2018 Faustino Rivero Ulecia Rioja Reserva

This seems to be a large scale brand that’s often seen on Spanish supermarket shelves and a fair bit of Northern Europe. I’m hopeful it’s a lot better than the masses of Rioja labelled as Reserva or even Gran Reserva at what seem bargain prices. Not so much a steal when you realise the title relates to barrel aging and not necessarily fruit quality. As the label says Tempranillo and Garnacha, of which there should be more in Rioja, and reviews suggest a fresher approach, $20 at auction was not too much of a crazy risk. Indeed, no evidence of stale American Oak coconuts is a good start. There’s some gentle and very clean strawberries and nuts with a whiff of that odd cola like Tempranillo thing. Some cherry sweet fruit to end, maybe Garnacha? Tails off a bit quickly with a touch of baking spice oak. Brush of tannin and rounded acidity, no hint of a sharp edge. Just a bit fluid and diffuse, leaves me wondering if it would have been better as a crunchy joven? Nonetheless, it’s probably good value in Spain and certainly the right direction away from Rioja that just tastes of barrels.

13.5% alcohol. Cork. $20 auction.

90 points.

2005 Seppelt Riesling Victoria

A bit of travel seems to have rekindled some enthusiasm for sharing a love of those drinks from fermented grapes, may as well make a note. Different places, different flavours. Back home and yet another bottle won at auction, an indication of how things add up if you keep bidding while away for a few weeks and don’t collect the bottles. Before TWE started making a mess of the place, Seppelt’s winery and cellar door in Great Western were a lovely place to stop, taste and buy. They used to make smart choices like this regional blend from maybe Victoria’s best Riesling areas, Henty and Great Western, all for not much. An appealing green and gold colour scheme, lovely old waxy smells with limes, white peach and a light fossil fuel savour, not a big kerosene intrusion, just the whiff of forecourt. Still fresh and neat across the palate, the acidity is particularly crisp and even without hardness. Maybe the flavours are rounded with age and just starting a gentle retreat but there’s real fruit quality here, with flavours that do bring old Germany to mind. Not Liebfraumilch either.

13% alcohol, seems properly ripe and dry. Screw cap. $18 at auction including all the add ons.

93 points.

2019 Veronica Ortega Quite Mencia Valtuille Bierzo

One of the less important effects of rising prices for everything on planet earth is just how much imported wine now costs in Australia, poor old us. All made worse by how our stupid WET tax system encourages industrial amounts of mostly anodyne and health threatening ethanol instead of a glass of something made with individual passion for place and time and human conviviality. Add a bit of extra tax through duty and artisanal imports are now a luxury, even for us superannuated boomers. All of which makes spending a lot of time on my iPad trawling an auction website worthwhile, and most times rewarding. Mencia from north west Spain can be good value if you’re craving the sweetly savoury joy of something like a cool, neat Syrah from more famous places. And the Veronica Ortega’s version has good reports, including this dodgy blog’s earlier words on the 2016. Once more, this grape from Spain echoes the smoke, leather and violet fragrance of the northern Rhône. Really thought some stalks and all in the making but not so. There’s a balsamic whoosh of blackberry and spice swept aside by a slate licking finish of some edginess. Like a couple recent Mencias, perhaps fruitier and pleasurable younger? This was a lot better with something to eat which makes for drinking well and maybe with less liver damage? As the young seem to be sensibly drinking less, the binge drunkenness involving a bag in a box wine and a washing line that may have had its day. About time our tax regime grew up too.

13% alcohol. Cork. $22 at auction.

92 points.

2020 Viña Ijalba Maturana Blanca Rioja

Us humans easily put our concerns into separate containers of worries. Viewed next to each other our boxes of cares can be alarmingly contradictory. I must admit to being pretty scared by the thought of summer bushfires made cataclysmic by a warming climate and then fret over increased air fares despite being told my seat to Europe and back produces more CO2 than a whole year of normal living. Same thought about wine producers proudly being organic when their bottles weigh twice as much as necessary. This one will make yet another chunky crash in the recycling bin. Jancis is still crusading but there’s still few light weight bottles in fine wine. Such human contradictions just make me want a drink. So, another revived old rare variety, this time from Rioja. First Maturana Blanca for me and it’s what an old English idiom would call a curate’s egg. Weird expression and who’s met a curate at breakfast recently? Deep green gold shows a bit of bottle age. The first bottle of this I opened was horribly oxidised by an organic cork, even more wasted embedded carbon. Happily this second bottle is fresh with rich yellow plum and green olive fruit, dried sweet hay and bergamot. Touch of chamomile and a bitter citrus lift of reduction. A glide of glycerol cut nicely by firm but not harsh acidity. There’s quite a bit of bitter sulphide that seems to come and go. Second day and it’s less noticeable, particularly as it warms from the fridge. With summer approaching, the old wino’s mantra is right, we drink our reds too warm, our whites too cold. This one could have been better a couple of years ago and not sealed with tree bark but still something good to take my mind off environmental troubles.

