#Australia

Aug 4

WINE OF THE WEEK: Running With Bulls Tempranillo 2020, South Australia

£8–£9, Tesco, Co-op, This Australian Tempranillo has to be one of the best value reds around. Check: best value wines of any hue and style. The 2014 was my Wine of the Week in September 2017. Five years on, the current vintage, the 2020, more than deserves the Wine of the Week slot. And can you believe it, you can still buy it at the same price? I’ve got another question: why aren’t more Australians growing Tempranillo? Plantings are rising, but they were still only 0.5% of t

Aug 3

Penfolds French-ish Launches, the New Grange, the Fabled Bin 60A and More

When Penfolds launches its 2022 collection tomorrow, Thursday 4 August, it will include two French, or French-ish, still wines for the first time. Not Penfolds’ first French wines, because it launched three vintage Champagnes in partnership with Thiénot in 2019, and not its first northern hemisphere still wines, because it launched a Napa-Australian red blend last year, but the first wines from Bordeaux. Or more or less Bordeaux. Clarification in a moment. The two wines are P

Mar 10

WINE OF THE WEEK: Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, Margaret River, Western Australia

£10, Tesco There aren't many areas that produce really distinctive regional Cabernet Sauvignon – pure Cabernet Sauvignon, rather than Bordeaux-style blends with Merlot and so on – but Australia has two of them, Coonwarra in South Australia and, thousands of kilometres to the west, the much more recently planted Margaret River in Western Australia, where the first vines went into the ground in 1967. I've written more about the differences between the two here, so let's go stra

Feb 10

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Blind Spot Pinot Meunier 2021, Yarra Valley, Australia

£12.95, The Wine Society It's no exaggeration to say I've never had a wine quite like this. Usually I can say a wine reminds me of so-and-so, or it's a bit like something else, but this Pinot Meunier, which hardly knows whether it's red or pink, is entirely itself – low in alcohol, big on personality and absolutely delicious. The Wine Society lists it as a red wine, but it's deep pink and makes an excellent aperitif, served lightly chilled, if not colder. Mind you, it also go

Jan 28

New Year, New Wines, New approach: the Blind Spot Australian range gets a makeover

Wines made by Mac Forbes with grapes paid for upfront by The Wine Society. The one-off exception is the Dolcetto, which was made with a purchased parcel of wine, as all the range used to be The Wine Society's Blind Spot Australian range has been a fixture for about a decade, but the latest arrivals mark a change in direction. And we're not just talking about labels here, dramatically different though they are. Instead of being parcels of wine that winemaker Mac Forbes picked

Jun 17, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Summer Road Old Vine Grenache 2020, Riverland, Australia

£8.49, Waitrose Clear a space in your fridge for another chillable red this week – unoaked old-vine Grenache at its most engaging and accessible, and accessibly priced too. Give it a light chill to emphasise its winning strawberry perfume, succulent summer-pudding fruit and the sapid white pepper note that adds a savoury lick. It comes from Thistledown Wine Company in South Australia, a small-batch producer founded and run by two Masters of Wine, Giles Cooke and Fergal Tynan,

Apr 22, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Tesco Finest Western Australia Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2019, Australia

£8, Tesco Sunshine would be welcome with this racy dry white, but I'm happy to settle for lesser weather as long as I have the wine in my glass. Western Australian Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blends have a style of their own – energising, positive and aromatic with the incisive green fruit of the Sauvignon filled out by subtle, blossomy softness from the Semillon (24% here) and enhanced, in this case, by a mouthwatering smoky, flinty character, green apple, herb and elderflower

Apr 13, 2021

Drilling into Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon with a Viognier guru

Louisa Rose, head of winemaking at Yalumba, where she has worked since graduating as dux from Roseworthy in 1992 Mention the name Louisa Rose in any wine circle and the grape variety Viognier won’t be far behind. Yalumba, where she is chief winemaker and has worked since graduating from Roseworthy in 1993, was the first to plant Viognier commercially in Australia back in 1980, but it was Louisa who put Australian Viognier on the global wine map and established Yalumba as a wo

Feb 25, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Blind Spot Touriga Nacional 2020, Langhorne Creek/McLaren Vale, Australia

£10.95, The Wine Society This is one of a trio of interesting reds that The Wine Society has just added to its Blind Spot Australian range (the others are a Montepulciano and a Carignan). I’ve written about the thinking behind the range before here but, in a nutshell, they’re wines made from small parcels of top-quality grapes, ferreted out before they disappear into big-company blends. The Society chooses from samples sent by its man down under, winemaker Mac Forbes, and he

Oct 1, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Vasse Felix Classic Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2020, Margaret River, Australia

£12, Tesco I can't quite believe this is my first Wine of the Week from the 2020 vintage. So much has happened this year, the southern hemisphere harvest seems aeons ago. Even Champagne started picking seven weeks ago... But enough musing, let's get on with the wine. A zingy, citrus-facing white might not immediately seem a match for the current weather, but Semillon (70% of the blend) has mouthfeel – a delicate, oily roundness and suppleness that gives substance to the vibra

