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 …
The flagship red for Robert Stein and named after the boat that brought the Stein family to Australia in 1838. The Robert Stein Kinnear 2014 is 97% Shiraz and 3% Cabernet representing the ‘best fruit …
This is the year to be getting into (or back into) Australian Riesling. I hate broad vintage generalisations in Australia (which is too massive and varied for any sort of generalisation to hold), but for many …
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 …
This is the third part of a look at rosé - one of the fastest growing categories in the Australian wine industry. Best to start here. While this is a roundup of 'the rest' what's most …
It must be tough pushing the Riesling wagon in Mudgee. I mean, we're talking about a region that already has challenges with its identity, let alone focusing on a variety that is (unfairly) a hard sell. …
Huntington Estate Mudgee Gewurztraminer 2015 Now this is a surprise packet. I've got a massive soft spot for Gewurtz, but this Huntington Estate is good. Concentrated and varietal, the nose a riot of lychee fruit, before a …
di Lusso - great pizza and solid, varietally correct, Italian inspired wines. Now there's a good recipe for a cellar door experience, and Mudgee's di Lusso do it well. Only challenge really is finding the wines …
It doesn't get much attention but there is a fair bit of Semillon in Mudgee, with Robert Stein, Huntington Estate, Burundulla and Bunnamagoo (amongst others) all releasing dry table examples, and even more producers make …
I've always counted Huntington Estate as one of the forgotten labels of the wine industry. The sort that just to blend into the fabric of the wine industry and either keep on keeping on, working …
Firstly, Happy Easter, I hope you had a cracking weekend. I've spent the last few days in Byron Bay, drinking beer and hanging by the pool. Amazing how much better you feel after a few days of …
'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 …
While I don't always share his point of view (he fired some cheap shots at me years ago and wouldn't print the replies. But that's another story), I read with interest Tony Keys' investigation of …
Curiously, I had just one glass of fizz on NYE, even though 3 bottles of Krug were in the fridge. New Years Eve does that sometimes... Anyway, for this fizz roundup I pulled in a collection of …
I'm fighting through one of those nasty hangovers that just attacks your stomach today, the sort of morning after where you just feel like someone has punched you in the guts. How does one slay such …
Eloquesta Shiraz Petit Verdot 2011 (Mudgee, NSW)14.5%, Screwcap, $32 Here's another charismatic wine from Stuart Olsen, this time a blend of whole bunch Shiraz and Petit Verdot. Actually, there seems to be a little fiddling happening with …
Lowe Organic Block 8 Shiraz 2011 (Mudgee, NSW) 13.7%, Screwcap, $35 A tricky vintage in Mudgee. This starts juicy and rich but the palate can't quite keep up, looking dry, tannic and a little dried out. There's …
Eloquesta 'A Boy with Fruit' No.1 (Mudgee, NSW)14.5%, Screwcap, $28 Stuart Olsen, Eloquesta winemaker, told me recently that he can't get the 'set-minded, grumpy old men wine reviewers to appreciate what he's doing'. With wines like this …
I'm back at university this week in sunny Dookie, completing my residential block for this semester's Managing Grapevine Physiology subject. It's always a pleasurable change of pace to slip back into student life and when the …
Tinja No Added Preservative White 2013 (Mudgee, NSW) 11.1%, Screwcap, $22 David Lowe has been tinkering with preservative free wines since the 2009, with this white the latest carefully finessed release in the line. Note the wording here …
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.