2016 Cavalotto Dolcetto d’Alba Vigna Scot

Of the few Barolo vineyards I’ve been lucky enough to walk around, the Cavalotto bit of Castiglione looks like it’s cared for like a perfect organic garden. Grudgingly sharing this bottle with mates over a good pizza, no notes but a lingering need to say just how good. Gentle but firm, all the flavours of good Langhe Dolcetto, bright cherry, touch of aniseed, sweet earth. It’s more the soft balance, everything in its place, no bombast, quiet assurance of grapes grown with great care, picked when the flavours are just ripe at lower alcohol, organic growing showing perhaps? Feels like it’s doing you good as it goes down. The shape reminiscent of digestible claret, the flavours all from a precious plot in Castiglione Falletto. How much longer I can keep my paws off my few Cavalotto Baroli?

12.5% alcohol. Cork. $38.

93 points but grace beyond numbers.

2019 Heredade Rocim Mariana Vinho Regional Alentejano

The back label tells the story of a lovelorn nun called Mariana, not sure about the relevance to a secular drinker, perhaps marketing to the devout. Personally more impressed by those interesting Portuguese varieties, in this case 40% Touriga Nacional, 30% Aragonez or Tempranillo, 20% Alicante Bouschet and 10% Trincadeira or Tinta Amarela. Not sure just how indigenous are the middle two but they do like a bit of warmth which the Alentejo can provide. This was one of those bottles which failed to inspire initially and had me grumbling about over ripe, contrived wine making, only to prove me entirely wrong after twenty four hours. Started off with leathery, dried grape skin, lacking a bit of freshness and bounce. Lots of chewy dry skin tannin and a wide clunk of acid. Considerable surprise the next day to find loads of bright spiced plums, dark blackberry, sweet dark quality chocolate mixed with dried fruit and nuts. A twist of baked earth and a bloody, iron tang. Touriga comes good again. Tannin and ripe acidity in place. Another lesson in not jumping too quickly to judge. Wine’s so much fun. Books and covers.

14% alcohol. Diam. $29.

89 completely misjudged points to start, 92/93 thereafter.

2019 Crawford River Young Vines Riesling

From a very long drive away vineyard in rural Victoria, young vines now middle aged by some measures. Concentrated, full of ripe limes, autumnal apples and something exotic like guava juice? Such intensely ripe fruit dances on beautifully modulated acidity, it tugs then lets go as the fruit swells and then pulls harder to a delicious end. There’s a comforting warmth and a latent hint of some of those hard to describe old stones and herby Riesling flavours to come with time. Great growing and making. Just gets better each year.

13.5% alcohol but carries it well. Screw cap. $34 less a bit for a drink local discount. May be a long drive for a local but it’s relative in big ancient Australia

93+ points.

2018 Comando G La Bruja de Rozas Garnacha Vinos de Madrid DOP

There’s a lot of geographical and geological info on the label. From the Sierra de Gredos near Madrid, in particular the valley of Tiétar where lies the village of Rozas de Puerto Real at 850 meters altitude on granite soils, phew. On first sniff and taste, it surely looks like one of those edgy, minimal intervention Madrid Garnachas. Reduced and yeasty, eventually smells of roses, fennel, cherries and warm smoky rocks. In the mouth, things get really interesting, challenging perhaps. Balancing the crisp red fruit and herbs is an indelible line of finest tannin and a sweep of granite acidity, whilst still keeping the warm yeasty breath. Feathery lightness but full of flavour. Natural wine in essence, would a touch more sulphur calm it down or muffle the purity? Quite a mountain adventure, bewitching perhaps.

14.5% alcohol, never would have guessed, so cool. Cork. $42.

94 points if you like vino natural, less if you’re a wine scientist.

2018 Domaine Clos du Bagatelle Les Sentiers de Bagatelle à l’Origine Saint Chinian AOP

Many words in a name, a lot of flavour in the glass. A blend of Syrah, Carignan and Grenache in roughly equal parts. Lovely purple red colour like something from the more technical new world way of making. Smells like Languedoc though, albeit beautifully fresh and clean. Pure flavours of kirsch, soot, dark dried cherries and that Mediterranean scrub they call garrigue. Nice crunch of chalky acidity and tannin. Smatter of mocha oak seasoning. Warmth and brightness at ease with each other. Seems very polished in the technique, sort of Bordeaux gloss meets Languedoc generosity. There’s something in the rich sooty cherry flavours that bring to mind the tension of good Priorat, old vine Carignan? There’s two more bottles on the auction site. Big brave bid.

