Tag: Red Blends

People with wine glasses

Two buck Chuck, or worth every buck?

School holidays. Gotta love the break from routine and the chance to travel, relax or just bond with your kids. But we all know that the gap between school terms isn’t all beer and skittles. After all, the traffic can be horrendous, the house looks like a warzone, and all too often “those” relatives want to come and stay.

Patina Wines “Jezza” 2016 Travis Schultz Wine Review

Bordeaux style wines from Orange – Patina Wines “Jezza” 2016

The Bordeaux blend style of red is up there with the bestselling in the world, and for good reason. The blend benefits from the best attributes of each of the different varietals and is also capable of ageing gracefully, making it a wine of many dimensions. And it’s also widely available thanks to the enormous…
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Torbreck Hillside Vineyard Shiraz and Roussanne 2018

Roussanne Shiraz – Torbreck

I’ve always found the wines of the Rhone region fascinating, if not charming. And particularly those of the Southern Rhone where the winemakers of the Côtes du Rhône villages set an exacting standard using Châteauneuf-du-Pape as their role model. In the region, the wines are typically richer, spicier and higher in alcohol than other parts…
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Les Peyrautins – Languedoc

The Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France has long been the poor cousin of the French wine industry. Grape growing in the area dates back to the Pliocene period yet despite being one of the oldest wine-producing regions in Europe, the district has never been highly regarded by the French as a premier wine-producing region. Such…
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Bernie’s Blend 2017 Review

Pyramids Road

A tree change may sound blissful, if not idyllic to those of us who become jaded by the traffic snarls of a peak hour commute or the hectic pace of 21st century business life but to former Sunshine Coast locals, Warren and Sue Smith, it was a dream that was to become a reality when…
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From Fiasco to Love Affair

It was a fiasco in more ways than one, but the bulb-like bottle wrapped in straw became synonymous with a decline in quality through the 1990s. It ended the consumer’s love affair with the Italian Chianti style. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the Tuscans enjoyed enormous commercial success with their Chianti blend, but loose rules,…
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Shiraz, Kiwi Style

According to Saint Ambrose, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. So, when in New Zealand, how could I defy native ideology and look elsewhere than the wares of the vignerons of both the South and North Islands? While visiting their country, would it be churlish to refuse the local offerings in favour of…
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Conde Valdemar Rioja 2012

Conde Valdemar Rioja 2012

It’s a wine that can be difficult to pronounce and challenging to find in local bottle shops, but the Spanish Red Rioja (pronounced Ree-Oh-hah) is an old world wine that you can buy even if you don’t have the bank balance of a real estate tycoon! In northern Spain on the banks of the Oja…
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Sevenhill, St Ignatius 2012 Review

Sevenhill, St Ignatious 2012

Riesling from South Australia’s Clare Valley has been putting the area on the viticultural map for years, but it wasn’t until I recently took a field trip to the region that I realised the emphasis that local winemakers place on their red wines as well. Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz do very well in the Clare,…
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Captains Paddock, Shiraz Merlot Cabernet 2012 Review

Captains Paddock, Shiraz Merlot Cabernet 2012

I’d never heard of Captains Paddock Winery until a friend recently returned from a work trip to Kingaroy and hastily thrust a bottle of their 2012 Shiraz Merlot Cabernet in my direction. My research suggests that the winery is only 8 kms north-east of Kingaroy and offers a cellar door outlet, café and a B&B…
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