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.
An Australian classic, and an Australian Christmas Day classic wine, too. Dark fruits and spice are buoyed by the fizz, making for a luxurious, heady wine but one that boasts ample freshness.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
A riot of spice, wild berries and floral notes on a slippery but taut midweight frame.
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.
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.
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.
One of the greats in top form – complex, smoky and nutty, this is chardonnay on a grand and impressive scale.
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.
This is laden with stone fruit and grapefruit notes, with textural flex on the palate that is straightened by trademark freshness.
Perfectly pitched chardonnay from Dave Mackintosh, with flavour and elegance in equal measure.
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.
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.
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.
Vanya Cullen’s ‘Supernatural’ journey into skin-contact whites continues, with the 2019 ‘Amber’ a spicy, fragrant and gently grippy expression of sauvignon blanc.
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.
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 savoury, textured and mineral chardonnay from 2020’s Young Gun of Wine.
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.
A ‘naturally’ styled skin-contact white from a Beechworth master better known for classic styles.
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.
Earthy and mineral, bristling with spice, dried flowers and sour cherries, this is supple and savoury in equal measure – an utterly distinctive expression.
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.
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.
A textural, flavour-intense but light-footed wine, this is loaded with orchard fruits, smoky minerals and waxy notes.
This is bursting with spice and wild fruits, with an underlying signature of regional minerality.
An Adelaide Hills pioneer at the top of their game. Intense stone fruit, complex smoky barrel notes and minerals take the lead.
A tangle of wild berries, spice and minerals are supported by assertive tannins that are a distinctive signature of the Swinney vineyard site.
Red fruits matched with spicy, earthy complexity – easy to love, but with detail for those that care to look.
Vinea Marson’s ‘Grazia’ is an ode to his family’s origins in Italy’s north-east. It’s a wine built on citrus, quince and spice notes, with as much consideration to texture as flavour.
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.
Layers of citrus, spice and orchard fruit, overlaid with chalky, savoury accents.
An exercise in spice and leathery savouriness, buoyed by plump red fruits, which are clutched firmly by assertive grapey tannins through the finish.
A red-fruited rosé pét-nat, bright and crunchy with a chalky, dry and ultra-refreshing palate.
Supple and silky, this is a seductively delicious take on cabernet franc by Brad Hickey.
Cloudy, wildly aromatic and delightfully left-of-centre orange wine – just what you expect from Yoko and Andries Mostert.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Subtle orchard fruits and dryly savoury. Light on its feet, with a fine, lightly textural and grippy feel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Juicy and dark, but floral and bright at the same time, this is red wine built for drinking not sipping.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The Yangarra flagship from deepest sandy soils and oldest vines, this is regal but rugged expression, red and dark fruits, earthy, mineral, utterly individual.
From the Barossa’s groundbreaking biodynamic Alkina vineyard, this is a stunningly mineral expression of shiraz (with a splash of mataro) from an ideally cool year.
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.
A waxy, savoury expression of chardonnay with classic stone fruit, but the feel is Old World, with an appealing grip complementing the fine acidity.
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.
An exceptional release from the sangiovese touchstone in this country, this is an effortless affair, displaying the classic combination of cherries, woodsy herbs and earthiness, with a bright but typically savoury finish.
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.
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.
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 blend of Vale hero varieties with a dash of climate-apt touriga, this melds wild berries, spice and earthy scents in a bright, midweight wine with fine but grippy tannins.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
White stone fruit is joined by subtle nutty and spicy notes, with a gently textured palate cushioning a line of vibrant acidity.
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.
A joyous mix of muscat and riesling, full of pink grapefruit and rosewater with softly textured generosity matched with exuberant freshness.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 prettily fragrant nose of fresh pear, mandarin zest and floral notes, a gently pleasing texture and vibrant freshness sealing the deal.
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.
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.
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.
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 winemaker Clare Dry’s first ‘St Peters’ Shiraz, and what a debut it is – perfumed, intense, spicy, silky and just so effortless with it.
The suite of reserve wines is a welcome addition to the Sigurd portfolio, with this elevating a variety so infrequently celebrated in the Barossa. Mineral, spicy and laced with umami on a bed of citrus, this is textural, chewy and so engagingly savoury and complex.
Modern Barossa is perhaps an abused term, but it couldn’t be more apt here. A wine of impeccable elegance and balance, but with weight and earthy, spicy intent.
