Unashamedly Tasmanian, unashamedly 2011 and unashamedly under $15 this week! A taut and honed chardonnay that carries the high-tensile acidity of the vintage with poise, making for a refreshing aperitif style of pretty white peach and lemon blossom. $14.25 at Dan’s.

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Peter and Mark Saturno put on a four course tapas spread in the middle of their idyllic vineyard at Macclesfield every Sunday afternoon. Check it out next time you’re in the Hills, and spend a lazy afternoon glugging Red Bucket. This well made, medium-bodied blend is an appealing bistro style, capturing lively berry fruits, rhubarb […]

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Graceful elegance is not limited to Deviation Road’s outstanding sparkling and aromatic white wines, but on show even its entry red. It carries a restrained fruit profile of impressively focused dark berries, cherries and plums, finely textured tannins and a classic Adelaide Hills cool climate pepper focus.

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Tune in. This is the best sub-$20 pinot ever to appear in Wine Taste Weekly. If you’ve never visited Shaw & Smith, you’ve probably never discovered its aptly named second label, Incognito. The good news is that you can enjoy these great value and handsomely labelled wines from the comfort of your living room by […]

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If you thought I gave Incognito Pinot a big wrap, wait for its brother. This is in every way baby Shaw & Smith Shiraz – declassified, but, goodness, it can’t have been far off making the cut! Beautifully textured, elegantly refined, a wine of style and persistence – words rarely heard under $20. Excellent complexity […]

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The 2011 vintage has given birth to a wine of true cool climate credentials, more elegant and refreshing than ever. The classic, spicy, pink pepper edginess of the vintage is on full display here, with an underlying theme of tangy red cherries, finely structured texture and good persistence. If elegant pinot is your bag, you’ll […]

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There will be much rejoicing over the 2012 vintage for many years to come, and here’s some of the first proof that red grapes lapped up this idyllic season as eagerly as whites. This is a rosé of impressive balance and stylistic restraint, achieving both refreshing delicacy and characterful, flavoursome style. Notes of savoury tomato, […]

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In the talented hands of Tash Mooney, this is a beautifully defined expression of this single vineyard at Oakbank. It displays excellent fruit concentration, ripe and full, reminiscent of black plums and blackberries, layered with black pepper, liquorice straps, violets and that unmistakable mineral note of rain on granite that characterises Adelaide Hills shiraz. A […]

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I have long admired La Línea as one of Australia’s more authentic takes on tempranillo, and 2011 is a particularly flattering vintage for this wine. The cool season has coaxed out more varietal integrity than ever, in an elegant and poised demeanour of black fruits, mixed spice and classic 2011 pink pepper notes, topped off […]

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All of Barratt’s pinot noir is harvested, fermented and sent to barrel as if it’s going to be reserve wine, and it’s only a barrel selection down the track that declassifies part of the crop to this second label. From two of the Adelaide Hills’ great pinot vineyards, the result is predictably impressive, and 2009 […]

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