note

There’s a Medusa-like pull to the perfume on this one — dense, alluring, almost impossible to look away from. Homemade apricot jam and almond kernels spread on warm toast lead the charge, layered with orange marmalade and blossom, fresh straw and baking gingersnaps, with dried raisin and ripe peach humming away underneath. It smells rich and luscious, but a real freshness cuts through as soon as it hits the palate — apricot compote sharpened with a splash of lemon juice, candied ginger, orange peel garnished with thyme, and a savoury, grilled-nut rancio note that keeps things honest. There’s a little textural grip too, a whisper of tannin from the skin contact, framing the sweetness rather than letting it run away. Sweet, yes, but never remotely cloying — Williams has built real tension into this wine, helped along by the portion of muscat picked at regular ripeness rather than dried.

When to drink it

Forget relegating this wine to dessert — we love it as an aperitif. Open it to start the evening, or to start any occasion. It’s so complex and beautifully balanced that it deserves some attention, and it’s dangerously delicious to boot. Open it to persuade a stubborn wine-snob acquaintance of the merits of sweet wine. Or not — this wine doesn’t need an occasion or an excuse. It’s just gosh-darn delicious, whenever you feel like drinking it.

Think dusky nights on the back deck, the hum of crickets, and all of the fried, crunchy things. You’re fond of the classics, so prawn toasts and lemon chicken it is, while you raise a glass to that lovely old-school Chinese place down the road.

Themes of this wine

Muscat Blanc

Muscat Blanc à Petit Grains is considered the oldest and finest of the muscat family, prized for its intensely perfumed, grapey aromatics and long history stretching from ancient Greece through southern Europe. It shows up in styles ranging from light, spritzy and off-dry to deeply sweet fortified and dried-grape wines, with Italy’s Moscato d’Asti and the sweet muscats of Sicily’s southeastern tip among its most famous expressions. In Australia it has traditionally played a supporting role in fortified wine, but producers working with alternative techniques are increasingly finding new ways to let its natural perfume shine.

McLaren Vale

Just south of Adelaide and hugging the coastline of Gulf St Vincent, McLaren Vale is best known for full-bodied shiraz and grenache, built on a warm Mediterranean climate tempered by sea breezes off the gulf. That same maritime influence and diversity of soils — from sandy loams to ancient ironstone — is increasingly drawing producers toward Mediterranean varieties beyond the region’s traditional strengths, chasing wines that need less water and suit the climate as it stands today, not as it once was.

Passito

Passito, or appassimento, is one of winemaking’s oldest tricks: grapes are picked and then dried, whether on straw mats, hanging racks or in the sun, before fermentation. As the grapes dry, water evaporates and sugars, acids and flavour compounds concentrate, producing wines of far greater intensity than the same fruit would give if pressed fresh. The technique underpins some of Italy’s most famous wines, from Amarone to Vin Santo, and rewards producers willing to accept the labour, time and risk of drying fruit by hand rather than simply picking and pressing.

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Winemaker profile

Michael Williams

Michael Williams is a McLaren Vale winemaker whose L’Anima label – launched from the 2024 vintage – makes a small, considered range of wines exclusively from climate-appropriate alternative Mediterranean varieties: fiano, vermentino, sangiovese, grenache, nero d’avola, aglianico and muscat blanc. Built on a winemaking education assembled across Ngeringa, Tuscany, SC Pannell, Moorilla and several years as winemaker at Bondar Wines, L’Anima is where all of that finally converged into something personal. The wines are made with clay and sandstone amphora and large-format Slavonian oak, rooted in a philosophy that positions wine as something primarily consumed at the table – science in service to art, and Mediterranean variety as the argument for McLaren Vale’s future.

Awards

20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards Winners

Twenty years of championing young Australian winemakers. Six trophies. One unforgettable night. Meet the makers who took home the silverware at the 2026 Young Gun of Wine Awards.

Region Guide

McLaren Vale

While it couldn’t feel any more removed from city life, the McLaren Vale wine region is actually inside Adelaide’s metropolitan area. And although the township itself is only 40 minutes by car from central Adelaide and vineyards brush up against ever-encroaching housing, McLaren Vale remains unaffected by the urban sprawl. With deeply etched history, the Vale has a slow-paced sense of calm and an extraordinary wealth of untrammelled beauty. It is home to some of this country’s most beautifully pristine beaches, as well as some of the world’s most forward-thinking grape-growers and winemakers. With many cellar doors, it is an essential destination for wine lovers – and anyone else, for that matter.

