I'm steadily making a dent in the sample pile at the moment, after getting massively behind after my little one was born. She's 8 weeks old now (and beautiful, in my completely unbiased opinion), so things …
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 January. Some are just nice …
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 most quintessentially smashable Australian …
This edition of the Almost Club is a few days late as I was busily not doing much in Noosa (photo attached. We love Noosa). Here than are 20 wines that almost hit the mark in …
Oh yes, this is a big edition! As the name suggests, these are the 34 wines that almost made the Australian Wine Review top grade (of 17/20 or 90/100+) this month. Some missed the mark by a …
A self explanatory title, here are 12 of the best 12 Chardonnay to pass the desk in July 2018. If anything, this list just highlights the high standard of Chardonnay in Australia. Still our most planted white …
Obviously it's July now (not June), but I did a quick trawl through the tasting book today and it revealed an interesting stat - Riesling, Chardonnay and Semillon make up the bulk of the white …
There is no reason why this tasting should be so bad. Yet every year I line up a collection of textural white wines and every year it's disappointing. Except that this lineup didn't suck at all. …
Here are a few wines that almost made it in February (and a day late I know). A few serious disappointments here, and a few solid, simple wines. That Ferngrove was notably unbalanced - what's happening …
Here are a few of the wines that have passed the desk this month and almost made the grade. Some weren't far off the mark, others are absolute disasters. A few big disappointments of note: The …
I know that plenty of people dislike these larger roundup style posts, but following on from my list of the Chardonnay hits of the summer, it seems only natural that I present 10 of the …
As you can see the volume of posts has dropped off a bit lately as I'm still not feeling great. My ankle issues turned out to be an arthritis flare up, and the last few …
Here's a selection of wines that were almost great. Some are just good, solid wines that are occasionally unready, through to slightly underwhelming/unexciting, and rounded out with a few wines that miss the mark completely. Why post …
Castelli Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 Castelli's recent form has been excellent, with a line of superb Chardonnay and Cabernet (in particular). This Estate Cab is another fine release. What appeals here is the perfection of balance. It's …
Galafrey Dry Grown Great Southern Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 It's easy to make generalisations when we see wine jargon. Whole bunch. Old vines. Dry grown. All of it fits in that space that sits between wine marketing …
Galafrey Dry Grown Reserve Riesling 2016 Following on in this line of '16 Riesling comes another crazy cheap wine. Is Riesling our most under-priced variety? It would be easy to make a case in the positive... The …
Chardonnay is the most popular grape in my house. By a margin. Pinot rates highly when winter comes along, but Chardie is the champ. I didn't take this 2014 Castelli Estate Il Liris Chardonnay home, but …
I'm moving at the moment, which means that my whole world is in a box in one place or another - everything feels misplaced, even though it is not lost (theoretically). It's an unnerving state of …
Xabregas are one of the better proponents of off-dry Riesling in Oz, even though I prefer the less-sweet bottlings. This Xabregas X2 Riesling is classified as 'sweet' on the back label (according to the valuable …
'Arguably the best value variety from Australia in decades' That's the Decanter opinion on Australian dry Riesling, a wine that - despite endless coaxing from wine writers, sommeliers, retailers and producers - continues to not grow …
At 18 I started working in a small suburban bottleshop, largely to buy cheap beer. It was my first year of university, doing a degree that I didn't really like, 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.
Almost 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.