Light red colour with the merest tinge of purple. The bouquet is lightly spicy, meaty and somewhat charcuterie-like, bresaola rather than prosciutto. The wine has weight and grip beyond what its colour implies. A very smart pinot, with a fruit-sweet core as well as charm and complexity. Delicious.

Medium to light red/purple hue, the aroma fusty, earthy, forest floor, a note of oak and a touch of humus. Very rich and ripe, almost opulent flavour with charming fruit sweetness and a succulent core. A delicious wine.

All the Giant Steps single vineyard chardonnay is found in this wine. A combo. The wine is fermented and rested in 600 litre clay egg vessels. Cool. But we’ve been here before. Giant Steps’ winemaker Steve Flamsteed puts very little feet wrong in his quarry. This is another wine to keep his (Flamsteed’s) brain ticking, while delighting and audience no doubt. This one is right on the pace of the 2018. A multi-dimensional chardonnay of easy pleasure but lots of fine detail. There’s a slickness but also light chew to the wine, concentration of flavour is pronounced but acidity is too, lifting the wine and keeping all that green apple, faint cookie dough and citrusy zing all integrated and brought precisely and compact across the palate. There’s a sense of general ‘purity’ too, though a quiet, yeasty savouriness might pop question marks up around that statement. It’s a wonderful chardonnay, character-filled, delicious, just shy of medium weight, bright and vivacious. You’d do well getting into this.

Light, bright yellow hue, with cashew nut, preserved lemon and toasted almond notes in its fresh, youthful bouquet. In the mouth, it's restrained and crisp, youthfully refined, restrained and undeveloped. Oak has been sensitively used. Traces of toasted hazelnuts emerging on palate. An attractive wine, with potential.

The One That Goes All Minerally. Huge mineral feel, indeed, you’d paste this into the section under ‘Wine; Minerality’ in an encyclopaedia. All pebbles and talc in perfume, sure, some citrus, citrus blossom, faint bread dough notes, but you’re drawn to the flint and element rocky notes primarily. The palate does the same, flint, wet slate, smooth pebbles rolled around the palate, olive brine, green apple juice and lime comes in too. Feels quite firm despite a sense of juiciness and being dart-shaped and long. Finishes with the faintest kiss of salted nuttiness. Just beautiful. Poised and fine.

A particularly expressive shiraz with interleaving, luscious purple/dark red fruits with classy ripe tannins. Drink now or in 20 years, or any time in between.

Hand-picked, wild yeast, co-fermented in small open fermenters with 50% whole bunches, matured for 5 months in large French oak vats. A very cleverly made wine (in terms of preplanning) that is yet another example of the intrinsic worth of this blend, red and black cherry, spice and pepper all held in a fine net of tannins.

The latest vintage of this noteworthy producer's Chardonnay is singing. A harmonious, multifaceted nose offers notes of bright citrus, fresh melon and flowers, while a chorus of sun-baked stones and freshly baked bread linger behind. Beautifully textural and salty on the palate, it crunches with minerals and vibrant fruit. The oak is tucked away and the finish long and salty. Drink now–2030.

USA, California, Central Coast: The 2018 VintageThe 2018 Pinot Noir Machado has a medium ruby color and deep, layered aromas of pure violet, garrigue, laurel, aniseed and forest floor, seamlessly accenting a core of black and red berries. The palate is medium-bodied with loads of lift and silkiness, elegantly fruited and with a long, ethereal finish.

USA, California, Central Coast: The 2018 Vintage"We made this from 1997-2000," says winemaker Greg Brewer. "In 2001 we went purely Sta. Rita Hills and stopped making this. Now, with the acquisition by Jackson Family Wines, we have been able to revisit some cuvées." The 2018 Pinot Noir Julia's has a medium ruby color and savory charcuterie, aniseed, smoked blackberries, laurel and potpourri on the nose. The medium-bodied palate has a dichotomy of earthy bass tones and bright, juicy, crunchy fruits in a finely grained frame, and it finishes long and nuanced. This small cuvée of 96 cases has a touch more power and oomph than the rest of the lineup this vintage and is immediately accessible, although it will continue to age well in bottle.

The nose is dense black plum, blueberry and licorice with a palate entry of tobacco, herb and juniper. The core is bright and vibrant with youthful mouth-coating acidity. Decant or cellar. Drink 2022 - 2032.