Home > Wines We Love > 2025 Grosset ‘Springvale’ Riesling

Grown biodynamically above a seam of blue slate no one knew was there until the vines went in, Springvale is the site that was recently named Australia’s Vineyard of the Year — and Jeffrey Grosset turns it into one of the country’s most quietly electric Rieslings.

Producer
Grosset
Region

Clare Valley
RRP

$58
Vintage

2025
Variety/Varieties

Riesling
Alc./Vol.

12.3%

Think beeswax with lime zest, green apple and a squeeze of tonic water, with a silky, mouth-watering finish that has you reaching for the next sip before you’ve swallowed the last. Dry, fresh, and dangerously drinkable.

Springvale sits within Grosset’s larger Watervale vineyard in the Clare Valley, a 5.3-hectare pocket planted in 2001 at 450–470 metres — among the highest sites in the district. What makes it extraordinary wasn’t visible on any map when the vines went in: red-brown clay over limestone, and three metres down, an unexpected seam of blue slate. Viticulturist Matthew O’Rourke, who has worked the site since 2011, explains that the slate acts as a natural barrier, limiting root penetration and concentrating what the vines can draw up — while the limestone beneath buffers pH and lends the wine its mineral spine.

The vineyard has been certified organic since 2014 and biodynamic since 2019, farmed as a living ecosystem rather than a production line. Densely planted and deliberately low-yielding, it produces small volumes of intensely concentrated fruit. Grosset and O’Rourke both point to something they’ve only recently begun to see: a silky phenolic texture in the wine that wasn’t there twenty years ago, one they attribute to the vineyard’s deepening biodynamic rhythm. The result sells out every year it’s released — and in 2026, Springvale was named Young Gun of Wine’s Vineyard of the Year.

Tasting note

There’s a whiff of struck match on first pour, the kind of reductive spark that tells you something serious is going on underneath — before it gives way to gardenias, lime zest, fuzzy white peach and beeswax. Gala apple, lightly dusted with cinnamon, hovers in the background. On the palate it’s citrus through and through: lime pith and lemon balm sliding into yellow apple and pear, all wrapped in a chalky, silky texture that frames rather than fights the fruit. It’s dry, it’s precise, and it carries real concentration — a product of the warm, early season pushing ripeness while the site’s natural tension keeps everything honest.

Riesling’s calling card is acidity, and Springvale has it in spades — but resist the urge to drink this too cold, too fast. Let it sit and warm a little in the glass; the acid softens, the texture opens up, and the wine reveals more of itself with every ten minutes. However you approach it, it’s a mouth-watering, faintly hypnotic drink that rewards a bit of patience.

When to drink

This is the sort of wine you can bust out as an aperitif with salty snacks at a dinner party where you’re trying to impress. Or take it along to a sprawling spring lunch with mates over picnic blankets and shared plates — those prawn-stuffed rice paper rolls you brought will vanish within minutes of opening this. But it doesn’t need any of that to justify itself either. Pour it on a hot afternoon when you’ve got nowhere to be, or crack it open solo after a long day, chilled right down and sipped slowly while it warms in the glass and shows you something new each time. Think of it less as a pairing exercise and more as a mood: bright, cleansing, a little bit contemplative.

Themes of this wine

Riesling

Riesling is one of the world’s most versatile grapes, capable of making styles from aridly dry to lusciously sweet, plus everything in between, and with a transparency that reflects where it was grown like few – if any – other grapes. Hailing from Germany, it’s equally embedded in France and Austria, while the style made famous in the Clare Valley that once defined Australian versions has now been joined by a multitude of expressions, and from right across the country.

Clare Valley

A couple of hours north of Adelaide, the Clare Valley is home to some of Australia’s most famous riesling vineyards, with the grape accounting for almost 40 per cent of the plantings, with shiraz a close second, though cabernet sauvignon is also made to good acclaim. The soils vary across the five subregions, from terra rossa over limestone, to grey loams over slate, to fertile alluvial soils in the north. With a continental climate, the warm conditions benefit from the cool nights, retaining acidity in the grapes while the ample sunlight pushes the fruit to ripeness during the day.

