The Wrattonbully wine region is sandwiched between Coonawarra and Padthaway in South Eastern South Australia and, just like its neighbouring districts, enjoys regionally distinctive terroir and abundant underground water. The Terra Rossa soils and limestone ridges have proven to be an ideal environment for growing Cabernet and Shiraz, but also Merlot wines of unusual power…
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Chardonnay may still be the world’s biggest selling white wine varietal, but at least in the United States, the star of Pinot Gris is well and truly on the rise – so much so that it’s now comfortably the second biggest selling white wine in that country. Amongst Australian wine consumers the style lags well…
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Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon, like the Shiraz and red wine blends, is renowned for its high quality, but notorious for its exorbitant price tag. Their Bin 407 retails at close to $100.00 a bottle while its big brother, the Bin 707 sits in a Grange-esque range of around $300 to $500, depending on the vintage. Against…
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I’ve always had tremendous respect for Mitchell Taylor and the wine-making team at the family-owned Taylors Wines in South Australia’s Clare Valley, but with a St Andrews Reserve Cabernet pitched at around $55, I struggle to understand the reason for recently releasing a “Reserve Parcel” Cabernet at its $25 price point! Perhaps it’s just the…
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As the festive season approaches, our thoughts turn to Christmas parties, entertaining and family reunions, and if mine is anything to go by, our palates tend to recalibrate themselves away from the heavy reds of winter in favour of cold, refreshing, crisp whites and at times, a salutary (and at times, celebratory) glass of bubbles.…
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The simple tricks of clever winemakers can create mouth-watering styles of wine that often defy their traditional characters. And there aren’t too many better examples of uncomplicated viticultural stratagem paying handsome dividends in the bottle, than the Deviation Road Pinot Gris 2014. Winemakers, Hamish and Kate Laurie, realised that Pinot Gris can be tightly wound…
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The Central Otago region in New Zealand’s South Island may be world-renowned for its sensational Pinot Noir, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice to overlook their Pinot Gris and Rieslings next time you are scouring the shelves for a suitable white. With only about 86 hectares of Riesling vines in the Central Otago region,…
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It may be a style that waxes and wanes in its popularity, but at least from my palate’s perspective, good Chardonnay never goes out of style. And I accept that at times Chardonnay can be pricey and occasionally become over-oaked and sometimes even fall flat, but if you stick to cool climate regions, you’ll seldom…
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When a light weight red is the order of the day, it’s hard to go past a youthful Pinot Noir. But as any winemaker will tell you, being a low yielding grape and troublesome in the vineyard, it’s a style which is notoriously expensive when you are looking for a wine of reasonable quality. And…
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If you’re a devotee to the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc style but feel like being a tad adventurous, why not take a punt next time you’re at the bottle shop and look for something from the Pouilly-Fumé region instead. The Upper Loire Valley in central France has two pre-eminent wine production regions, Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre. And…
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