Bright crimson in colour with a light floral bouquet, exuding red berry flavours with gently drying tannins &; the masterful use of French oak add to the balanced complexity providing a wine to enjoy young or allow time to develop in the cellar.

This is the inaugural release of Murdoch Hill’s Jupiter Sangiovese, but not its first rodeo with the variety. Winemaker Michael Downer has been working with Sangiovese from a well-established vineyard in Forreston in the northern sector of the Adelaide Hills since 2019. For years, he used the fruit to make his bright, savoury rosé and often included a portion in his Red Blend. The 2023 season was cool in the Hills, providing long hang-time for the Sangiovese. The resulting quality was too good for Downer to resist bottling his first Sangiovese red. The vines were planted in 1996 at 500 metres on steep, west-facing slopes in soils rich in ironstone. The wholly destemmed fruit fermented in tank. After 10-14 days, the wine was pressed to seasoned barriques for nine months, followed by a further nine months in a single seasoned foudre. “The extended maturation allowed the wine to knit together beautifully,” Michael explained. “There’s a lovely red fruit profile, with true Sangiovese tannins and delicious savouriness, too.” It’s a vibrant, bright, medium-bodied Sangiovese, full of red fruits, spice and subtle woody herb notes. It’s a smashing first release—just a lovely expression of Aussie Sangiovese.

Nine Lives Stone Wall Shiraz 2021 is deep purple in hue with aromas of dark fruits, plum, blackberry, and hints of cinnamon and nutmeg spice. The palate leads with generous flavours of blackberry and satsuma plum, alongside spice, toasty oak and graphite. The palate is framed by fine silky tannins and persistent fruit length.

95pt Great Value Adelaide Hills Shiraz – “an excellent example of what the Adelaide Hills can do with Shiraz… its “flavours reaching to all corners” (Halliday). From a cellar owned by Ben and Clare Anderson, with vineyards planted at 600m – wine quality and the panoramic views are very impressive. In The Halliday Wine Companion, Campbell Mattinson calls this 95pt 2022 Shiraz: "… both warm and rich, its flavours reaching to all corners, but then it's spicy and meaty too. It's an excellent example of what the Adelaide Hills can do with Shiraz. Sweet cherries, an array of roasted nut and deli meat characters, plum-filled depths and rounds of black pepper, cloves, anise and gum leaf. It's complex, full bodied, structured and moreish. 95pts. Great value.”

Zontes Footstep has been on a quest to find and grow the worlds best white varieties in regions that express the fruits best attributes for more than a decade. Our Pinot Noir comes from one of the finest cool-climate vineyards located in the Adelaide Hills. The soils in this vineyard are ancient; research estimates the soils are 1800 million years old, mostly gravel with limestone/calcium silicates and ferrous pebbles spread throughout. Hand-pruned, harvested and made it is our holotype for Pinot Noir. Winemaking Whole bunches of hand-selected and picked in the cool of the early morning dawn. Destemmed without crushing the fruit. 30% of this was the whole cluster fermented, while the remaining fruit was crushed and went through traditional open fermentation with 30 days of extended skin contact. These parcels were packed into 30% new and seasoned French oak hogsheads to mature and take on the character for seven months. Deepish red with a healthy tinge of purple hue. Dark cherry aromas, rich and ripe, fruit-driven with abundant spice, nettle characters. Red cherries and plum are to the fore followed by some subtle hints of fresh rocket and anise. Medium-bodied driven by cherry again hints of strawberry sasparilla root and dried oregano. Damson plums and cinnamon kick in with notes of cedar-like flavours and tannins. Long aftertaste of ripe red cherries/plums, subtle anise and spicy cedar notes. Absolutely delicious.