While this wine’s predecessor, Richelieu 2006, hailed from Bob McLean’s block high atop Mengler Hill, the glorious grenache vintage of 2009 permitted a very different story to unfold. Sourced from dry grown bush vines in a core block for Melton’s Nine Popes Blend on the Barossa Valley floor, this is the quintessential Barossa grenache. It […]

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I go to great lengths to give red wines of greatness every chance to reveal themselves: double decanting, an assessment on the spot, a retaste half a day later and again the following day. On opening, this mataro shiraz blend showcased polished black fruits within a rustic, brittle tannin exoskeleton of firm, mouth-filling, earthy mataro […]

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Small volume, artisan-crafted reds rarely come as affordable or as readily available as this. A beautifully restrained, honed and textured finish is the trademark of each of Tash Mooney’s wines, here bringing control and definition to generous, up-front blackberry and blackcurrant fruit. There’s an air of lifted violet perfume and an undercurrent of tempranillo’s savoury […]

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Charlie Melton introduced me to the new vintage of ROV on his fabled veranda last month by saying, “If we had a year that we wanted to show people as the archetypal ROV, 2012 would be that year. We would love to make it this way every year, in colour, aromatics and structure. It’s a […]

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With the 2010 reds not yet unleashed, Moppa was the highlight of my recent pilgrimage to Rockford. Ben has built a real freshness into this style, and it’s impressively backward after four years under cork. Well-defined black fruits and cola meet a peppery, spicy and edgy red fruits demeanour, with lingering raspberry fruit persistence, medium-bodied […]

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There’s not a ripple or crease to delineate each of the varieties in this consummately crafted blend of mataro, shiraz, grenache and cinsault. The florals and spices on display here are exotic and captivating: dried flowers, red cherries, greengage plums, mixed spice and pepper. The delight of the bouquet flows all the way through the […]

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Introducing one of the greats in the lineage of Turkey Flat Cabernet, a vintage that captures both the concentration and the varietal definition of Barossa cabernet – a delicate tug-of-war that rarely finds such balance. Cabernet’s hallmark blackcurrants, capsicum, leaf and tobacco play with considerable distinction, over a backdrop of finely-tuned dark chocolate French oak. […]

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Pronounced, glossy blackberry and black pastille fruit showcase the immense fruit generosity of this sensational vintage, brilliantly balanced by a carefully honed finish of firm, finely textured tannins. For such up-front sweetness and juicy, jubey generosity to pull into a finish of such tangy and refined demeanour is rare indeed, and reason to hunt down […]

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Barossa cabernet offered little to inspire until the cool season of 2002, and since then its trajectory has been breathtaking – primarily because its most talented practitioners seem to have learnt to draw out a varietal integrity hitherto unknown in this warm region. A wine like this plays an important role in your wine repertoire […]

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It doesn’t get much bigger than Barossa durif, and this thing is potent. Its powerful, impenetrable black depth is densely packed with liquorice, coal, black olives, black jubes, plum pudding and every black fruit you could conjure. It’s a testimony to Pete Schell’s mastery that, in the midst of this maelstrom, it never deviates from […]

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