An eye-catching electric green hue pre-empts a riesling of notable restraint and purity of focused lime and granny smith apple perfume. A tense, honed palate is defined by pure, pristine lime fruit. Give it time in the cellar to uncoil. $20 at Canterbury Wines and Wine List Australia.

read

Notes of mandarin and red apple provide generosity to a spicy kaffir lime and taut lemon backbone, overlaid with lily blossom aromatics. A style of considerable concentration, carrying with even amplitude through a long palate, sustained by refreshing acidity and excellent slate-derived mouth feel. $22 at Discount Wines.

read

Kerri Thompson’s new Rizza Reload (as she puts it) is a delightfully crafted style that dares to take Clare riesling to happy new places where succulence and wild-ferment-derived texture are more at home than searing acidity. Soft, supple, juicy generosity of baked apple, clove, lime drops and even exotic star fruit ride through a finely […]

read

To capture refined grace in the midst of pronounced mineral definition is to encapsulate the thumbprint of a vineyard in a bottle of wine – an art form of the highest order. In this ideal, no Mount Horrocks Riesling is more profound than 2012. There is a graceful elegance to its primary floral lift, and […]

read

There is no surprise that Kerri Thompson occupies a privileged position among a handful of the most talented winemakers in the Clare today. The surprise comes in that she has secured her reputation with wine styles hitherto unheard of in these parts. In this pursuit, Churinga Riesling 2012 is a milestone wine. Not only because […]

read

De Iuliis Steven vineyard claimed no less than four trophies at the Hunter Wine Show last month, but it looked a little grumpy the day I tasted it, completely overshadowed by its equal-priced LDR sibling. From 21-year-old-vines on Lovedale Road (presumably abbreviated LDR because ‘Lovedale’ was already taken), this is a wine of poise, balance […]

read

There’s impressive concentration scaffolded into this ageworthy creation. A particularly deep and intense core of black plum and blackberry fruit manages to maintain a delightful, crunchy vibrancy. Dark chocolate oak is well balanced, carrying the fruit long into the finish, underlined by firm, fine tannins, built for the cellar. $45 direct.

read

This is about as dark as Hunter shiraz gets, and then some – a Vader hue that could only be achieved in a dry-grown vineyard, yielding a miniscule 500kg of grapes per acre. A controlled generosity results, at first coiled and focused, then ramping up to impressive concentration of black plum skins, black cherries, liquorice, […]

read

Kiss is a leading light in new age Hunter Shiraz, and 2010 is an outstanding example, capturing impressive fruit concentration within a refined, medium-bodied shell. There is wonderful intensity of enticingly pure black plum, black cherry and liquorice fruit, with a violet lift, yet at every moment restrained and calm, at a refreshing 13.5% alcohol. […]

read

Meerea Park’s flagship shiraz encapsulates all the power of 2010, embracing the juicy fruit intensity that characterises the vintage, yet doing so with great precision. This is wine of focused, ripe black plum and blackberry fruits over a field of violets and layers of white pepper, hovering above a finely textured plane of soft tannins. […]

read