2012 Jim Barry The Lodge Hill Dry Riesling

From Alsace to the Clare Valley is a long way but the Riesling connection keeps my glass half full. One of my favourite local wine shops has the clever workers stylish in T shirts telling me it’s the summer of Riesling. My attempts to be so chic in a free one have been answered only by suggestions I’d need to buy a few more bottles to get a complimentary shirt. This particular bottle from the cellar makes me wish I’d bought a lot more 2012 Lodge Hill than just one. Opened with a bit of asafoetida like sulphur reduction which blows away rapidly to let the intense and typical aroma and flavour of Clare lime to power on through. Lime in its many forms too, leaf, skin oil, juice and when it’s been cut and put flesh side down to caramelise in a pan. Loads of sweet fruit but no sugar, it does say dry on the front label, a tropical sort of lime richness that’s balanced beautifully by natural and mouthwatering acidity, all bedded on a twist of tonic water tang. Not the full orchestra of the Schaal Riesling but so true and clear in pitch. Ageing superbly, unlike some around here.

12.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $20 on release, stupidly cheap.

94 points.

2019 Julien Schaal Rangen Volcanique Riesling

A recent 2018 Schoenenbourg Gypse from this maker was so good, a modest bid for a Rangan was essential. After a casual look at what’s around, it’s apparent good Grand Cru Alsace is in the rare treat price category. Happy to say this did not disappoint and made it very clear there’s great growing and winemaking here. Volume and clarity. Generosity and elegance. A range of fine, complex favours. Something sort of petrol and mineral, green mango, white peach and very ripe yellow apples. Great flavours arranged neatly on a strict chessboard of skin phenolics and an indelible caress of unbreakable granite acidity that draw it all out into the distance. Goodness, there’s more, freshly ground sweet spices, floral honey and a twist of quinine bitterness to calm. You could say I like this very much.

13.5% alcohol and no undue warmth. Diam. $59 and in terms of prices for great white wine, a bargain.

96 points.

2020 Daniel Bouland Morgon Corselette

Nothing better than gathering across the table to share and chat, unless a Beaujolais smitten good friend brings something to jog memories of great bottles from M. Bouland, then it’s shut up, this is special. No notes, having too much fun but in case you fancy one of the best 2020 Crus so far drunk, here’s a happy memory. Clean, pure red fruits just over ripening into something sweet and darker, rich and concentrated. Perfect summer berries. Sweet earth and rocky complications. The carriage of granite acidity and tannins, so fine you’ll need a microscope to see them separately, cleans up and then there’s just perfume and length for a long, long time. Very fine indeed. Beautifully made. Kept me quiet for a while, probably why D brought it along.

13.5% alcohol. Cork or Diam, forgot. Thanks for sharing.

95 points.

2020 Gran Sasso Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

For not much money we may be getting something a nudge up from the bottom of the quality pyramid. I think it’s from a clever operation buying good grapes in quite a few regions and looking for something safe and clean but properly whence it comes too. In the days when friends would let me tell them what to put on their restaurants’ wine lists, this often helped financially and slid the pasta down nicely. A decade later and it’s still helping with the illusion that the wine budget’s OK. Maybe one of the better recent years? Vivid purple and red, clean, a punch of bramble fruit, fresh and preserved. Not that deep but the boisterous Monty skin tannin and crunchy acid are well under control, nipping the fruit but not imposing. There’s a volcanic smell and salami savoury lick that adds interest. Really well made. Bouncy fun.

13% alcohol. Screw cap. $15 well spent.

89 for sure, easily persuaded 90.

2016 Ritme Celler Ritme Priorat

You have to like Priorat. It seems it can produce wine that’s both lush, rich and full but still holds an almost paradoxical freshness. The landscape looks similarly rugged but hospitable. Wines and their places again. That makes it fascinating to some of us but it isn’t cheap. This one’s imported by Langton’s into Australia and ended up their auction site in some quantity. Maybe they couldn’t sell it in their online store? This one is laboratory clean and bright. Sour dark cherries, sooty fireplaces, cocoa and a balsamic edge. A waft of alcohol warmth gets sternly reprimanded by some gruff acidity and silty texture. Bit too tart(aric). Both elements seem big and biffy, close to overdoing it but sort of balanced like elephants on a seesaw. In time, there’s roast meat pan juices you seem to get with good Carignan. Maybe not the softness of the best Grenache and Carignan Priorat blends but the oak interferes not and the price was right. Not quite enough enthusiasm to bid for more in the next auction but still, nice.

15% alcohol, hic. Cork. $20.64.

