Yesterday was rosé day but Chapel Hill winemaker Michael Fragos reckons every day should be rosé day. Perhaps it would be if every bottle were as restrained, savoury, elegant, textural, dry and downright gorgeous as this! Sangiovese lends its signature tomato-like savouriness to pink grapefruit, watermelon and guava flavours. $20 at Nick’s.
readThis is the best season for Joshua in years. Teusner’s signature, unoaked GMS is loaded with all kinds of juicy red fruits and lifted violet perfume. It’s a plush, spice-filled and expressive wine with finely poised tannins giving definition to a vibrant, sour cherry finish. $23 at Cracka.
readThese 1933 planted vines have tapped into the minerality of their fine, talcum-powder-like soils, infusing the wine with a mineral texture to match. It’s restrained, backward and tightly coiled, even at five years of age, with a beautiful lemon blossom perfume and crunchy lime and green apple fruit. $24 at Kemeny’s.
readLarry Cherubino’s touch transforms sauvignon into a consummately ageable creature. A cool, zesty and long-lived sauvignon of coiled-up restraint and tremendous persistence. Green apple, lime zest, passionfruit and guava overlay fine, chalky structure and a hint of hazelnut. Give it time to blossom.
readWith signature Toby Barlow polish, this is one of the Barossa’s most crafted sparkling blacks. Parcels of Barossa shiraz stored in old barrels for a decade are freshened with violet and black cherry nuances and flavours of liquorice and black pastilles. It’s poised, persistent and creamy.
readA wine of rich palate presence and great power through a long finish, yet at every moment controlled, energetic and precise, driven by the balanced natural acidity of the Upper Yarra. Great fruit power and intensity of juicy white peach and fleshy grapefruit meet the textural complexity of wild barrel fermentation and lees ageing.
readThe label’s always bothered me and the wine’s never grabbed me – until now. There’s great value in this refreshing southern French rosé (Languedoc shiraz), holding attractive freshness in October 2011. Pomegranate, watermelon and guava with a softly textured structure and almost dry finish. There’s nothing arrogant about this frog, especially at $9.50 at Dan’s.
readA bargain find that I unearthed while judging the Geographe show, this restrained, pure and fruit-focused wine is all about violet and rose petal aromas and a spicy red pepper palate with fine tannin presence. There’s not much in the carpentry department, making for a vibrant and fruity quaffer.
readLarry Cherubino has conjured four refreshing Great Southern rieslings this year, and this is the one that’s price for the masses. A well-gauged lick of sweetness makes it the most approachable of all, while still learning from the crunchy apple and pear and zesty lime tricks of its big sisters. $16 at Dan’s.
readA brilliant vintage for Riebke, ranking among the very best. This is signature Kym Teusner, capturing the plush but poised and consummately balanced glory of northern Barossa shiraz, in all of its rich plum, black cherry and rhubarb depth but – crucially – with vibrant, lifted violet freshness. $18 at Cracka, Kemeny’s and Nick’s.
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