Biodynamic farming

Biodynamics takes organic viticulture a step further, treating the vineyard as a single, self-sustaining organism rather than a collection of separate inputs to manage. Developed from the early twentieth-century teachings of Rudolf Steiner, it works with composts, herbal preparations and the lunar and cosmic calendar in place of synthetic sprays and fertilisers. In Australia it remains a minority pursuit, practised by only a small handful of producers, but a growing one – embraced by growers chasing greater

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Vineyard Arofile

Grosset – Springvale Vineyard, Clare Valley

The Grosset Springvale Vineyard is a 6.12-hectare riesling site within the larger 17-hectare Watervale vineyard in the Clare Valley’s Watervale subregion – chosen purely on the basis of geology, altitude, elevation and aspect, and dedicated entirely to riesling across three clones and five blocks. What makes Springvale distinct, even within the Watervale subregion, is an unusual geological layering: red-brown clay over limestone over friable gradational clay loam, with blue slate lying approximately 3 metres below the surface – a formation unique to this site, and one that was not fully understood until after the vines were in the ground. Planted between 2000 and 2003 at 450 to 470 metres elevation – among the highest sites in Watervale – and certified organic (2014) and biodynamic (2019) by Australian Certified Organics, the vineyard is managed by Matthew O’Rourke, who has worked the site since 2011. The Grosset Springvale Riesling sells out annually and is among the most collected wines in Australia.

Vineyard Awards

Australian Wine the Real Winner at 6th Annual Vineyard of the Year Awards

Four trophies. Forty-five vineyards. One argument that Australian wine’s future is being built in the soil, not the winery. Meet the winners of the 6th annual Vineyard of the Year Awards – and the community of growers changing the way Australia grows, thinks about, and drinks wine.

Deep Dive

Clare Valley’s Best Riesling

Riesling may have originally come from Germany, but it has found its Australian home in the Clare Valley. The Clare Valley grows a larger share of Australia’s riesling than any other region by a long margin – it’s currently responsible for 35% of the country’s total annual harvest. And that fruit is nearly-always turned into an instantly recognisable style of wine – crisp, fresh, high in acidity, and bone-dry – that is beloved by wine drinkers across Australia and the world over. In fact, for many people the Clare Valley approach to riesling defines Australian riesling in general. But is there more to Clare riesling than its famous mineral tension and razor-sharp acidity? We took a Deep Dive into the subject to find out.

Wine 101

Riesling

Riesling is one of the world’s most versatile grapes, capable of making styles from aridly dry to lusciously sweet, plus everything in between, and with a transparency that reflects where it was grown like few – if any – other grapes. Hailing from Germany, it’s equally embedded in France and Austria, while the style made famous in the Clare Valley that once defined Australian versions has now been joined by a multitude of expressions, and from right across the country.

Home > Wines We Love > 2022 Sven Joschke ‘La Eleanor’ Sangiovese

Think Langhorne Creek is all about big juicy malbecs and mint chocolate–tinged cabernets? This supple, elegant sangiovese from Sven Joschke asks you to think again.

Producer
Sven Joschke
Region

Langhorne Creek
RRP

$30
Vintage

2022
Variety/Varieties

Sangiovese
Alc./Vol.

12.8%

Langhorne Creek is perhaps best known as the historical home of malbec in Australia, and it grows serious quantities of shiraz and cabernet sauvignon. But despite being lumped in with nearby McLaren Vale and the Barossa as a source for big, burly red wines, it’s actually far less warm than many imagine, thanks to the cooling influence of nearby Lake Alexandrina and the Southern Ocean. Given its moderate maritime climate and fertile alluvial soils, it makes an exciting testing ground for alternative grape varieties – including the Italian sangiovese, which winemaker Sven Joschke here turns into a delicious and elegant medium-bodied red.

Tasting Note

An appealingly dusty savouriness is the first impression on the nose – think bitter cocoa powder and the smell of a freshly unwrapped cigar. Underneath this you can find notes of sour morello cherries, red currants, and sweetly ripe baby Roma tomatoes. The palate is fresh and bright, the flavours driven down the tongue by a racy sweep of acidity that fans out towards the back. It’s medium-bodied, but delicately so, with an appealingly tart cast to its fruit profile and fine but firm tannins that provide a surprising amount of grip. A lovely touch of black tea leaf bitterness frames the lengthy finish. Pair this with bresaola, if you have a bottle from this vintage – or buy a case of the current release and lay some bottles down for drinking in a few years’ time.

