Is there such a thing as a bloke’s wine and a ladies’ wine, asks Tyson Stelzer. I recently did something I never expected to do. I bought myself a women’s deodorant. Before you jump to conclusions, let me explain. My favourite men’s deodorant was discontinued and I was quickly becoming disenchanted auditioning replacements in the […]

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Australia’s great white is back, says Tyson Stelzer. What would you name Australia’s best varietal wine at the moment? The buzz among wine judges this year might come as a surprise. Chardonnay. Australia’s great white grape has had a tumultous journey since its humble beginnings in this country just forty years ago. Between the mid-80s […]

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Australia’s fortified wine capital is reinventing itself. When the door of the old barrel shed at Chambers Rosewood winery is thrown open, visitors are greeted by a breath of warm air of intoxicating aroma, rich, sweet and generously inviting. Inside the humble, dusty space within, scores of giant, ancient barrels aligned in haphazard rows emanate […]

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In the tiny outback town of Dunkeld in Victoria, Australia, it’s a nightly occurrence to spot sommeliers dashing across the highway clutching a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, an old Château Latour or an Australian icon. Plucked from a giant climate-controlled cellar, a steady stream of prized bottles make their way to The Royal […]

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Champagne rosé has never been more popular, says Tyson Stelzer. It wasn’t long ago that we wouldn’t be caught dead drinking pink. How times have changed. Rosé champagne is now a highlight of every champagne dinner I host, and connoisseurs can’t seem to get enough of it. So much so that Champagne is struggling to […]

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Australia’s greatest wines may not yet have been made and its finest vineyard sites might still be undiscovered. Trailblazers into new wine regions offer drinkers an exciting diversity of new wine styles. Australian winemaking identity Brian Croser is on a mission. His ambition is not simply to create a brand and sell wine, but to […]

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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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