Oak is the most important and most expensive input in many wines after the grapes themselves. We talk a lot about the origins of grapes and the techniques of winemaking, but how much do we know about the sources of barrels and how they’re made? As modern winemakers hone in on the detail of every […]

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Blended reds create quite a stir. When a little Hunter Valley estate launched a new blend this month, no one expected it to rouse such controversy. “You’ll confuse the message!” accused one critic. “People won’t understand the concept.” Lake’s Folly has bottled just two wines exclusively from its legendary little Hunter Valley vineyard for precisely […]

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An expansion into cool regions and a change of focus into the premium wine sector have revitalised Australia’s second-largest family-owned winery. Tyson Stelzer discovers the new De Bortoli. “Premiumisation” is the buzzword of modern Australian wine: out with the commodity wines of warm, broadacre inland zones, in with cool regions and premium wines. The De […]

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Drama underwrites the story of Champagne like no other region in the wine world. This place has always been a flashpoint of tension, from the defeat of Attila the Hun in the 5th century, the founding of the Knights Templar in the 12th, the planning of the crusades in the 13th, fighting the Russians in […]

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Champagne labels Vintage and non-vintage Champagne’s tumultuous weather makes its harvest conditions some of the most erratic in the wine world. The region has developed its style to correct challenging vintages by blending wines from older vintages (‘reserve wines’) to create non-vintage (NV) blends. Vintage wines are created in smaller volumes and only in the […]

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Philosophy Buy strategically Most wines don’t inherently improve in the cellar, so it’s more astute to choose every bottle purposefully for its potential to improve rather than haphazardly assembling a collection of wines that you happen to like. Broadly speaking, for Australian wines, I’ve had much greater success with cabernet sauvignon and shiraz and their […]

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Liquid assets or retirement stash, the cellar has its rewards. I’ve never seen a room of wine show judges stunned by the age of a wine, not because of its sheer maturity but its extreme youth. A barrel sample of fortified Seppeltsfield Para Vintage Tawny, harvested just five months earlier, silenced the room by its […]

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Ray Beckwith, considered to be one of the founding fathers of Australian winemaking, died peacefully in the Barossa Valley on November 7 2012, aged 100. Beckwith will be remembered for his 1930s discovery of how to stabilise wine and protect it from spoilage, laying the foundations for modern winemaking. His work at Penfolds from 1935 […]

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From the coolest depths of Tasmania and upper reaches of the Adelaide Hills, to the alpine foothills of Victoria and New South Wales, Australia is privileged to a wealth of sources of refined sparkling wines. The secret to all great sparkling wine is the elegance and acidity infused by a cool climate. In a country […]

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To buy or not to buy parallel imported champagne? It’s hard to go past the tantalising discounts offered on familiar champagne brands in recent years. A strong dollar and record Australian consumption coinciding with global decline have smoothed the waters for more champagne than ever to arrive on our shores – and not all via […]

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