Themes of this wine

Langhorne Creek

Langhorne Creek’s history is as long and storied as most other South Australian wine regions, with the first vines going into the ground in 1858 – but despite this, its reputation is often overshadowed by McLaren Vale and the Barossa. This is a land shaped by water – a floodplain nestled next to the eastern edge of the Adelaide Hills, formed between the Bremer and Angas rivers as they empty into the imposingly large freshwater estuary of Lake Alexandrina, and from there into the nearby Southern Ocean. Those rivers bring with them silty, highly fertile alluvial soils, as well as (in the case of the Bremer) providing plenty of water for flood irrigation of vineyards. While it’s often thought of as a warm region best suited to the production of bold, hefty reds, all of that water moderates the climate quite well. The recent ‘Project 5255’ initiative, which matches young winemakers with donated parcels of fruit from the region, is quietly changing Langhorne Creek’s narrative – stay tuned.

Sangiovese

Sangiovese is Italy’s most important grape, by both volume and reputation, and it has travelled the world, establishing serious outposts across the New World. In Australia, sangiovese didn’t really start making inroads until the late 1980s, but with improved genetic material, it is now making quite an impression. The key flavour component mentioned when people talk about sangiovese is cherry, generally red, but sometimes black, with that primary profile generally accented with savoury notes of dried berries, hardy herbs, dried earth, leather and cedary notes.

Home > Wines We Love > 2021 Greenhill Wines Pinot Meunier Blanc de Noir Brut

Sparkling wines made only from pinot meunier are a relative rarity here in Australia – but this elegant, detailed, and delicious wine makes a compelling argument that they should be more common. Roll over, pinot noir – and tell chardonnay the news.

Producer
Greenhill Wines
Region

Adelaide Hills
RRP

$44
Vintage

2021
Variety/Varieties

Pinot meunier
Alc./Vol.

12.8%

Pinot meunier – a fascinating variant of pinot noir – is a bit of an underdog variety. It’s actually the most widely-planted variety in Champagne, but what it has in hectares there it lacks in prestige, often being dismissed by the Champenois as a mere ‘filler’ blending variety for adding fruitiness and softness to the region’s wines. That perception is slowly changing in Champagne, thanks to the success of some high-profile 100% pinot meunier sparkling wines such as Jérôme Prévost’s ‘Les Beguines’. Of course, we Australians love an underdog – and if you need any proof that this variety can work its magic here in Australia, look no further than Greenhill Wines’ 2021 Blanc de Noir, which has spent twenty-one months on lees before disgorgement.

Tasting Note

A nose of crisp red apples, pithy apple skin, lemon curd, pastry crust, and bright fresh raspberry, backed by savoury and earthy tones of spent coffee grounds and bone broth. Beautifully fresh and detailed on the palate – driven by bright acidity, with a delicate mousse and lots of high-toned fruit flavour. A gentle nutty depth and intriguing hint of earthy bitterness from the lees ageing emerges on the finish, adding a complexity that makes the wine feel gastronomic. There’s a charming balance here between the fruity generosity of pinot meunier and the layered complexity that time on lees during secondary fermentation brings. This isn’t an imposingly serious wine – you could happily serve it as an apéritif – but it’s not lacking in depth or interest if you want to go looking for it. This is quietly virtuosic winemaking at its best.

Themes of this wine

Adelaide Hills

The Adelaide Hills is a young winegrowing region by South Australian standards, but it is a richly fertile one. The push to plant vines in the Hills was led by some of Australia’s most established and famous names – Croser, Henschke, Shaw and Smith, Knappstein, Weaver – and while they are all still very much major players, the Hills has also been a hotbed for the avant-garde, being the cradle of the natural wine movement in this country. Today, that lo-fi, organic-centric movement – with Basket Range as its spiritual home – has flourished, and it happily shares space with the established order. There are now over 50 cellar doors in the Hills, and it is also well served with restaurants.

Piccadilly Valley

The Adelaide Hills has two official subregions, Lenswood and Piccadilly Valley, with the former to the north and the latter extending south. The midpoint, where they share a small border, has Basket Range to the west, with the larger region extending around and beyond both subregions. Both Piccadilly Valley and Lenswood have the highest and coolest sites in the Hills, with chardonnay, pinot noir and sauvignon blanc the key varieties.

Pinot meunier

Pinot meunier is a variety mainly consigned to sparkling wine production, with still red wines relatively rare. But in Australia, though the output is modest, the grape has a meaningful place as a quality grape for red wine production – alongside sparkling wine – and a noble history that stretches back to the 1830s.

