Mark Lloyd of Coriole planted Sangiovese in his McLaren Vale vineyards in the mid 1980s and in 1999 he famously won the inaugural Australian Sangiovese Awards – a precursor to the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show, where this delicious 2016 Sangiovese won Gold! It has beautiful bright spiced cherry and plum fruit, with a savoury touch of herbs and spice. It's a terrific food wine - try it with your best Italian pasta dish.

Michael Fragos grew up in McLaren Vale, and spent 14 years at Tatachilla before taking over at Chapel Hill in 2004. A three-time ‘Bushing King’, Michael has also been named best winemaker on the planet! James Halliday notes that his “wine quality is unfailingly excellent” . This one has an expressive nose of blackcurrant, bay leaf cigar box and chocolate. The palate is medium to full-bodied, beautifully structured, with a powerful complexity, fine-grained tannins, velvety texture and long, long finish.

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Medium bodies, with a long even bright palate. This brightness is super silky with spice, violets and plums. A fruit forward style with beautiful complexity.

"Coriole has earned its reputation as one of the blue-blood producers of McLaren Vale” (James Halliday). "What Coriole does better than any other McLaren Vale maker is to fashion wines of such balance and finesse ... equipped with the structure, balance and layers of fruit to unfold slowly” (Jeremy Oliver). We're not arguing with these fine critics! Clark Hill, named after the land on which the Coriole estate was built, is an impressively rich blend of lush Cabernet planted in 1988, and spicy Shiraz planted in 1969 when Coriole was set up. Savour subtle lavendar aromas and a melee of plum, cassis and redcurrant flavours lifted by elegant, exotic spice.

Full of finesse and flavour. Fresh mulberry, dark cherry and violet aromas rise from the glass and flow through to the palate, where blue fruits dance with olive, coffee and wood spice flavours. Medium-bodied, balanced, with power to burn. New French oak used to mature 20 per cent of the wine, with the remainder aged in neutral French oak. Only 240 dozen produced. Unfined, unfiltered, vegan, low sulphur.

Grenache is enjoying a well-deserved moment, with a new generation of talented Aussie winemakers delivering deliciously fresh, approachable wines. This McLaren Vale Grenache is a superb example, from the exciting small-batch project Marsc Wine Co. Bringing acclaimed winemakers and prestige vineyards together covertly under a ‘masked’ label, they’re able to deliver great quality wines for brilliantly low prices. We can’t reveal who made this Grenache, but we can say that they have picked up some of Australia’s highest winemaking honours – namely, TWO Bushing Kings and a Jimmy Watson.

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.