Matt Burton has made a few Shiraz from the Hilltops in recent years, and they offer a good counterpoint to the mid-weight Hunter Gundog wines and the sometimes lavish Canberra …
There is so much promise in the Hilltops that I'm always surprised we don't see more focus on the region. Plenty of mature alternative plantings in the ground too, as …
Not all wines can be great. Plenty are just ok drinks. And some are just bad. Here is a selection of wine that almost made it in December 2021 & January …
Not all wines can be great. Plenty are just ok drinks. And some are just bad. Here is a selection of wines that almost made it in July and August 2021. Sometimes …
For some reason I was sent two bottles of this Curly Flat Chardonnay 2019 for review rather than one. Normally when this happens, my family and friends score the extras. …
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 …
Finally, a serious Australian rosé worth your time. The Freeman family have enviable plantings of Rondinella at their Prunevale vineyard and it's a grape that seems well suited to textural …
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 …
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 …
After last week's feedback I'm going to be sticking to just one roundup a month on site going forward (thanks everyone for the feedback). This roundup features a kaleidoscope of Australian …
Every time you look, the range of wines from Hunter Valley-based winemaker Gundog Estate keeps expanding, now with more Hunter & Canberra wines than ever. Gundog recently took over the old …
It’s that time of the month again – time to collate a range of wines that didn’t quite make the grade. Plenty opened this month, which is why this list is …
It's that time again! These wines haven't quite made it into full review status this month. I'm a bit behind (living out of a suitcase does that), hence why this list …
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. But then, I fell in love with wine and craft beer, and it took over my life.
Twenty three years later and I spend my days wearing many beverage hats and judge at wine shows around the world...Read more