There is no red wine on the shelves with three years of maturity and a street price well under $10 as reliable as Hanwood Cabernet. This is a particularly flattering vintage, capturing the violet florals and primary black- and redcurrants and capsicum that define this variety. $8 at Chambers Cellars, $8.50 at Dan Murphy’s.
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From its mature, estate vines in the Adelaide Hills to its balanced and refined palate, everything about this wine speaks sophistication – except its teeny price. The new vintage is loaded with perfumed blossoms and citrus zest of impressive persistence, line and energy. Soft, chalky minerality completes a long finish. $11 at Greenfields Liquor.
readIn its ultra stylish retro squat bottle for the first time, Clarry looks more dashing than ever. Read the recipe and the price seems inconceivable: Organic estate fruit from vines dating from the 1940s, aged in old oak hogsheads. This cool season has birthed a particularly savoury and spicy style, accented with fresh rhubarb, pepper, […]
readIntroducing your house riesling for the year. One of the perpetual bargains of the Clare has ascended to a place of distinctive mineral definition, chalk-like structure and beautifully refined precision in the great 2012 vintage. It’s got all the fragrant lime blossom florals, granny smith apple crunch and bath salt minerality for which Polish Hill […]
readMcLaren Vale ranks among Australia’s top handful of regions in the cabernet stakes, and wines like this are evidence that its appeal extends well into the realm of affordable pricing. This is an impressively crafted wine of great fruit concentration of deep black- and redcurrants that score a track through the palate, kept lively thanks […]
readThe finest vintage yet for this label has crafted a wine of understated purity and refined elegance, with a textural structure that far out-performs its price. Nicely toned black plum and black cherry fruit flows seamlessly into a refreshingly honed tail of black pepper and high-cocoa-dark-chocolate-textured tannins. $15 at WineBoss.
readMeticulous attention in the vineyard has created a warm vintage wine that encapsulates the soft, chalky mineral structure of Frankland River, while maintaining a high-tensile acid zing and a crunchy granny smith apple flavour profile. Primary lime drop, lemon zest and grapefruit blossom aromatics complete a classic Cossack. $20 at Canterbury Wines and The Wine […]
readAuntsfield’s new single block wines showcase the mineral structure of the particularly old soils of this vineyard in Marlborough’s southern valleys. With vines now reaching the important milestone of thirteen years of age, the wines have ascended to new levels of mineral distinction, here displaying pronounced, slatey minerality. Such finesse, restraint, honed focus and textured […]
readAt its finest, Marlborough is defined by a fragrant rose petal and seductive red cherry elegance that distinguish it from pinot noir hailing from anywhere else in New Zealand. Greywacke champions this style in its beautifully gauged, silky delicacy, supple elegance and nuances of cherry kernel and brambles. $42 at The Wine Emporium.
readThere are unwritten rules of the wine world that only the most courageous and the most clever dare to break. The decision to release the more approachable 2010 before the more tightly coiled 2009 The Vicar is a laudable decision and further proof that this estate champions taste ahead of convention and convenience. But don’t […]
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