13.5% alcohol. Cork. $26 at auction.

92 points. Sort of a compromise.

2022 J. Neus Weingut Muschelkalk Spätburgunder

It certainly doesn’t have the excitement of Paris or the self importance of London but Frankfurt airport makes for a pleasant and much less fraught hub when arriving on a long haul from south east Asia. Made a lot more pleasing by the realisation that two of Germany’s great wine areas are on the doorstep, Rheingau and Rheinhessen. From a bit of reading, it seems 19th century Rheinhessen was famous for the quality of its Pinot Noir, particularly the area around Ingelheim where Neus have been making Pinot since 1881. The region’s reputation then became quite schizophrenic in the 20th century as it’s also been responsible for an enormous amount of sweet and horrible Liebfraumilch. About the same distance from the airport as downtown Frankfurt is the old town of Mainz, an easy train ride and home to some lovely old school wine bars and a couple of good wine shops. One of which recommended this bottle which more than cheered up a last holiday night in Europe. This entry level bottle in the Neus range, from less than 20kms away, opened a bit reduced but a good airing and a poised and clean mouthful emerged. Cherries, headed in flavours towards those sour Italian sorts, ripe raspberries and a dark stone mineral thing with some roasted baking spices. Excellent shape in some blood orange acidity, fresh and lightly cleansing and just a brush of fine inseparable tannins. Compared to the wild fruit sweetness of Pinot from across the border in Burgundy, this seemed strict and focused, more of a furrowed brow than an insouciant shrug. Oddly like the clichés of national personalities. And like the best sort of Pinot Noir the last half a glass left us wishing an encore.

12.5% alcohol. Ripe at low alcohol, good. Diam, good. €14.50, even better.

93 points.

2022 Pian di Stantino Buscamara Romagna Sangiovese Superiore

Last night of a good trip to Italy and a wistful feeling as the last bottle hits the street recycling bin in old and wise Bologna. Such a good surprise, it made up for the disappointment of a much anticipated bottle from a maker whose Sangio from 2015 was pure pleasure. The most recent vintage I enthusiastically bought had fallen foul of barnyard and bandages, not a good reacquaintance. The enoteca where I found the let down also recommended this, from a very high up in the hills vineyard. Elegant, they said. After a bit of a worryingly pongy start, that sort of sulphury and yeasty rawness that seems usual in low fi making, much relief and enjoyment as some just ripe but fruit sweet and cleanish Sangiovese burst forth. Only just medium bodied but full of finely concentrated sour cherry, almond and sweet leather. Fresh and crisp, just right blood orange acidity and fine grip. All the flavour but none of the baggage of oaky over ripeness. Nice way to end a visit to Italy where the regional variations are a delicious way to be kept on your toes.

13% alcohol. Cork. €25.

94 points.

2023 and 2024 Masseria Li Veli Askos Susumaniello Salento

Much as I hated an English grammar school’s version of Dickensian discipline, weirdly it seems having to endure an anachronistic classical education only encouraged a love of things old and Mediterranean. Appropriately this maker has named their range of resurrected old varieties after the ancient Greek wine jug, maybe those early drinkers were into decanting? Li Veli’s version of my Pugliese fetish red grape has had consistently good reviews and is five or so euros more a bottle than the competition. Worth the proverbial punt then, particularly as there were some dinky half bottles in one of the many interesting enoteche siren calling on the streets of Bari.

The 2023 first, it opened with a clean deep ripeness and possessed a patrician complexity. All the dark cherry, pomegranate and spice with a really beguiling minerally stony and refreshing ending. Sometimes, such care in grape farming shows a depth of fine acidity and tannin that adds that oddly ineffable geological tilt. Leads to inadequate wine notes with words like minerally. It’s one of those things that raises a mouthful of wine to serious enjoyment but is hard to communicate and only leads to wine nuts being teased.

14% alcohol. Diam. €9 for a half.

94 points.

