Not all wines can be great. Plenty are just ok drinks. And some are just bad. Here then is a selection of wines that almost made it over the past few …
A new Tasmanian name and you can feel/taste the promise. To have a wine in shape like this after five years? Attention grabbed. Sourced from a plot in the Upper Derwent, …
What a joy these Yalumba Grenache wines are. Pure celebrations of old vines, and complemented by winemaking that is deliberately understated. Well fucking done. This Yalumba Tri-Centenary Grenache 2015 is the top …
Why would you blend Viognier with Shiraz in McLaren Vale? It's not like the Mistral-chilled hillsides of the northern Rhone, where you need the Viognier to add flesh to bony, …
Hunter Valley Semillon, but in a Riesling bottle. Blasphemous, maybe, but do you really care? Will it stop you from buying this Meerea Park Terracotta Semillon 2015? My take - I …
I'm in cleanup mode at the moment, sifting through the (physical) sample pile and my (digital) notes to tidy things up Kondo-style. While it's cathartic to delete some half-baked stories written …
In what has become a semi-annual event, I ventured out into the Armageddon-esque sideways rain on Saturday to taste the trophy winners (and more) from the Sydney International Wine Competition. You're …
You need to be drinking more German wines. For so long now, Germany has been known for Riesling. Riesling (50% of world production) and Henkell Trocken. But here's one country - …
This is just a taste of the finest big reds that passed the desk this November. Background notes in italics. Oakridge Original Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 Spends 3 weeks on skins post …
Q: You have $50 to spend on sparkling wine. Do you: a) Buy a bottle of discounted, ‘big house’ NV Champagne? b) Spend the dollars on a premium, likely vintage Australian sparkling? It’s …
Why stop at just 10 great Shiraz for the month? Here is the follow on list of the best 11-34 Shiraz to pass the desk in October 2019. Terre à Terre …
As it says on the tin, here are ten of the best Shiraz to pass the tasting bench this October. A special note to the breadth of Hunter Shiraz from …
'How much is it?'. Peter Lehmann winemaker Nigel Westblade chimes in. 'It's $2,000 a magnum.' Silence. Followed by the sound of furious scribbling. It's rare to completely quieten a pack of typically loud (and …
This month, it's all about Pinot Noir here at Graham HQ, just because we like drinking it. And you'd have to argue that the best Pinot Noir in Australia almost …
I love textured white wines. Alsace field blends? Gimme. Barrel fermented Margaret River Sauv? Yes please. But every year, the 'textural white' segment disappoints. I get that it's a balancing act to …
It's been a rough week or so at Graham HQ, as a sniffly 5 month old meant little sleep and not enough wine... So let's keep this tight. As the name …
Levantine Hill Colleen’s Paddock Pinot Noir 2015 Levantine Hill is the ultra-ambitious Yarra Valley winery of Melbourne property developer Elias Jreissati. Or at least that's what Google tells me. In the …
Not all wines can be great. Plenty are just ok drinks. And some are just bad… Here’s a selection of wines that almost made it in July 2019. I like plenty …
Today is Seminar 2 of the 2019 Negociants Working With Wine Program; a biennial wine masterclass series brought to Australia by premier importer and distributor Negociants Australia. This seminar is focused …
Massolino Barolo 2015 Want to know what the Barolo fuss is about? Why people go nuts about Nebbiolo? Here's one wine that shows the beauty of what Jancis Robinson describes as 'the world's …
At 18 I started working in a small suburban bottleshop, largely to buy cheap beer. It was my first year of university, slogging through physics and chemistry, and a liquor shop seemed like fun. Needless to say I discovered wine, my uni degree morphed into something completely different and wine/beer took over my life.
Twenty years later and I currently spend my days wearing many (wine) hats, mostly as a writer, presenter and marketer.
While wearing my writer cap I write features for the likes of National Liquor News, Gourmet Traveller WINE and the RAS plus I'm a Lifestyle FOOD channel wine expert. Read more about me here or get in touch to book your next wine event with me here.