My goodness, Pizzini is flying so high this year it’s about to plough into the Victorian Alps! The aromatics going on here are mesmerising – strawberry, bouquet garni and a wisp of hearth. Gorgeous, light and textural; think ballerina, not biggest loser.
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Perfume and structure, sensitivity and backbone, enigmatic, articulate, fragile, daredevil. Does pinot noir tells us more about Jeffrey Grosset than riesling ever could? The new vintage speaks in hushed tones but it has much to reveal.
readSlender, sexy bottle, stunning wine from the instant they halved the sugar a few years back. Love love! Fresh as. More perfume than ground floor at Myer. When it’s time to talk Turkey, it’s $16 at myCellars.
readWinter’s coming – time to sink yourself into a big, fat, plush velvet sofa of Barossa plum juice! This is comfort wine of the highest order and it will leave you feeling snuggly and warm in a nanosecond. $17 at Dan Murphy’s.
readThis is a stonking price for an All Black noir. And it’s precisely that, packed with as much deep, rich black fruit as has ever been seen in the red zone of Marlborough, but with that regional elegance and poise that keeps its testosterone well out of harm’s way. $25 at WineStar.
readIf the greatness of rosé champagne is measured in the fairy-touch of delicacy and the whisper of finesse, Billecart is the greatest. Dollar-for-champagne-dollar, no other aperitif speaks with such haunting fidelity.
readBaby Noble One (Noble Two? Noble, too!) at half the price! It’s brimming with the same sweet surrender of honey, apricot jam and marmalade, but that cut of crispness on the finish leaves it looking dashingly sophisticated for $11 at WineStar.
readWhen you’re in the Hunter, don’t mention the war. Best wine of the Sydney show this year – Barossa Semillon, and it’s $25 at Kemeny’s this week! Rapier-tight, mineral, with white-knuckle adrenaline on every corner, this is a semillon on two wheels and it’s headed straight for the horizon. Hang on.
readIt is preposterous that New Zealand’s finest red may not be a pinot; inconceivable that it could eclipse every Euro, Aussie and everywhere-else red so far this year. Such are the contradictions of La Collina. Hawke’s Bay syrah with pepper, graphite, coal, flint, iron filings and the textural structure of dreams.
readIt should be S.G. Pannell. No one in Australia does grenache better than Stephen Pannell. His solo rendition is from ancient McLaren Vale dry grown bush vines, which basked in the 09 season, producing gorgeous violet perfume and red berry compote fruit, laced together with masterfully textured tannins.
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