91 to start, got enthusiastic at 93, then more a 92.

2018 Eden Road The Long Road Syrah

Another inexpensive bottle, thanks to auction luck, to test the recovering olfactories. Gentle scents of blackberry and other summer joys, some nutty savoury treats and a touch of chocolate. Only medium bodied and an unforced caress of stony acidity with perhaps a touch of ripe stem tannin. All in harmony. In no way trying to be more than it can and charms in so doing. Less can be nice.

13% alcohol. Screw cap. $15 at auction, happy days.

92 points.

2021 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz

Stricken by flu, then a nasty encounter with the major pandemic can really damage your mood, your sense of smell and any confidence in a return to anything like objective tasting, should there be such a thing? A gentle and familiar toe in the water then in good old Wynns Shiraz. Still so enormously discounted that there’s no serious loss if it tastes as bad as my normal coffee drink did for a while. Phew, it tastes like red wine. In particular, starts with low key blackberry and plum jam with a touch of earthy tar all put firmly in place with a rasp of lemony acidity and green herb fine tannin. In time, there’s more bright red fruit, pepper and the acidity tends to freshen instead of jar. Tannins are nicely bound. A friend fancied the 2021 Reframed Shiraz x Riesling version brought to mind the North end of the Rhone valley. There’s a parallel here maybe in terms of just over the line ripeness and freshness within the boundaries of local flavours. Still a bargain with a sense of real grapes rather than an industrial recipe. Coffee tastes good too now.

13.6% alcohol. Screw cap. $13.

89 points.

2018 Domaine Georges Vernay Les Fleurs du Mai Syrah Des Collines Rhodaniennes IGP

One of the most respected Condrieu producers who also make great Côte Rotie which I’ve been lucky enough to drink just once. This bottle appeared on the Langtons auction site. To follow the old Clive Coates maxim that you should seek the colder sites in hot years I made a bid. It seemed oddly appropriate as November is our May in the inverted Southern Hemisphere. Maybe a flowery omen? My $28 bid won to my eyebrow raising surprise as googling revealed you can still buy a bottle in Melbourne for $65, lucky me. Clean and extravagantly smelly on opening. Just so ripe raspberries, exotic spice bazaar fragrances and incense, blimey. Flowers and smoke. Hints of liquorice too. Just medium bodied, it tightens across the tongue and floats off on wisps of high resolution tannin with both the flavour and acidity of really ripe and dark blood orange. Incredibly good grapes coaxed into my lucky glass with no mucking about, great lightness of touch. Two words, clarity and focus. How good is their Côte Rotie these days?

13% alcohol. Diam. $28, like winning a lottery.

93 points to start, easy 94 to 95 as the bottle went down.

2018 Domaine Verdier Logel La Volcanique

From an obscure and very small AOP close to the source of the Loire up in a valley in the Massif Central and over the hills from the Rhône, this is a clean and deeply fruited Gamay. The ripest, darkest and most squishy imaginable dark cherries are seasoned with cocoa dusted sweet earth. Almost like there’s an infusion of the rocks in which the vines grow. Starts well and then goes deep into the palate, resounding as it leaves with a sweet hug of ripe skin tannin and a sparkle of rock, spice and acidity. Loosens up a bit the next day with a lift of skin shrivelled ethyl acetate and a drying finish. From a hot year up in remote cool mountains. Great wine from nowhere.

14.5% alcohol. Cork. $32 at auction.

94 points.

2015 Innocent Bystander Syrah

When this was first released it was a cracking buy close to $20 when discounted. The very good 2015 vintage fruit looked round, poised and filled the senses with vinous joy with the whole bunch herb and woody spice adding a satisfying counterpoint. I must admit to fretting a bit about how these cooler, or should that be less hot, vineyard Shiraz progress with time in the bottle? Must admit to enjoy calling it Shiraz, it seems to add to the debate, hee hee. Let’s see. Dusty bottle age lifts to perfumed spice, stems or Shiraz spice or a bit of both? Loads of tart red fruits like an English pudding sit fat on the tongue, still fresh and bright. Some pepper and more of that spice too. The end and overall texture are drawn tight by some sour green stem tannin and acidity. Wether this is a pleasant tension or a distraction from some beautiful fruit is open to discussion for me. I found a tech sheet that says 40% whole bunch, so it’s there to some extent. I think I preferred this in its bouncy youth as I do a lot of Australian red wine. Fascinating to get the chance to compare and contemplate. Serious business this wine thing.

13.8% alcohol. Screw cap. $26 at auction.

91 to 93 points depending on whole bunch enjoyment?