Balgownie’s best work is in reds, but Tony Winspear has proven his hand with some white outliers. This Balgownie Estate Viognier 2019is the first straight estate Viognier bottling since 2010 with …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Tim Smith Eden Valley Viognier 2018 Easily one of the best Viognier in the country, although it's a shallow pool as so many producers get the V-weed so wrong. What I …
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 …
I love great Viognier. Textural, viscous, rich, barrel matured Viognier is absolutely delicious. But so much V weed is underwhelming, ordinary, and either under or overripe. Too much. Too often. But this …
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 …
Wine shows cop a lot of flack. You need only read the feedback to my post on the 2018 Sydney Royal Wine Show exhibitors tasting to see that. But is …
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 …
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 …
It's impressive to see the volume of Rhone whites in this lineup of Yarra Wines tasted recently. A reminder that the Yarra Valley is more than just Chard/Pinot/Cab/Shiraz and makes …
Forgive the clickbait title, but that was how the 'Yves Cuilleron vs Australia' tasting I went to today was pitched. This event, organised by the local Cuilleron distributors, saw 4 of …
While I didn't get much time to look at these new releases from Yarra Valley's Yeringberg, it was a pleasure to check in with wines that I really like. Sandra …
It's that time again - time to roundup a selection of wines that didn't quite make it onto the site. Some because of time and space, others because they failed …
Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2015 If anyone is going to get Viognier right, then surely it would be Yalumba, who have famously embraced the V weed as their USP variety. Good luck …
Dub Style No.1 Tangerine McLaren Vale Viognier 2016 Tangerine. I like it. Much better than 'amber', which the Orange region winemakers (laughably) thought might stick as a descriptor for orange (skin …
Working With Wine Highlights: Sweet Wines Flight 1 It seems like the second half of 2016 has passed by in a flash. Year. Gone. It's only now, however, that I'm finally in …
It's that time again. These wines didn't quite make it up onto the site in October... Yelland & Papps Devote Roussanne 2015 From Greenock. Wild fermented, basket pressed and matured in 29% …
This Dub Style No.1 Bubbly 2016 is one of the most entertaining wines to have crossed my desk in a while. From the ever-fertile mind of Dudley Brown and the talented Irina Santiago-Brown …
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 environment.
Twenty years later and I spend my days wearing many (wine) hats, mostly as a writer, presenter and marketer.
I now judge at wine shows around the world, sit on the Australian Wine List of the Year awards panel and was once a Wine Journalism Young Gun (but baby that was years ago).
Currently, I write features for a variety of publications including National Liquor News, Gourmet Traveller WINE and the RAS, plus I'm a former Lifestyle FOOD channel wine expert.
In 2019 and 2020 I was voted in the Top 30 Best Wine Critics in The World, and in my spare time, I'm a sucker for punishment and run trail ultra marathons, much to the delight of my long-suffering family. Read more about me here or get in touch to book your next wine event with me here