From the certified biodynamic Cullen vineyard, this is Vanya Cullen’s foray into orange wine territory. A predictably amber hue, this has herbal and citrus notes, lemongrass and a savoury accent, with pithy grape-skin tannins giving characteristic grip.
Giant Steps may be a Yarra Valley icon, but here it spreads its wings into the hallowed pinot noir territory of Tasmania, with an expression full of ripe wild berries and violets dusted with baking spices that front a palate of silky plushness and sneakily assertive tannins.
This take on pinot gris employs judicious skin contact to pull out a blush of rosy colour while knitting in spice and blood orange over classic pear notes, texture and grip completing the picture.
A waxy, savoury expression of chardonnay with classic stone fruit, but the feel is Old World, with an appealing grip complementing the fine acidity.
From one of Victoria’s great vineyard sites – a brace of red fruits are spiced with white pepper and cypress notes, with a supple, bright and fresh palate, equal parts silky and vibrant.
This is Aphelion’s pinnacle grenache – a wine made up of the best parcels in the best years, and the 2021 is at once vibrant and brooding, with notes of cherry, cranberry and rhubarb, layered in with wild herbs and earthy notes that channel through a finely pitched palate.
This homage to the flor-raised wines of the Jura ripples with savoury notes, from toasted grain and celery salt to characteristic nuttiness, while chardonnay has its say on the palate, with dried peach and apple.
A riot of red fruits, tangerine and floral notes, with a properly dry but agreeably textural palate. This is benchmark rosé.
A dark tangle of ripe wild berries, dusky florals and spices are ferried on a palate that has the classic tannic growl of malbec, but with amply generous fruit in support.
Vigneron Ryan Ponsford has made a big impact in short time. This pinot is a savoury splay of wild fruits dusted with spice and herbal notes, grapey tannins providing natural support.
A typical varietal tussle of dark fruit is given a good deal of complexity with spice and herbal notes, a ruggedly tannic grip asserting both variety and a pleasingly classic Australian feel.
White stone fruit is joined by subtle nutty and spicy notes, with a gently textured palate cushioning a line of vibrant acidity.
While a can of wine may seem like it’s a wine for the park, with all the bells and whistles of classic chardonnay making, this effort deserves taking a decent glass along for the ride.
A prettily fragrant nose of fresh pear, mandarin zest and floral notes, a gently pleasing texture and vibrant freshness sealing the deal.
Riot Wines turn out a fresh set of quaffable canned wines in their regular series, but things get a little more serious with the Limited Release wines.
The ‘Verve’ Chardonnay has garnered a bit of a cult following for its zippy charms. In the cool stone fruit and citrus zone, the 2019 turns the texture up a little notch.
Giant Steps have become a true pinot noir star of the Yarra Valley, and their multi-site range is a bellwether for the quality of the vintage. In 2021, that snapshot is a truly exciting one.
Stepping away from classic Australian riesling, time in oak gives texture to match the ripe fruit weight, but the citric core of the variety slices through in ideal balance, a saline, waxy quality adding depth.
This is a super-fragrant take on mencía, matching the classic floral profile with ample but well-knit spice across a splay of cherries, berries and sour plums.
From the equal oldest producer of red wine from the grape in this country – this has classic varietal lift of red and blue florals, over succulent red and black fruits, with a palate of silky suppleness matched with crunchy freshness.
Friulano is a variety that is well suited to skin contact – with this version offering a vibrant lift of ginger, herbs and orange peel notes, a gentle grip providing savoury refreshment.
A joyously bright and spicy wine stuffed full of forest berries, cherries and spices, with a bright midweight palate carrying plenty of stemmy grip.
Sprinkled with spice and florals, this is silky and textured, with cherry and plum flavours carrying through a long finish. Ample proof that the Spanish grape has a bright future in this country.
A vibrantly intense wine typical of the region, but with a varietal vibrancy of pristinely ripe cherries, overlaid with dusky florals and spice, the palate silky and compellingly slurpable.
Ample orchard fruits and citrus notes are accented with chalky minerality on the nose, with a textural, chewy and saline palate stretching long and detailed.
