Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Joyous Festivus (take your pick of chosen intro). This has been a very weird Christmas for us. Here, situated in the only part of Australia in lockdown, Christmas …
Fun fact: Shiraz makes up over 25% of all winegrapes crushed in Australia, and South Australia has the largest vineyard area with 76,292ha (Wine Australia figures 19/20). But what I want …
Following closely on the Top 20 Chardonnay comes the Top 20 Shiraz of February 2020. For this lineup I dug deeper into the sample pile, searching - perhaps blindly - for …
Here are 24 tasty white and pink wines for your immediate drinking pleasure. Wines that, to my tastes at least, are in the prime of their lives and should be consumed …
Always a pleasure to check in one of the benchmarks of Australian wine and the Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2018 is a beauty. This was only a very quick taste as …
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 October 2019. I like plenty …
Sholto Syrah 2017 Wine's most amazing trick is to take you back to a time and place. One sniff of this Shiraz and I'm back in my garage in 2010, crouching …
Shaw Vineyard Estate Merlot 2014 Canberra Merlot. Now there's not a pair of words you see together often. This is surprisingly serious too. Dominant coffee oak, backed by a meaty, mushroomy …
Let's check in with some recent Shiraz and Semillon releases from the Hunter Valley (and beyond). A pleasure to see more experimentation with traditional Hunter styles too. Making the same wine …
I missed December's Almost Club edition (holidays), so this is a huge crop of almostness... As the name suggests, here are the wines that almost hit the mark for me in …
The premise with this collection is very very simple - I've been hitting the sample pile hard over the past week or two, and these 30 wines were not only …
The title says it all, these are 10 of the best Shiraz to pass the desk this month. This isn't a comprehensive last, as I probably taste somewhere between 6000-7000 wines …
Following on from last month's focus on other reds and Shiraz, this May I'm all about red blends. It's always frustrating that we seem so singularly focused on mono-varietal wines in Australia, as …
Gundog Estate Indomitus Rosa 2017 Super premium rosé from Team Gundog. I like the intention here too, though I much prefer the red and the Semillon. It's a blend of Murrumbateman Cabernet …
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, so a liquor shop seemed like fun. Needless to say, I discovered wine, and my life evolved with a unique dual focus - wine and the environment.
Twenty one years later and I spend my days wearing many (wine) hats, mostly as a writer, presenter and marketer. and judge at wine shows around the world...Read more