The 2024 bought on the strength of its half bottle sibling pleasingly showed just how good vines can produce such interesting wines each year, reflecting the weather in a good way. Much less dark fruited ripeness, much more into bright cherries, light baking spices and a nearly shocking blast of tingling acidity. For something grown in such a warm spot, it was surprisingly fresh and perky. Still that classy rock infused element of the 2023 but in a much less ripe version. These two examples of Li Veli’s craft were certainly the standout examples of quite a few Susumanielli. Ended up that about one in three was worth an enthusiastic revisit, some were just a little pushed in the extraction or just a bit slick and commercial, others a perhaps young vine or washy. None were less than enjoyable though, Some good things to drink in old Puglia, particularly from this producer. The food’s great too.

13% alcohol. Diam. €18.

92 points, maybe more if that acidity calms down a bit.

2023 Varvaglione Susumaniello Salento

Another Susumaniello adventure from time spent hanging around the Salento bit of Puglia that’s worth a few words maybe. This very pretty labelled bottle came to the table from a small but nicely stocked enoteca found in among the winding alleys of old seaside Otranto. The label neatly shows most of the delicious things local to the area including octopus who thoughtfully seem to have enough legs to keep me fed. A couple of years rest since bottling seem to have rounded but not diminished those rich red fruited Susu flavours. A note of nutty naturalness sits comfortably with that deep and very ripe pomegranate tang together with a sweet spicy earthiness. Licorice, cinnamon and fruit chocolate seem a reasonable explanation of the flavours too. Soft and velvet rubbed the wrong way tannins keep the scales from tipping. A lovely, just right, roundness seems the import, not too much of anything, not too little. Comparisons can be a bit silly when the point of the expedition is to find local difference but they can help us understand maybe. So, if pushed, perhaps a bit like one of those fresh, deeply purple Spanish Garnachas, particularly Tintorea or a very ripe Bierzo Mencia sort of gets there but there’s more fat here. The maestro of Italian wine grapes, Dr. Ian D’Agata, suggests Susumaniello means load up the donkey in dialect due to historical high yields but the recent revival seems more about flavour and pleasure.

14% alcohol. Diam. €15.

93 distinctively local points.

2025 Azienda Candido Casina Cucco Susumaniello Salento IGP

It’s a joy to find another really interesting variety rescued from an almost fatal decline, particularly in the heat of Puglia which is already facing warmer summers. In fact us humans have managed to disrupt even the benign and fertile Salento beyond unbearably hot summers. Catching the train across from Calabria, the number of dead or dying olive trees was noticeable, particularly as Puglia produces so much good EVO. It seems a nasty bacterial infestation is responsible which was introduced by importing infected coffee plants. All is perhaps not lost, as there seems to be a couple of resistant varieties but it’s yet another limit to some traditional diversity. Anyway back to grapes grown in what was Magna Grecia where wine and oil have been a part of life for millennia. This bottle was a delicious adventure in terms of both flavour and structure. The former rich and ripe with pomegranate, dark cherry and a sooty depth of full blown ripeness but not the dried grape skin thing that seems to inhabit Negroamaro and other locals. The shape was a succulent surprise. Quite strong but what feels like naturally soft and well bound acidity and velvety tannins, all adding an unexpected freshness. After trying some local Calabrian reds made from Gaglioppo and Magliocco which from limited sampling always seemed to be acidified to a purple toughness or rusty from elevated ph, this Susumaniello was a breath of right grape, right place fresh air. A couple of weeks exploring Italy’s lovely heel and searching for Susu became a mission. It seems to make good rosato too, double delicious. The holiday apartment even had a pottery donkey to support the idea Susumaniello means load up the donkey.

13.5% alcohol, nice compared to some of those local rocket fuel Primitivi. Diam which seems to have overtaken Nomacorc by some way in the south. €12 bargain

92 points.

2025 Pellegrino Il Salinaro Grillo

While Etna Bianco will always be my favourite wine from La Bella Sicilia, the round comfort and sea salty cut of Grillo from out west seems to be yet another way to enjoy the dolce vita. This one from a Marsala producer is a surprisingly fine version, some can often be a bit too ripe and broad or too green and propped by some sweetness. Not this, like one of the new Jerez Vino de Pasto, there’s great definition to yellow fruit, sweet grassy hay, all made delicious by some saline refreshment. A bit of treble by way of almost a jasmine and orange blossom top note too. The label doesn’t lie, it’s that sea salty breeze thing that finally gets you coming back for more. To coax such balance from such a hot climate is quite something. Perhaps not the most intense or concentrated of things, or the sheer class of a good Etna Bianco but a perfect first glass as the golden hour of yet another timeless Mediterranean sunset melts the day’s worries. Great value to boot. Italian pun, no.

13% alcohol. Diam. Found for €9 in a supermarket, amazing.

92 points.