A riot of citrus, apple and jasmine, the wine is marked by its powerful intensity allied with poise, and generous texture paired with laser-like acidity, the extremes working in perfect concord.
From a vineyard that Ricca Terra’s Ashley Ratcliff planted to focus on heat-loving Iberian grapes in the Riverland. Awash with dark fruits, spices and tarry mineral notes, this still comes in at medium weight with ample freshness.
Malbec and petit verdot conspire to give this wine a darkly fruited, spicy yet floral and lithe profile, packed with complex fruit flavours stretched over a savoury canvas.
This is a fragrant, spicy and complex wine, full of sour cherries and wild berries shot through with dry spices, a twiggy complexity and underpinned by a rugged minerality. Supple and lingering, this is benchmark cool climate syrah.
A complex array of sour red and black fruits are accented with rugged dry herbs and a rocky minerality, with Swinney’s signature assertive tannins tightening through the finish.
This is the first syrah that Owen Latta has made since 2015, and it’s stunning stuff. An incredibly complex and darkly seductive wine, with wild fruits accented by exotic spices and craggy minerals – midweight, chewy and speaking loudly of place.
One of the finest pinot noir and shiraz blends we’ve seen. A lifted nose of wild forest berries and spices gives way to a palate of bright fruits, darker mineral notes and a feel that is equal parts savoury and vibrantly fresh.
A blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon from older vines. Cullen has given the fruit a bit of a luxury Bordeaux treatment with plenty of classy oak, but the vibrant lift of cut herbs and cassis leave the strongest impression, with a textual but brightly fresh palate following up.
Owen Latta’s take on viognier is a world away from the norm of exotically lifted wines, dripping in apricot floral. Instead, his is a wine of orchard fruits creeping to ripeness with pops of honeycomb and nuts, a slip of texture and a gently pithy palate to gnaw on.
A lemon-scented nose accented with white flowers and talc ushering in a linear and mineral palate of great precision but also gentle texture.
A mélange of all the Giant Steps sites fermented in clay eggs, then sealed for maturation, this has all the Giant Steps chardonnay character and precision with a chalky mineral overlay that adds complexity to nose and palate.
This early release wine from Owen Latta captures a fragrant but complexly spicy side to the grape, with amaro/vermouth seasoning the wild red fruits, while a meshing of cool tannins and zippy acidity gives this real pep.
Made from the great southern Italian grape Aglianico, this copper-coloured rosé is laced with wild red berries, tart apple and orange peel, finishing dry, savoury and moreish.
A riot of wild red berries accented with earthy complexity, this is at once bright, juicy and forward while having gently earthy mineral notes, textural across the palate but decidedly dry.
This has some classic floral and talc notes of the variety, but it’s uber-fresh and savoury, light-bodied, tangy and built for thirst-slaking refreshment.
A decadent glass of fortified, rippling with raisin, fig, date and coffee notes, this is rich and unctuous, but with the fortifying alcohol lifting the sweetness, leaving endless layers of flavour to linger on the palate.
A departure from the rich styles of tempranillo so often made, this emphasises red fruits and white pepper spice on a midweight frame with grippy tannins and rugged regional mineral notes to close.
Sourced from three sites, with vines from 55 to 90 years old, Pete Schell crafts the fruit into a democratically priced everyday wine that over delivers in a major way. Crushed red berries and cherries, spices and florals leading to a palate shot through with rocky and earthy minerality, the balance impeccable.
John Hughes’ mastery of the riesling grape has already been amply proven, but in the superb 2021 vintage that dial’s been turned up to new limits. This is an intense play of jasmine and lime, effusive but not overly exotic, with tension and effortless balance through a long finish underlining its pedigree.
A decade in barrel, first under flor yeast, then on ullage (an oxidative environment), it’s fair to say this is a unique wine for this country. This bristles with briny Sherry notes, roasted nuts and linseed, an explosion of orange-skinned citrus and spice riding the uber-dry and saline palate.
Built from mataro, grenache and cinsault, this illustrates what makes blends so compelling – each component pooling into the gaps left by the others, leaving a seamless whole, laced with ripe red fruits, spice and floral notes, the palate supple, with fine grip and natural freshness.