Blanc de noir(s)

Literally ‘white from black’, this French phrase usually refers to a style of white sparkling wine made from dark-skinned grapes such as pinot noir. As all of the colour in these grapes resides in the skins, a winemaker can press them gently to create a mostly-clear juice that will then become wine. A small number of still white wines made from dark-skinned varieties can be found in Australia – but the vast majority of Australian wines labelled with this très français term will be sparkling.

Home > Top Winemakers

Fabiano Minchella is a born-and-bred McLaren Vale winemaker whose By Fabiano label makes a case – quietly but with mounting conviction – that the south of Italy belongs in the Vale. Launched from the 2020 vintage, the range spans negroamaro, primitivo, fiano, vermentino, greco, a skin-contact macerato and a rosato, all from estate fruit and all made with a philosophy rooted in Minchella’s extended time working in Basilicata and Puglia. The wines are a grower-maker proposition: the family owns and manages all vineyards, with a purpose-planted Italian-style block on the winery site – seven varieties grown at unusually tight spacing in the Italian tradition – the physical embodiment of the experiment. Southern Italian varieties in McLaren Vale is no longer a novelty; By Fabiano is one of the labels that has done the most to prove it shouldn’t be.

Producer
Region

McLaren Vale
RRP

$
Vintage
Variety/Varieties
Alc./Vol.

%

Fabiano Minchella is a born-and-bred McLaren Vale winemaker whose By Fabiano label makes a case – quietly but with mounting conviction – that the south of Italy belongs in the Vale. Launched from the 2020 vintage, the range spans negroamaro, primitivo, fiano, vermentino, greco, a skin-contact macerato and a rosato, all from estate fruit and all made with a philosophy rooted in Minchella’s extended time working in Basilicata and Puglia. The wines are a grower-maker proposition: the family owns and manages all vineyards, with a purpose-planted Italian-style block on the winery site – seven varieties grown at unusually tight spacing in the Italian tradition – the physical embodiment of the experiment. Southern Italian varieties in McLaren Vale is no longer a novelty; By Fabiano is one of the labels that has done the most to prove it shouldn’t be.

Minchella grew up on a family property in McLaren Vale, graduated in oenology and viticulture from the University of Adelaide in 2011, and built his early career across Two Hands, Rosemount and Di Fabio Estate before seven years as winemaker at The Hedonist. Overseas, his Italian education was assembled across multiple regions and mentors: Okanagan in Canada, Provence, Basilicata and then two consecutive seasons in Puglia split across wineries in Manduria and Gioia del Colle. It was in Basilicata that the deepest influence took hold – living with Dennis Verdecchia, now head winemaker at Farnese, who instilled in Minchella a precision-oriented philosophy and a passion for aglianico, greco and fiano that has never left him. Puglia, especially time at Tenuta Chiaromonte, sharpened his affection for primitivo and negroamaro. And a private back-vintage tasting spanning 1991 to 2015 at Arnaldo Caprai in Umbria – the estate that has done more than any other to establish sagrantino as a noble variety – burned itself into his memory as the kind of thing a winemaker chases for the rest of their career. “That private back vintage tasting from ‘91 to ‘15 vintages at Arnaldo Caprai is burnt in my memory and inspires me to make sagrantino,” he says. More Italian varieties, he notes, are coming.

The label is built on three convictions Minchella formed during those Italian years. First: that southern Italian varieties are serious, not merely alternative. “I wanted to show that Italy is not only about Tuscany and Piedmont and that the southern varieties can be serious, delicious and noble,” he says. Second: that those varieties suit McLaren Vale’s Mediterranean climate in a way that has been underexplored. Third: that the legacy varieties – shiraz, grenache, cabernet – may not be the most sustainable long-term, either in the vineyard or in the market. “Wines are grown, not made,” he says, a conviction he learned in Europe and has since staked a vineyard on.

“I wanted to show the potential to make wines from Italian varieties that suit the McLaren Vale terroir.”