The Mt. Veeder vineyards that face east are typically firmer in structure and slightly more tannic than the reds produced across the valley in the west-facing mountains. This vintage from Mt. Brave is rich and powerful, with firm tannins and a tight structure that will benefit from another few years in the cellar. It shows ripe notes of cherry and currant, a touch of graphite/lead pencil and the requisite wood spice.

Thanks in part to the relatively cool year, this is a wine that manages refinement, restraint and beautiful expression of place. The nose is a neatly woven basket of aromas: crushed flowers, red and blue fruit, pepper, mint and cigar box. The palate is full figured and highly textural. There’s a line of powdery, spicy, ultrafine tannins and a streak of high-end oak. Set up for a long life, drink from 2022–2045 at least.

Complex, with lithe minerality and rich savoriness to the concentrated raspberry, red plum and currant flavors, backed by crunchy acidity. Delicate and well-spiced on the pure-tasting finish. Drink now through 2026.

While this has structure, depth and a certain power, it's also finely crafted and elegant. Excellent colour, savoury yet a whisper of florals and dark fruit, cassis among the oak spice, dried herbs and black olives. Fuller bodied and expansive tannins with an appealing Amaro like finish. Not quite tamed, only time can do that.

Very deep, bright red/purple colour, with a superbly ripe, fruit-driven bouquet displaying ripe mulberries and blackberries, with traces of raspberry and violets - and barely a glimpse of leafy pyrazines, although the ripe fruit conveys undeniable cabernet varietal character. The palate is medium to full-bodied and firm of tannin, a thread of sinew, with all things in perfect balance. Superb cabernet.

A superb wine of great depth and dimension, without any crushed-leaf greener-spectrum cabernet notes or gumleaf-mint. Dark fruits, black olives, earthy and mysterious with lashings of fine-grained tannins, excellent texture and persistence. 

Deep, dense, red/purple colour with a black tinge, the bouquet oaky and blackberry-scented, and the oak is smoky and charred. The wine is concentrated, deep and compact, the tannins and flavours dense and packed. The wine is powerful and searing, the finish long and satisfying. This really has a lot of stuffing. A serious cabernet, well worth cellaring. 

A robust and concentrated aroma of ripe mulberries, blackberries, dark chocolate and tar. A generous, intense, and opulent palate with plentiful fine tannin and balanced acidity. It is a bold, full-bodied wine that has been very well-made, and it will cellar long into the future

1971 plantings in Clarendon, which is a very beautiful part of South Australia, and indeed, the world.Violet, tobacco and earth, black fruits and a little pepper. Full bodied, fleshy and flavoursome, with a juicy core of black and blue fruit, a wonderful chompy set of tannin, balanced acidity, and a succulent and savoury finish of considerable length. Here’s a wine! Took me about one minute to form the opinion that it’s an absolute beauty. That tannin on the finish, too. Yes.

One of the stars of our recent regional tasting. Serious, brooding bouquet of red and black berries, briar, clove and cinnamon wood as subtle backdrop, bitter dark chocolate, just a whiff of Aussie bush character. Beauty. Medium weight, glides gloriously and evenly across the palate, a quiet lake of dark fruit, spice, wood, swirls of graphite-like tannins. It’s superb. Shuts you up.

Dark garnet with a purple hue; while the aromatics are lively, the palate has clamped shut, no matter the hallmarks of a superb wine are here. Fragrant cassis, tobacco, black olives, eucalypt and black plums dipped in chocolate with some fruit sweetness getting through on the firm palate, but the tannins are powdery yet intense and the oak (70% new) a little unforgiving. Come back to this in '0925.

Black raspberry, damp thyme and white pepper make for a brilliantly fresh while intoxicatingly herby nose on this singlevineyard expression. The palate sticks to that story, offering crisp pomegranate alongside thyme, marjoram and more white pepper.

Fresh black-raspberry aromas meet with pinches of thyme and sage on the nose of this herby bottling, which also shows a wet gravel minerality. The fresh berry flavors mix with peppercorns, thyme and eucalyptus on the complex and intriguing palate, which finishes with a boost of acidity.

From a site planted in 1995 to a myriad of clones, Three Jacks is richly woven in a mix of tropical pineapple, succulent peach and crème brûlée. The mix contrasts well, offering both richness and juicy freshness, compelling in the glass in lengthy tension and grace.