Savagnin under flor yeast, in the style of the wines from France’s Jura region. This vintage is a stunningly bright affair, layered with waxy, briny umami notes and shot through with citric freshness, whipcrack dry and moreish.
This juicy light red is a riot of super-bright red fruits and florals, with a pleasing grip that adds even more refreshment value to the zippy acidity. Drink chilled.
An expressive nose of dried mango and orchard fruits leads to a palate rich with sugar and intensity buoyed and lightened by vigorous acidity and a gentle grip.
This rosé is an expression of all the red varieties in the Cullen vineyard viewed through a deep pink lens. Fragrant, spicy and herbal, with a plump of richness cleaned up with a gentle grip working in concert with the acidity.
From 150-year-old vines, this is fermented all as whole bunches, resulting in a wine laced with evocative spice, orange peel and floral notes to accent the darkly mineral fruit expression.
Under Alkina’s exploratory Kin label, this is all old vine semillon, planted in the 1950s, with a whisper of skin contact bringing out some dried ginger and a pleasing drying pucker to the floral, lemon-scented fruit.
With semillon taking the lead, the 2021 ‘Lemon Krush’ is an essay in citrus, from a lemon-scented fragrance to the refreshingly drying pucker of lemon barley water gifted by Wardlaw’s masterly hand with skin contact.
The ‘Fresh Prince’ marshals a quartet of red varieties with decent crossover on a Venn diagram but are rarely all seen together, offering a fragrantly floral and spicy nose, with earthy notes, red and dark fruits and a palate of chewy, grapey tannins and fresh zip.
A textural, flavour-intense but light-footed wine, this is loaded with orchard fruits, smoky minerals and waxy notes.
Earthy and mineral, bristling with spice, dried flowers and sour cherries, this is supple and savoury in equal measure – an utterly distinctive expression.
A tangle of wild berries, spice and minerals are supported by assertive tannins that are a distinctive signature of the Swinney vineyard site.
Picked ultra-fresh, this rendition of the great Friulian grape is alive with citrus, apple and herb flavours borne along an electric rail of acidity.
Red fruits matched with spicy, earthy complexity – easy to love, but with detail for those that care to look.
This is bursting with spice and wild fruits, with an underlying signature of regional minerality.
Layers of citrus, spice and orchard fruit, overlaid with chalky, savoury accents.
A riot of spice, wild berries and floral notes on a slippery but taut midweight frame.
A joyous mix of muscat and riesling, full of pink grapefruit and rosewater with softly textured generosity matched with exuberant freshness.
An Adelaide Hills pioneer at the top of their game. Intense stone fruit, complex smoky barrel notes and minerals take the lead.
A great example of why grenache is so hot right now. Savoury, aromatic, refined and with a commanding web of tannin, this is compelling stuff.
A field blend leaning on Rhône white varieties, this is all barrel fermented, then raised on lees to build texture and harmonise the varieties into a seamless whole of orchard fruits, granitic minerals and nutty winemaking notes.
An exercise in spice and leathery savouriness, buoyed by plump red fruits, which are clutched firmly by assertive grapey tannins through the finish.
One of very few wines made from grillo in the country, this is loaded with orchard fruits and a sea spray tang, with texture and bright freshness defining the palate.
Subtle orchard fruits and dryly savoury. Light on its feet, with a fine, lightly textural and grippy feel.
Sweet, but cut through with salted nut and smoky notes, and alcohol spirit lending it shape and line. Crittenden Estate’s take on the Macvin of France’s Jura region, with flor-aged savagnin combined with unfermented new-vintage juice, then fortified.
Matured under flor yeast, this is a Mornington Peninsula version of Vin Jaune, loaded with preserved lemon and nutty sherry-like notes, with explosive power and a dryly saline umami carry.
A unique sparkling wine drawn solely from a solera started in 2003 – think artisan Champagne, shot through with nutty sherry-like notes, but built on fruit intensity.
Light and bright, this is a pure riot of berries and grapey scents, with a fine freshness and gentle spritz – take it as it comes, or chill it down.
A red-fruited rosé pét-nat, bright and crunchy with a chalky, dry and ultra-refreshing palate.