Aug 27, 2020

Yalumba Organic Viognier 2019, South Australia

£7.49 (on offer), Waitrose I had scheduled Yalumba Samuel's Collection Bush Vine Grenache 2018 this week, getting in ahead of International Grenache Day on September 18, but this luscious Viognier, which missed out a couple of months ago, is now on offer (down from £10), making it even better value – cracking value, in fact, and a great wine buy for the bank holiday. You can't go wrong with a Yalumba Viognier. It's been one of the Hill Smith family's specialities since the 19

May 14, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: d'Arenberg The Footbolt Shiraz 2017, McLaren Vale Australia

£12–£14.99, Tesco, The Wine Society, Great Western Wine, ND John, Winepig Unashamedly full-throated Aussie Shiraz from a family-owned and run winery that never seems to put a foot wrong. D'Arenberg produces a whole range of wines – white, red, traditional, innovative – and offers great value too. Hats off to the inimitable fourth-generation boss and winemaker Chester Osborn. The Footbolt is made artisan-style in open-top vats with foot-treading, basket-pressing and a mix of o

Apr 16, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Brokenwood Thompson's Road Hunter Valley Semillon 2018, Australia

£8.99/£9.99, Waitrose Hunter Valley Semillon isn't like Sémillon from anywhere else (and I'm not talking about the absence of the accent). The classic Hunter style is dry and light-bodied but intensely flavoured with an electric current of citrus zest and a smooth, lanolin-like texture. With age it develops toasted, honeyed complexity, as if aged in oak – and all delivered at naturally low alcohol levels: in this case 11%. Thompson's Road 2018 is still young, so doesn't have

Feb 27, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: De Bortoli Regional Reserve Pinot Noir 2018, Yarra Valley, Australia

£11.95–£12.99, Saxtys Wines, Quantock Abbey Wine, Adnams This is not a wine that's going to stand out on the shelf, but it deserves to. Behind the classically restrained label is an enchanting cool-climate Pinot Noir, with red cherry, cranberry and soft-spoken spice woven together with textbook purity, suppleness, freshness and elegant complexity. Pair it with fish such as tuna or prosciutto-wrapped cod or monkfish, with poultry (e.g. roast chicken or quail), meat such as por

Nov 7, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Taste the Difference Western Australia Shiraz 2018, Australia

£6.75, Sainsbury's I thought the price must be an error when I saw it in the tasting booklet. Whoever heard of a red from Western Australia at this price, not least a blend with a Margaret River component? When I tasted it and saw who the winemaker was, I did double-take mark two. It’s bright and pure with spicy red berry fruit, earthy sweetness and a touch of chocolate – easy to drink, unforced and wearing its alcohol lightly. The man behind it is David Hohnen, who in a form

Sep 19, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Wirra Wirra Church Block 2016, McLaren Vale, Australia

£9.99 (on offer) Waitrose; £10.11 (on offer) Ocado I've just done a captivating and illuminating tasting of 12 wines chosen as Australia's future icons*. Running freely across region, grape variety and style, themes emerged nonetheless: a focus on specific sites and vineyards, Australia's old-vine heritage, and low-intervention winemaking among others. There was an orange wine and other new-wave wines, but there were also some classics, which is where this week's wine comes i

Jul 25, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Barry & Sons Riesling 2017, Clare Valley, Australia

£13.40, Tanners Wines I don't think I can come up with two more refreshing still wines for hot weather than dry Riesling and Assyrtiko. I’ve made the Clare Riesling my Wine of the Week, but I recommend the Barry’s family’s Assyrtiko, too. It’s the follow-on vintage to the 2016, the first Assyrtiko not just in Australia but anywhere outside Greece (there's more about it here and see picture below). The 2017 is juicy and fruity with softly smoky lime and lemon flavours and pith

May 2, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Moss Wood Semillon 2016, Margaret River, Western Australia

£16.99, waitrosecellar.com and 8 stores Sémillon is in decline pretty well all over the world, often losing out to the more aromatic, feisty Sauvignon Blanc. Sémillon is still big in Bordeaux, of course, giving the world exceptional botrytis sweet wines, but as a dry wine it's just not in vogue. And yet it can be wonderful, with flavours not unlike Sauvignon, but more muted, and a distinctive, rich, lanolin-like texture. With age, it often develops a nutty or toasty character

Jan 10, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Yalumba The Y Series Viognier 2017, South Australia

£5.49 mix-six sale price, Majestic Even at £8–£8.25 (Sainsbury's and Morrisons) this is great value, so at Majestic's mix-six sale price (until 27 January) it's an absolute bargain. I've just had a bottle of the 2014 that I'd forgotten about (bought in a 'buy 6 save 25% offer', probably in May 2016). I didn't expect it to have lasted – Viognier isn't long-lived – but it was stunning: bursting with ripe apricot and peach fruit, zippy grapefruity acidity, Viognier's oily richne

Nov 1, 2018

A dazzling Penfolds Grange and much more: tasting the 2018 Collection

The launch of Penfolds’ 2014 Grange last month marked the release of the 64th consecutive vintage. I haven't tasted the first, the experimental 1951, but I have tasted its successor, 1952, which likewise wasn't released commercially, and I have twice tasted the first commercial release, the extremely rare 1953 Grange Hermitage (as Grange was called at the time): first in 2003, along with the next 49 vintages of Grange, at the fifth Rewards of Patience tasting in Adelaide; and