Category: Wine Blogs & Reviews

2017 Angullong Fossil Hill Sangiovese Review

Angullong Fossil Hill Sangiovese 2017

Sangiovese is the most commonly grown red grape in Italy and presently accounts for 250 000 acres of plantings and almost 10 % of all winemaking grapes planted in the country. It’s a versatile fruit that does best through the middle of the of the “boot” and in recent years it has been expanding its…
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Torbreck Woodcutters Shiraz 2017

Better With Age … Not Quite

The terms “Vielles Vignes” or “old vines” have become to the wine industry what buzzwords like “superfood”, “natural” and “organic” are to products on the supermarket shelves; terms that sound impressive to the consumers and get the cash registers ringing, but beyond enabling a price premium to be achieved, does it really make any discernible…
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Bird On a Wire Chardonnay 2015 Review

Top Drop, Great Price

It may not be a universally held view, but to my palate, there is no more noble white wine varietal than Chardonnay. It’s a style that generally combines attractive fruit characters at the front, luscious mouthfeel through the middle and a gentle acidity to tighten and harness the fruit through the finish. And depending on…
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Huntington Estate Mudgee

True Beauty, Even in Youth

Huntington Estate, in Mudgee, is crafting wines that will stand the test of time. The Mudgee region is often seen as the poor cousin of the Hunter Valley, but it’s a district that produces undeniably good wines. The town is just 3 hours from Newcastle but is frequently overlooked by oenological tourists, perhaps due to…
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James Halliday

It doesn’t get any better than a good Halliday

These days, everyone with a social media account and a mobile phone is a food or wine critic and the power of these so-called “influencers’ increases exponentially with the increase in reach of every flippant, if not ill-considered post. And it’s a sad reality, that in the wine industry the fortunes of wineries and winemakers…
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Swinging Gate Pinot Noir 2016

South State Aims High

Northern Tasmania is a region accustomed to regeneration. Not just in its seasonal scheduled back burning to reduce fuel for forest fires, but in its viticultural endeavours and oenological exploits. While grapes were first planted in the north of the state in the 1800’s, it wasn’t until the industry was re-examined in the 1950’s and…
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Cowra Wine Region

Grapes Shape Fresh Tactic

The Cowra wine region covers about 1250sqkm in the Lachlan River Valley at the southern end of the Central Ranges zone in NSW. Unsurprisingly, the district is amongst the lowest altitude and warmest parts of the Central Ranges region. And while the oenological offerings of the area have risen to prominence in recent decades only,…
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Emiliana Organic Vineyards

Chile Keeps Wine Green

Whether you think it’s marketing hoo-hah or just agronomist hocus-pocus, the rise of biodynamic and organic viticulture in winemaking has been as rapid as it is profound. Just scan the shelves of your local bottle shop and it will be difficult to miss the proud declarations of each club member winery to the biodynamic farming…
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Lapostolle Chile

The Great Wine Divide

It’s often observed that the same wines, produced in geographically diverse regions, can produce disparate results in the glass and on the palate. And the truism is underscored when travelling to a different continent where not only is the terroir unique, but the winemaking heritage and practices have taken a different path to those that…
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The Great Wine Divide

The Great Wine Divide

It’s often observed that the same wines, produced in geographically diverse regions, can produce disparate results in the glass and on the palate. The truism is underscored when travelling to a different continent where not only is the terroir unique, but the wine-making heritage and practices have taken a different path to those that we…
Read more