Flinty, white peach and lemon curd, gently textural – this has all the trappings of complex chardonnay, with generosity of flavour and winemaking detail perfectly poised and pitched.
This is laden with stone fruit and grapefruit notes, with textural flex on the palate that is straightened by trademark freshness.
Juicy and dark, but floral and bright at the same time, this is red wine built for drinking not sipping.
Vanya Cullen’s ‘Supernatural’ journey into skin-contact whites continues, with the 2019 ‘Amber’ a spicy, fragrant and gently grippy expression of sauvignon blanc.
Supple and silky, this is a seductively delicious take on cabernet franc by Brad Hickey.
From the Yarra Valley’s legendary Willowlake Vineyard, and the equally legendary Dave Mackintosh, this is a pinot noir of real detail and depth, but you can also ignore all that and just focus on its charming drinkability.
Carignan usually gets lost in blends, but a wine like this makes you wonder why – packed with spice and dark-fruited flavour, this finishes ultra-fresh and racy.
Lesser known Italian varieties are muscling into the limelight right now, and this wine captures why. Packed full of flavour, this has grip and race to keep things fresh – killer with spicy salami pizza.
A flavour bomb of classic gewürz, with Turkish delight, talc and lychees, but with a dry zip to the palate that keeps it super fresh and vibrant.
Perfectly pitched chardonnay from Dave Mackintosh, with flavour and elegance in equal measure.
A ‘naturally’ styled skin-contact white from a Beechworth master better known for classic styles.
One of the greats in top form – complex, smoky and nutty, this is chardonnay on a grand and impressive scale.
A savoury, textured and mineral chardonnay from 2020’s Young Gun of Wine.
Cloudy, wildly aromatic and delightfully left-of-centre orange wine – just what you expect from Yoko and Andries Mostert.
A classic dry rosé of bright and pure red fruits, but also with a bit more substance and grip – it doesn’t need food, but it’s built with it in mind.
A Malbec-dominant red from the Mangan Vineyard, across the road from Cullen’s home site, this is brim full of spice and dark fruits with a refined finish – it makes a pretty compelling case for the grape.
A new wine from a new endeavour led by De Bortoli’s ever-restless Steve Webber, this is an earthy, mineral grenache coloured by the ancient soils of Heathcote.
Such a new Australian perspective on Sicily’s most important red grape. Light, vibrant, cherry scented and detailed, pitched to take a chill, or not – this is required drinking.
Three years after our inaugural Deep Dive into rosé, and with summer unfurling before us, it’s an apt time to cast our eyes across the Australian pink wine landscape. And when we say pink, the Pantone swatch book of rosé veers from the pale and coppery to the distinctly ruddy, and from a range of varieties that could include… well, anything. We gathered every Australian rosé that we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most.
Mornington Peninsula winemakers have been cutting a very serious path solely with quality and individuality the driving forces, and few would argue against the fact that pinot noir has become the region’s most emblematic variety. And it’s well due that we tested the water temperature with a Deep Dive.
Barbera is a fine prospect for our broad range of climatic conditions, and makers are getting to grips with fashioning a range of interesting expressions across the spectrum. We gathered every Australian barbera that we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines.
Today, there is an ever-growing category of red wines that are best served properly cold. With more reds in the fridge at wine bars, restaurants and progressive retailers, it’s clear that a Deep Dive was called for! We gathered every Australian purpose-built chillable red that we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines.
Now grown in well over 20 Australian regions, vermentino has become a readily recognised name for more curious consumers, so we thought it timely to check in to see exactly where vermentino is at with a Deep Dive. We gathered every Australian varietal vermentino we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines.
The southern Italian grape fiano has had a relatively meteoric rise in Australia. We gathered every Australian varietal fiano we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind.
Pinot gris/grigio can be made in many different styles from the achingly dry to the rich and luscious. Add to that a raft of cherry-red skinsy wines bursting with red-fruited flavour that have popped onto the market of late, and gris is looking like a vibrantly exciting category. So much so that a Deep Dive is called for.
