2017 Península Viticultores Vino de Montaña

Old vine Grenache from vineyards in the mountains near Madrid blended with a couple of obscurities in Rufete and Piñuela. The Jancis grape bible says Rufete is Portuguese in origin but has no entry for Piñuela, so it remains mysterious. Having spent time in Madrid and surrounds seeking out these mountain versions, it’s fair to say it was hard to find one that really scratched that Grenache as altitude Pinot itch. Sadly a bottle of Commando G has proven too elusive. It’s therefore a nice surprise to find a well priced, clean and fresh example. Just medium weight and increasingly delicious after a few hours airing, there’s tart cherry, a touch of almost musky incense and that sensation of licking a lump of granite. It’s already been pointed out a few times this might be a silly thing to do but I can’t think of a better explanation. Structurally there’s some fine pixel tannin and ripe but mouth watering acidity. Mountain wine! A little more mid mouth fruit weight and the bargain would be a steal. Some good olive oily Spaniard in the works food, mucho bueno.

14.5% alcohol but it doesn’t show. Diam I think. $26 but it can be found for as little as $20.

92 points but a strong shout for style and place.

2012 The Story Port Campbell Pinot Noir

Probably the last thing the world needs at the moment is a daft wine blog adding to our collective angst. Not much left to say except to express gratitude for good health, a kind companion, friends and a heart warming drink cloistered in a comfortable home. This terrific version from a remote Pinot outpost, where grape growing must be more than tricky due to some fickle weather, really shows some depth and cut. In local Australian terms there’s a proven Pinot place in rural Gippsland to the South East of Melbourne that can express the grape with dark cherry and earthy wild strawberry with a almost fragrant rose geranium edge. A long way west along the wild coast, the same flavours seem to thrive. This is beautifully clean, quite ripe for such a cool windswept landscape and deep at its core with paradoxically soft but firm tannin and acidity. A few years rest and it’s all mellow and sweetly just starting to autumnally decay. Sort of appropriate for the time of year and the drinker. Nice story again, Rory.

13.5% alcohol. Screwcap. About $30 a year or several ago.

94 points.

2016 Grand Bateau Bordeaux

In such times, alcohol in the form of good wine taken internally must be the perfect sanitiser. The big boat is a connection to the big 4th growth St. Julien, Chateau Beychevelle which is almost ten times the price these days. This opened a little oddly with some dank off putting drain smells. Twenty four hours later, another tentative sniff and sip showed all was in fact well. Mulberry, something bramble, earth and gravel with a fleeting top note of red plum and raspberry Merlot, a bit of a tease like those basic Bourgognes that can only hint at the real pleasures of the crus. Nonetheless, there’s some fine sandpaper tannin and, well yes you have to say it, refreshing mineral acidity. 80/20 Merlot and Cabernet they say on the back label, the Bordeaux self regard implicit on the front.

13% alcohol. Cork. $20 at auction, think it normally retails for $25 to $30?

89 proper Claret points.

2018 Miners Ridge Grampians Shiraz

A warm welcome at a small cellar door in the ancient, scrubby bushland of the gobsmackingly beautiful Grampians. A small proportion of the fruit grown is saved for just a few hundred cases of the vineyard’s own label. The quality of the selection is obvious from first sniff and slurp. Red fruits, touch of blueberry, brown spices and noticeable pepper richly swirled with a seasoning of vanilla custard oak. Very technically clean and conservative making perhaps limits the exuberance a bit as the finish tightens with some lemony acidity. Nonetheless, if you want to taste just how good Grampians Shiraz can be at a very modest price, take a delicious swerve off the highway to Adelaide and go have a taste. A recent bottle of 2018 Riesling was also delicious in that virtually bone dry traditional Grampians way.

14.5% alcohol. Screwcap. $25 and a bargain.

93 points.

2008 Hoddles Creek Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet from a chilly upland part of the Yarra Valley in a hot vintage. Still some purple in the glass and a fresh cut of blackcurrant leaf, cassis, mint with a seasoning of truffle and oak toast. Lovely mouthwatering compression of fine just ripe tannin and crisp natural acidity. Such is the low ph crunch, the flavours just got richer over three days without a hint of oxidation. There really is something special in the way Yarra Cabernet can get flavour ripe whilst hanging onto its naturally delicious bounce. More jump than a happy frog.

13.8% alcohol. Screwcap. $20 a few years ago.

92 points.