13.5% alcohol. One of those odd one plus one agglomerate stoppers, sort of Diam maybe? $29 at auction.

93 points.

2018 Guímaro Mencia Ribeira Sacra DOP

From the most vertigo inducing vineyards I’ve ever teetered upon, it seems 2018 was particularly good in north west Spain for getting Mencia nicely ripe. This is wild but clean, so smoky, nutty and dark sour cherried. Blood orange both in flavour and mouthwatering acidity. Backing chorus of sweet dried fruit and fine dark chocolate. Gets a bit balsamic after twenty four hours but such is the natural wild edge, it all gets pulled back into delicious shape by that mineral acidity. Worth risking your neck to pick grapes this good. I think this is what terroir and natural wine means, done proper.

13% alcohol, perfect. Cork, not so perfect. $40 RRP.

93, perhaps subjective 94 points.

2015 Jim Barry The Veto Riesling

Riesling loving neighbours to dinner, fine taste in wine and generous too. The veto seems to refer to the Barry patriarch trying to keep some control when his two clever sons took over the business. Based on recent deliciousness, he should leave them to it. Rich and dry with an appealing savouriness. Mandarin, limes and stones of good weight for the lively acidity which dances on light feet. I get the feeling this is going to be extra good in time. It’s starting to loosen up but the power’s there for that rich lime marmalade on toast built on ancient chalk soil to emerge in many years to come. Wish I was as confident in my own outcome.

12.5% alcohol. Screw cap. Thanks for sharing your last bottle, D and Y.

92+ points.

2019 Bodegas Pirineos Principio Moristel Somontana DOP

Moristel seems a rare one, indigenous and limited to Catalonia and a tiny bit of Aragon. It’s also becoming popular around here. Well, this is the second bottle of Moristel reviewed, coming from the cool foothills of the Pyrenees, the other from the dry hot plateau around Catalyud. This one shows it’s cooler abode in pristine hedgerow berries and brambles as England summers would make, cherries and some sweet earth. Sparkling tart but ripe acidity and a brush of sweet grape skin tannin. Sort of cru Beaujolais from a fresh cool year, maybe a comparison? Just got better over two days, impeccable balance and making, just the essence of grape, summer in a bottle. The label also carries the Barbadillo brand. For such a large enterprise, they’re increasingly producing wine of place and heritage, all the way from Jerez to the mountains now. Moristel might be difficult to find but worth the effort, sigh.

13.5% alcohol. Cork. $30 RRP.

93 points.

2019 Thistledown Summer Road Old Vine Grenache Shiraz

It’s quite sobering, metaphorically thank goodness, to find that your supposed astuteness in seeking bargains is stuffed. This has a RRP of $75, so scoring a couple of bottles for a lot less at auction meant self congratulation until it turned up on the Vinomofo site for $25, what do I know? Nonetheless, probably a lot less, this is still a finely crafted bit of what McLaren Vale does best. Warm brown spices, stems? Sooty dark berries, purple flowers, don’t mind me, raspberries all flow on good ripe skin tannin and settled acidity. Made with discretion, a tickle of greener stem tannin emerges to stop things being too fruit sweet. Lovely to drink, cheerful and honest, notwithstanding price or a particularly heavy glass bottle. Wish the sensitivity of touch extended to the packaging.

14.5% alcohol. Screw cap. Price, well, variable.

93 points.

1999 Domaine Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle Musigny Les Charmes 1er cru

Rarely but happily great wine still ends up in the glass on occasion. On the table with that Vietti Villero was my last treasured bottle from the doyenne of Chambolle premiers, Madame Ghislaine Barthod. Vietti power and Barthod grace, how rich and great the times. Cool, composed, spotlessly clean. Gracefully extracted flavours of cherry, perfect autumn raspberries and ripe squishy strawberries, like the fragrant Mara de Bois ones that the French love. Fresh and dark, perhaps destemmed and a cold soak? Fruit and sweet earth build and carry to the horizon on an extraordinary mineral, limestone like trajectory. Not sure how else to describe the controlled powerful sense of somewhere. Unlike some more brash Burgundies, there’s no jolt of oak influence. In a word, beautiful. Smitten by Charmes.

13% alcohol. Cork. About €40 at the Paris Lavinia in 2002, those were indeed the days.

96 points.