That vineyard is the most tangible expression of the philosophy. Seven Italian varieties – including primitivo, negroamaro, greco, fiano and vermentino – planted on the winery site at 2.4 metre row width and 0.9 metre vine spacing, trained to single-arm guyot using the Simonit & Sirch methodology developed in Italy and focused on long-term vine health and sap flow. The spacing is tight by Australian standards, and deliberately so. “My theory with the tighter spacings is that although our Australian soils are the oldest in the world, the vineyards I grew up with are quite healthy and vigorous and not lacking,” he says. “I wanted to increase competition to restrict crop load and put more stress on the vines, with the intention to concentrate flavours.” The single-arm guyot reduces stored carbohydrate reserves by limiting unnecessary structural wood, while making manual shoot-thinning, leaf plucking and hand-harvesting more practical than traditional spur-pruned cordon systems allow. The southern side of the canopy is specifically leaf-plucked to manage sunlight exposure on the fruit. “I wanted to see if vineyards more in line with Italy produced better wines in McLaren Vale.”

The two wines at the core of the range – negroamaro from the Stocks Hill vineyard and primitivo from the College Block – both come from fruit Minchella has a direct hand in growing. The negroamaro is made in a fresh, medium-bodied style that draws deliberately on the lighter expressions he encountered in Puglia rather than the heavy, extracted versions that characterise much of the commercial category. The primitivo comes in two versions: a conventionally made bottling and a Naturale, which sees the wine made with zero additions and no sulphur. “I wanted to show the potential to make wines from Italian varieties that suit the McLaren Vale terroir,” he says. “To pay homage to my heritage, and to show that the southern varieties can be serious, delicious and noble.”

The family business supports the whole operation: the family owns the vines, processing and bottling; Giovanni and Oliver manage the vineyards; Fabiano and his sister Gab make and bottle the wines. It is as close to a vertically integrated family winemaking operation as the Vale has, with a lineage that runs through the Minchella family’s Italian roots and out through the red earth of McLaren Vale. “It is not the fruit that is to be adapted to his style,” as the label puts it, “but rather his style that adapts to the fruit’s expression.” The sagrantino is still coming. Watch this space.

2024 Whispers of Chaos Sangiovese Cabernet Sauvignon Barossa Valley

Juicy cherry up front, both sweet and tart, with a core of blackcurrant and a touch of spice – think nutmeg and warm baking spice. The tannins are fine but have real grip, with a lively, blood orange tang.

Tasting note

When to drink

Themes of this wine

Barossa Valley

New-wave Barossa

Sangiovese

Cabernet sauvignon

Oval-shaped fermenters

Explore Further

Winemaker profile

Marcus Torzi

Awards

20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards Winners

Region Guide

Barossa

Amber-copper coloured, with hypnotic aromas of tangy fruit, exotic spices and Turkish delight. It tastes of orange marmalade, with some walnuts and a little bitterness like orange peel, and a dry, tea-like finish that lingers.

Tasting note

When to drink it

Themes of this wine

Skin contact

Gewürztraminer

Explore Further

Deep Dive

Australia’s Best Skin Contact Whites

Wine 101

Gewürztraminer

Tasting note

When to drink

Themes of this wine

Syrah, or shiraz

Barossa Valley

New-wave Barossa

Whole-bunch fermentation

Explore Further

Deep Dive

Australia’s Best Whole-Bunch/Cab-Mac Reds

Deep Dive

The Best ‘New Wave’ Barossa Shiraz

Region Guide

Barossa

Imagine apricot jam on hot toast, a splash of orange marmalade and a ginger snap crumbled in — sweet, sure, but with a savoury, salty edge that keeps it from ever feeling heavy. Delicious cold from the fridge with a wedge of cheese, any time of day you fancy.

Tasting note

When to drink it

Themes of this wine

Muscat Blanc

McLaren Vale

Passito

Explore Further

Winemaker profile

Michael Williams

Awards

20th Annual Young Gun of Wine Awards Winners

Region Guide

McLaren Vale

Think beeswax with lime zest, green apple and a squeeze of tonic water, with a silky, mouth-watering finish that has you reaching for the next sip before you’ve swallowed the last. Dry, fresh, and dangerously drinkable.

Tasting note

When to drink

Themes of this wine

Riesling

Clare Valley

Biodynamic farming

Explore Further

Vineyard Arofile

Grosset – Springvale Vineyard, Clare Valley

Vineyard Awards

Australian Wine the Real Winner at 6th Annual Vineyard of the Year Awards

Deep Dive

Clare Valley’s Best Riesling

Wine 101

Riesling

Tasting Note

Themes of this wine

Langhorne Creek

Sangiovese

Tasting Note

Themes of this wine

Adelaide Hills

Piccadilly Valley