Fox Creek Short Row Shiraz
Fox Creek Short Row Shiraz is a terrific McLaren Vale Shiraz with lovely suppleness of texture. Plum aniseed and rich fruit-cake flavours are woven around spicy oak and light lingering tannin.
Audrey Wilkinson Verdelho
The Audrey Wilkinson Verdelho shows lifted tropical aromas with hints of spice and ripe melon.The palate has lashings of fruit salad and hints of apricot and citrus zest.
Pooles Rock Premiere Semillon
The palate is expansive and gently fruity, with excellent fruit clarity and softness. Overall, the wine is beautifully lemony and full-flavoured. Multi-vineyard sourcing, including from the Soldier Settler vineyard in the Broke Fordwich subregion. Hand-picked fruit, cool-ferment and early bottling to preserve freshness. Alcohol: 11.5%. Closure: screwcap. Date tasted: Feb 2024. Drink: 2024-2029. Price: $48. Rating: 96/100.
Cirillo Shiraz
Red wine artisan, Marco Cirillo, has produced a single vineyard Shiraz with as minimal intervention as possible. Using 90% whole berry and 10% whole bunch as well as natural yeast fermentation without fining or filtering, this Shiraz screams of its terroir. Expressive fruit up front of plums and red berries with small waft of leafy characters. The palate dances across the tongue without hindrance from over use of oak and is a supreme wine for the price.
Mercer Wines Shiraz Nouveau
A beautifully juicy and spicy modern Hunter Valley Shiraz with fruit taking centre stage rather than oak.
Leogate Brokenback Hunter Valley Shiraz
Tyrrell's Special Release Pinot Noir
Goldman Wines JohannesBurg Shiraz
The Johannes family have recently purchased the Onikul Vineyard and renamed it the JohannesBurg Vineyard. This is a sentimental name as the family is of German heritage who were living in South Africa and have moved to Australia. Johannes - Family name;Burg - German for fortress/castleJohannesburg - City in South AfricaJohannesBurg - Family fortress to keep the family safe in Australia. The 2018 vintage was hot and dry and resulted in an early harvest with relatively low yields. The fruit for this Shiraz came from the eastern block on the southern side of the JohannesBurg Vineyard. It was machine harvested on the night of the 7th February from about 8 pm. This was the first vintage for the Johannes family and they worked through the night with Neil Stevens and Graeme Lewis to pick the fruit. The fruit was taken back to the winery on Wilderness Road and placed in the capable hands of the winemaker, Ashley Horner, and his two trusty sidekicks Michael and Callan. The fruit sat overnight before being cold soaked and crushed into open air fermenters. The fruit was extremely concentrated and had beautiful, vibrant colour. The ferment was closely monitored and was pumped over for 15-20 minutes morning and night. Once fermented, the wine was pressed off into two new French Oak Puncheons with the remaining going into 6 x older Saury French Oak barriques. The wine sat on oak for approximately 11 months and was bottled on 27 February, 2019.This Shiraz is very approachable now with cherries and raspberry flavours dominant on the nose and palate. It is quite an elegant wine with plenty of fresh fruit flavours balanced nicely with toasty oak.Limited Release of 260 Dozen.
Margan Verdelho
Produced from old low yielding Hunter Valley vines this Verdelho has lifted lychee lime and tropical fruit aromas and ripe spicy flavours with zippy acidity.
Saltram Mamre Brook Shiraz
Smooth and refined this Shiraz shows intense plum berry and liquorice flavours. Enhanced by maturation in quality oak this is a wine to enjoy now or cellar medium term.