Gold in colour, this wine sings from the glass with roasted cashew, almond meal, ripe pear and stone fruits. The palate melds a perfect balance of white peach and classy French oak with exceptional length and fine acidity. Texturally this wine is rich yet svelte, a ripple of power gliding under a sophisticated, silken sheen.

A Gold, 92pt beauty. Château La Clarière is blessed with 50 different vineyard plots, all ideally situated on the superb limestone plateau from where both Saint-Emilion and Castillon’s finest wines hail. However, the grapes from the Enclos single vineyard, literally five metres from Saint-Emilion’s priciest Grands Crus Classés, have always been kept separate. It’s a vineyard surrounded by hedgerows, shrubs and dotted with trees – its most biodiverse; farmed organically too. All Merlot, carefully fermented on the estate, with regular plunge down and a year’s ageing in part new and part seasoned French oak barrels, it’s a very fine, velvety claret. Open early and preferably decant. It will make a very handsome partner to roast red meats or a cheeseboard.

Savour a silky, ripe and utterly charming, fine-dining Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. Surrounded by extensive parkland blessed with century-old trees, Château Montlabert is a grand, imposing, 18th-century estate. It lies within the lieu-dit Grace Dieu that lends the property its name. Its vineyards comprise 13 hectares, all in one block, planted on deep sandy, gravelly soils with deep-lying clay to help retain moisture in the drier years. Their wine is a charming, silky red made mostly, as you’d expect, from Merlot, with a little of both Cabernets to lend cassis notes to the deep plum flavour. 14 months in French oak barrels, half of those new, lend layers of complexity and subtle oak nuances. Let the wine breathe for an hour or two before serving with boeuf bourguignon, confit de canard or a wild mushroom risotto.

Made by Rockstar winemaker Ben Riggs, the McLaren Vale Shiraz is as true an expression as one could hope for. The fifth release of the wine is based around a core of pristine fruit with dark red berries, hints of spice, earth, tar and leather and with seamlessly integrated oak. Ripe tannins are apparent but not overwhelming, meaning this is a wine which can be enjoyed now or in the next 10-15 years.

Chateau Robin is a family property, 8.7 hectares wide that produces an exquisite red, purple wine, classified “Saint Emilion” AOC certified. Robin is situated downhill of the famous town of Saint Emilion, at the very heart of the most famous and reputed French vineyards, at Saint Christophe des Bardes, near Bordeaux.The nose on the Robin is open and aromatic and pure. The texture is wonderful, with refined tannins, and plenty of salinity and length.

Consistency has been the hallmark of Majella Shiraz for some time now. Ripe fresh raspberry and mulberry fruit is supported by fine tannins and subtle oak.

Typical earthy Hunter Shiraz, with leather and tobacco notes.

This Shiraz Viognier has aromas of spice, red fruit and cedar. It is very aromatic with the same spiced fruit flavour persisting throughout the palate.

Intense yet elegant. A clean, precise and powerful expression of dark berry fruits, fine tannins and intergrated oak.