2017 Cave de Tain Crozes-Hermitage

From the major and very good Northern Rhône cooperative, Cave de Tain, and a direct import by Woolworths, this is a relatively a good value intro into the home of Syrah. If you were expecting a crisp red fruited and smokily floral effort typical of a cooler latitude, then you’ll be surprised by the rich, darker fruited power of what tastes like a hot vintage. Beautifully clean, dark red fruit, spice and chewy dry skin tannin make this more typical of Languedoc or Australia than Crozes. Evolved well over three days, shaking off some sulphide reduction to sweeten nicely. Climate change sceptics need to drink more. The evidence of warmer, earlier vintages is clearly in the glass.

13.5% alcohol. Cork. $33.

92 points.

2015 Vietti Barbera d’Asti La Crena

Early one Saturday morning a friend rang and said he was standing next to a six pack of this at the importer’s wholesale bin end sale. Shame it’s only from Asti and not one of the Alba versions I said, thinking I knew something about these things. Well, wrong, as this vineyard has plantings going back to 1932 and is as much treasured by the Vietti as anything closer to Alba and similarly priced, alas. Hooray for bin end sales. Opens as cleanly and impeccably fragrant as Viettis always seem to do. Rich dark blue and black fruit, sort of cherry and a hint of blueberry, classic Piemonte earth and licorice. At first there’s that very ripe fluidity that suggests it’s a bit too slick but over a day or two the fruit gets fresher and carries further on that superb Barbera acidity. Refreshment and authenticity. The oak’s only a nutty hint hiding behind the weight and drive of some deeply generous fruit. Great craft in the growing and the making. Vietti, authority writ large. Don’t think I can resist opening one of my tiny collection of their Baroli soon.

14.50% alcohol. Cork. Bargain thanks to the wine frenzy sale.

94 points.

2015 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

The 60th vintage of a most reliably true to its roots Cabernet which is produced in what could be described as substantial quantity. For the last 25 years or so the same remarkable team of wine maker and viticulturist have been coaxing possibly the planet’s best value Cabernet into the bottle from vineyards where the machine does most of the work. Cost input relative to genuine product seems amazing. This vintage is a wonder. Not in a blockbuster way but just perfectly even ripeness showing the reserve and grace of good Cabernet. Sure, there’s cassis and berries and a hint of green leaf but there’s a gravelly, menthol finesse, all naturally settled into good fine ripe tannin and acidity. Only medium bodied at first, a thicker richness develops over a day or three with a touch of deeper earthy flavour and that saline, almost oyster shell Coonawarra reserve. Professorial authority in a bottle. Best maybe since 1986 or 1991?

13.8% alcohol. Screwcap. $25 when super discounted but a RRP of $45, happily Treasury Wine Estates don’t treasure this enough.

94 points.

2012 Ashton Hills Riesling

Three Rieslings in a week and not a dud. It’s possibly the only variety that appears on auction sites that consistently sells for less than the original retail, Grosset from great years excepted, of course. This is another ageing with some grace, still a pale colour and hanging on to the aromas of youth. Yes, lime and citrus naturally but again more in the way of mandarin, apples and something that brings to mind those spice notes of Alsatian versions. Beautiful flavours immaculately controlled by svelte acidity and a fruit sweetness born of flavour or a scintilla of residual, hard to tell. Softly autumnal untrammelled by coarse phenolic extract. Over many seasons, a deeply thoughtful producer of great craft. Those of us who visited the cellar door high in the hills were always in for a treat and stunning bargains in the form of those Galahs!

13% alcohol. Screwcap. $24.50 at auction.

94 points.

2011 Frankland Estate Netley Road Riesling

It’s still February, thus it’s more Riesling. This one from the stack of cardboard boxes that passes for a cellar. From a producer who has done a lot to promote the wonders of the grape loved by wine geeks and largely ignored by the rest of drinkers, this one’s shrugging off the effects of age with aplomb. Still pale and fresh smelling. Limes, of course, but lots more in the form of apple pie, almost a touch of vanilla bean, mandarins, waxy candles and sweet green herby notes. Nice line of texture through the mouth, lithe, no real skin grip, just gentle acidity and perhaps a whisper of sweetness to balance impeccably. No shouting but a confidential wink of authenticity for those of us who love the charm of proper Riesling. As old football wisdom has it, form is temporary, class is permanent.

12% alcohol. Screwcap. Was about $25?

94 points.