The Vinum Bordeaux Glass is my usual choice for tasting chardonnay and pinot noir, but when I open a special bottle to drink it slowly, this is the glass for it. The more delicate and intricate the wine, the more the wider profile of this glass coaxes it out. If you’re shelling out for a […]

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Vinum XL is the supersized version of Vinum, making this the largest champagne glass I’ve ever seen. It’s the most expensive wine glass I’ve purchased, and the finest. It provides space for a champagne to open up like a wine glass, while drawing down to a fine point to focus the bead. If you’re serious […]

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Botrytis riesling is one style that the multitalented Yarra Valley has never really mastered. Until the cool, wet 2011 vintage. Suddenly, there is sufficient acidity to support an impressive 180g/L of sweet honeyed, unctuous, exotic intensity (that’s more sugar than Coke!). The balance here is spot on, with a crunchy grapefruit backbone providing definition to […]

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Check the recipe and marvel: Shiraz from every vintage since the eighties (and some from the early sixties and seventies), a hogshead of Moda Cabernet Merlot every year, liqueured with old Australian fortifieds. The result is serious complexity and intensity: game, warm black olives and dark chocolate, swirling around primary black cherry and plum fruit, […]

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If you thought you couldn’t afford truly great vintage champagne, this is your wine. I have waited in eager anticipation for seven months for Lanson 2002 to land in Australia, and oh the rejoicing when it hit my local Dan Murphy’s last week! The most profound Lanson since 1996 carries a formidable tension between energetic […]

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There is an understated effortlessness about this wine that will, time permitting, define it among the greatest Cape Mentelles of all. Every molecule of complexity and detail have been intricately assembled, with each nuance of young Margaret River cabernet character methodically ticked off, yet it upholds an astonishing approachability and an alcohol reading of just […]

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2009 was the pinnacle of a run of five great vintages in the west, and with an almost equal share of Great Southern in the blend, this wine shows that the blessings flowed beyond Margaret River. It’s everything that you’d expect of the finest vintages of Abercrombie, yet, simultaneously, more vibrant lift, deeper black fruits, […]

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I cannot think of an Australian wine more daring than this. The wine that Bill Downie describes as “the pinot noir I’ve never made” is a blend of shiraz, a dash of pinot noir and a touch of sauvignon blanc. 100% whole bunch with no punch downs and no pump overs should not work, least […]

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Sacred Hill alone is sufficient reason to never gamble on another cleanskin again. When I broadcast word that it was slashed to $3.75 (half price!) at 1st Choice and Dan’s this week I almost incited a stampede. Households all over the country are revelling in a house wine with surprising integrity of balance and varietal […]

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Tahbilk marsanne is an institution. From estate vines now averaging thirty years of age, it’s charming straight out of the fermenter, it ages magically and it’s impressed me over four decades. 2011 is a particularly outstanding vintage, fresher and zestier than ever and carrying a wonderfully persistent texture. All the classic lemon and lime flavours […]

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