A joyously bright and spicy wine stuffed full of forest berries, cherries and spices, with a bright midweight palate carrying plenty of stemmy grip.
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.
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.
The distinctive play of apricot blossom is present, but it never spills into opulence, with citrus and sone fruits accenting. Built like a quality chardonnay, this is textural, vibrant and loaded with fine detail.
A lemon-scented nose accented with white flowers and talc ushering in a linear and mineral palate of great precision but also gentle texture.
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.
From the 2009 Young Gun of Wine Award winner, and the 2022 Vineyard of the Year Award winner, this is Col McBryde’s take on a classic blend, featuring vivid red fruits, dusty earthiness and dried laurel.
A melange of fruit from the Pyrenees, Grampians and Yarra Valley – spicy, crunchy and vibrant, this is a pitch perfect lighter red with savouriness and freshness in equal measure.
Jo Marsh is helping to shed light on the Alpine Valleys and less-common varieties. Case in point is her 2022 fiano, which embraces the coolly fragrant side of the grape, with floral, apple and pear notes, and a pleasing grip closing out.
This was the first cuvée under the Bondar banner, and it remains one of Australian wine’s great bargains. Floral, spicy, buoyantly fruitful, this is supple with both depth and appealing freshness.
Falanghina has found a special place in the Chalmer’s family’s Heathcote vineyard, showing a new face to the southern Italian grape, revealing an exotically aromatic wine of intensity, drive and freshness.
From the Alpha Box & Dice crew, this is a skinsy take on pinot gris that takes the coppery ‘ramato’ inspiration into deeply coloured and flavourful territory, with notes of pear, guava, peach and watermelon and a palate rolling into a gently grippy and textural zone.
A midweight, digestibly bright and savoury Mediterranean-style red, this shows the Koerner artistry of making subtly nuanced blending components then merging them seamlessly.
The entry level white for Jono and Damon Koerner’s Leko range, this is a bellwether for the thoughtfully subtle detail felt throughout the wines, with gentle spice across orchard fruits, and a pithy grip providing moreish tension.
Although fledgling in this country, this makes a strong case for planting more pinot blanc, with apple, pear and citrus notes on the nose and a palate that shows generosity, freshness and a charmingly chewy complexity.
A classic expression of the grape, with forest berries, cherries and a flash of violets pitched in an elegant and poised frame, an undercurrent of ruggedly regional minerality making its presence felt.
Skin-contact picolit is no common thing in this country, but the results are stunning, with citrus, stone fruit and quince overlaid with spices.
The second release from this new project on an old vineyard, and what a great release it is. Golden apples, citrus, fennel and a waxy savouriness lead to a palate that is textural and appealingly grippy.
Flush with spice, orange peel and wild forest berries, there’s a suppleness here and texture that welcomes a chill.
A riot of red fruits, tangerine and floral notes, with a properly dry but agreeably textural palate. This is benchmark rosé.
This is a cinsault to get people talking about cinsault. Pitched in a very of the moment midweight style, this sports a riot of red berries paired with spice and dusty minerality, a fine but engagingly sandy tannin cleaning up the finish.
‘Orange’ wine with a perfect balance between savoury tension, in both flavour and feel, with citrus peel and subdued blossom flecked with warm spices and earthy notes, a prudent amount of grip adding structure.
The devotion of Giles Cooke MW and Fergal Tynan MW to grenache is on display here with the full gamut of grenache flavours from wild red fruits and florals to an earthy growl of old vine fruit, with a natural tannic spine supporting.
The first release of this variety from the biodynamic Yangarra, this has the appealing freshness of the variety paired with apple and citrus, but also an engaging mineral savouriness to up the interest.
In any year, this is a sure candidate for Australia’s top rosé – for both quality and value – and the 2023 is stellar. Red fruits and watermelon are features, as is the typically textural play on the palate that is swiftly refreshed with perfectly balanced acidity.
The second release from Werkstatt sees a pét-nat join the roster, and what a vibrantly racy wine it is, rippling with citrus, apple and floral notes and driven by bracing acidity that is cushioned by pulpy texture.
This is thrilling stuff. Scented with lime, tart grapefruit and wet stone. A small amount of unfermented grape sugar is electrified by the acidity, gifting weight and texture while drying out through the considerably long finish.
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.
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 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.
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