If you ask the Adelaide Hills locals, they’ll likely tell you that the local Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir are the best varietals produced in their region. After all, it’s been producers like Martin Shaw of Shaw and Smith who have made Adelaide Hills Sauvies Australia’s answer to the ever-popular Marlborough versions. And it’s Ashton…
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Grenache may be one of the most widely planted grape varietals in the world, but here in Australia, it sits rather low down in the pecking order in what is likely fifth position, behind Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir. And for the life of me, I don’t know why we don’t make more…
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As a self-confessed wine-wanker, I get a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I hear or see my friends sharing their excitement about a wine, a wine region or even just a grape varietal. After all, happiness isn’t real until it’s shared, right? So, when a friend visiting Somerled in South Australia…
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Italian varietals are on the ascendency in Australian vineyards, and for good reason. Our climate is largely well-suited and our forward thinking and progressive winemakers are proving that they can make Italian native styles as successfully as their counterparts in the country that is famously shaped like a boot. In recent years, Italian varietals have…
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My visceral dislike of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is hardly a tightly guarded secret; and yes, I did once describe it as “one-dimensional cat-piss briefly soaked in lemon zest” but that was in reference to the Oyster Bay offering that is the biggest selling Sauvignon Blanc in the country. It’s a style that is as popular…
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When our Easter long weekend trip to the Adelaide Hills had to be cancelled due to a global pandemic, so too were my plans to write up an array of the best wineries from the region – places like Bird in Hand, Nepenthe and Shaw and Smith. The anticipation of the Hills’s best chardonnays, sauvignon…
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If my recent straw poll of white wine drinkers is any guide, so-called Savolanche – Australia’s fascination with sauvignon blanc from the Marlborough region in the north of the Shaky-Isles – seems to have finally begun to decline. And that would be to the collective sigh of hundreds, if not thousands, of winemakers around the…
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When a good mate of mine emailed me to let me know that our 2020 boys wine appreciation trip was a visit to Hahndorf in South Australia, I smiled from ear to ear. I’ve visited the German hamlet in the Adelaide Hills a few times before and I’ve always thought that it’s up there with…
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It’s always a treat to find a new wine that is unusual, quirky or different, but when its quality also surprises on the upside, it’s an absolute bonus! And so it was when I recently visited one of my favourite local haunts, Harry’s on Buderim, for a Friday night catchup with a friend when I…
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You’ve gotta love living in Queensland in summer. Swimming in the pool, barbeques on the deck, long days and even longer walks on the beach. It’s awesome. But as the mercury climbs and the humidity starts to suffocate you like the carpet python that caught my sister’s kitten that time, it can become a challenge…
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