Shiraz is inarguably Australia’s key red variety, with a style built on fruit depth and concentration. The ‘brand shiraz’ monolith sparked a counter movement in the early 2000s that favoured elegance and perfume, and one that branded itself with the French name for the grape: syrah. Today, Australian syrah is a category in its own right, and an exciting one at that.
In Australia, the spotlight is often swung to McLaren Vale when the Grenache renaissance is discussed, but the revolution is no less vibrant in the Barossa. So much so that a Deep Dive was in order.
Tempranillo is unarguably Spain’s most recognisable variety. In Australia, it has made a modest but meaningful mark, but with limited genetic vine material, the potential for the grape is exponentially bigger, and with new clones now online, a Deep Dive into Australian tempranillo is called for.
Winemaker Mike Aylward gives us insight to some of the evolutions in Ocean Eight’s vineyard architecture over two decades of winegrowing on the Mornington Peninsula.
The ‘Bordeaux blend’ – melding multiple grape varieties from the cabernet family, in a style first defined by France’s Bordeaux region – is masterfully represented by Cullen’s Diana Madeline, an elite wine which honours the memory and toil of the vineyard’s founding trailblazers who fully embraced sympathetic agricultural and broader environmental care.
Today’s chardonnay makers are as intent on flavour as they are elegance, with no single recipe for success, but rather a site-specific approach that is seeing the chardonnay landscape becoming an increasingly exciting one. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features Mulline, Ada Wine Co., Marco Lubiana, Site Wine, South by South, and Nature of the Beast, whose wines tell this story
Shiraz has seen a dramatic revolution, from the increase in cooler climate plantings to makers pursuing styles from the spicily fragrant and elegant to the distinctly nouveau, with early consumption and a good chill all part of the modern picture, not to mention reviving the fading tradition of sparkling shiraz. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features Entropy, Bowerbird, Weathercraft, Cuvée-Co, Harrison, Kenny Wine, Scion and Paxton, whose wines tell this story.
Grenache is one of the most exciting prospects in Australian wine, with fruit becoming both scarce and expensive. And while that equation may seem a daunting prospect for many emerging makers, the lure of the grape is seeing many forge relationships with growers to give their spin on the grape. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features Rollick, Ada Wine Co., Cooter & Cooter, Hedonist, Saltfleet, White Gate and Sven Joschke, whose wines tell this story.
Wine, like most things, falls victim to the whims of fashion. One minute a grape variety is riding a seemingly unstoppable wave of success, and the next minute growers can’t give the fruit away. Some winemakers are dusting off the classic varieties and giving them a makeover, either in big swings away from the familiar path or with subtle reinventions. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features LS Merchants, Sabi Wabi, Entropy, Lauren Langfield, White Gate and Patrick of Coonawarra, whose wines tell this story.
Wine made from red grapes now comes in an array of styles that reveal a diversity that was once never entertained. From chewy textural rosé through pale chillable red and up to wines that pitch in a fresher and more vibrant vein while still very much being in the red wine camp, Australian wine has a new rainbow. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features LS Merchants, Scion, Sven Joschke, Vino Intrepido, Cavedon, Pool and Year Wines, whose wines tell this story.
The long prophesised ‘riesling renaissance’ has been stalled for some time, never quite gaining the momentum that many had – perhaps hopefully – forecast. Well, in the hands of makers both experienced and somewhat newer to the scene, riesling is once again sharing more of the spotlight. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features Rieslingfreak, Kenny Wine, ChaLou and Galafrey, whose wines tell this story.
Many Italian grapes are now in most wine drinker’s vocabulary, and their suitability to our climate and modern drinking tastes makes them a tantalising prospect for makers. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features South by South West, Sherrah, Alpha Box & Dice, Cavedon, Vino Intrepido, Nature of the Beast, Pool Wines, Travail, Quealy and Sherrah, whose wines tell this story.
The Limestone Coast captures half a dozen wine regions at the southern tip of South Australia with ancient seabeds that generated the limestone underpinnings. It’s a zone of diversity, from maritime to continental climates, and from classic regions – like Coonawarra – to those that are just beginning to find their identity amongst wine drinkers – like Mount Gambier. The 2022 Young Gun of Wine Awards features Aunt Alice, Wangolina, Patrick of Coonawarra.
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