2017 Borsao Selección Garnacha

Another Woolworth’s direct import from a bit of Spain probably growing the world’s best value Grenache. A small amount of Tempranillo and Shiraz in this too it seems, Clinically clean red musky perfume and well extracted, perhaps a touch too much. Some herbs and a crisp end weigh well against simple rich sweet raspberries and rhubarb. The vibrancy faded by day three. Perhaps no risks in the making or complexity but for so little money a tasty mid week money saver. Doubt the supermarket behemoth is making its shareholders a fortune from a bottle of this.

14.50% alcohol. Screwcap. $11.99.

88 points.

2017 Mountadam Eden Valley Riesling

Starting to lose its yeasty first year awkwardness. Some limey fruit finding an equilibrium with modulated fine acidity. Maybe a touch of fruity residual but with a green veggie Thai curry it just helped things along. The fruit has enough class to lend a little peachy waxiness to the finale, lifting it from the mundane. Like the best Eden Valley Rieslings, this has poise and a quiet depth. Great to see one of the fine old labels back on form.

12% alcohol. Screwcap. $23.

93 points.

2016 Thibaud Boudignon Anjou Blanc

Chenin Blanc with a lot of spit and polish. Opens with a bit of spritzy CO2 reduction and noticeable oak. A quick double decant accidentally losing a mouthful down the sink, careful, and the fruit came swimming to the surface as the finest bubbles faded. None of those broad, brassy sulphide yellow flavours of careless Loire Chenin but delicious apples, yellow stone fruit and gin and tonic freshness. Extremely classy fruit, perfect high level acidity and a touch of oak savouriness are so poised it’s almost impossible to say if it’s dry or there’s a touch of residual. Really, who cares, it counterpointed sushi and sashimi so well. Oishhhiii…..hai.

13.50%. Cork. About $100, alas, could drink this more often.

96 points.

2017 Mount Langi Ghiran Cliff Edge Shiraz

A lot of spicy, peppery and richly fruited wine from Langi Ghiran has flowed under my bridge since a first 1986 vintage from the long gone and still missed Richmond Hill Cellars. This seems like some of those earlier harvests before vintage dates started sliding forward with more precocious ripeness. Lovely soft just ripe red fruit, pepper and some old style Grampians’ bush scents. Just medium weight and not quite the power of recent hotter years. Perhaps just needs a touch more umphh for the longer term but a lovely taste of place and a bit of misty nostalgia.

13.80% alcohol. Screwcap. $27.

92 points.

2018 Arfion Yarra Valley Spring Pinot

A favourite and very informed importer of some extraordinary Champagne mentioned one of the characteristics he loves in good wine is tension. Not so much anxiety but more a tasty paradox perhaps. Some fruit richness but lightness of structure. Fresh raspberries and strawberries pushed forward by some whole berry ferment but a darker earthy grip. So it went with this Pinot Noir over three days. No loss of interest, just a delicious balance of immediately drinkable sweet fruit and an earthy cut of savoury structure with a tiny tweak of sulphide. A calming tension.

13% alcohol. Screwcap. $30.

92 points.

Simple dinner for three..

Two halves and one full bottle made for a tasty and almost moderate dinner, sort of…

NV Louis Roederer Champagne Brut Premier.

Delicious from the gentle phttt of the cork. Rich but fresh. Older honeyed pastry and hazelnuts mixed perfectly with crystalline candied citrus and pale red fruit. Mouthwatering and appetite whetting likes no other drink. If NV’s job is to be full of delicious impact from the perfumed start, then this is the bee’s knees.

12.50% alcohol. Cork I think, maybe Diam, failing memory. Another generous share.

94 points.

2013 Comm. G B Burlotto Barolo.

Clean, expressive and so savoury from the start. Perfect cherry red fruit, almond paste and stones. Just got fresher and deeper. Not the deep dark of Serralunga or Monforte but all the drive, brightness and perfume of the more north westerly bits of Barolo land. Somehow seemed much smaller than 375 mls. Alarmingly quick disappearance.

14% alcohol. Cork. Thanks for sharing.

95 points.

1999 Domaine Tollot Beaut Corton Bressandes.

Dark, extractive and still a bit oaky. Got a bit fresher and deeper fruited as it came up for air. Rich red fruit conserve and darker clay and chalky earth. The rear end filled out well with dark cane fruit depth. Still some life in the tannin texture of both skin and cocoa oak buoyed by a gentle acid rasp. Shame the remains tired so quickly the next day.

14% alcohol. Cork. About $100 on release.

93 points.

2004 Roberto Voerzio Barolo La Serra

Another holiday treat, this time from a kind friend who’s a bit of a Barolo expert. Drink and learn. Opened a bit caramel brown and perhaps more developed than expected. However, Nebbiolo being its contrary self, it sort of gained a bit of freshness with air and was still very drinkable. Aside from some balsamic tiredness, all the usual dark tarry flavours and cherry notes galore and a tickle of fading dried roses. Cocoa oak too. Burly haunting purple jam fruit at the end still.

14.50% alcohol. Cork. A spoil at today’s Voerzio prices.

94 points.

1999 Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits St Georges Les Pruliers

Seasonal treat from the dungeon. Wonderful clean freshness for an oldie. Good red colour, gloriously red fruited with an almost austere tug of great tannin and acidity. Remington Norman’s Burgundy book mentions the extremely low yields the Gouges favour and this bears that out. Dense, round and deep. Untrammelled by any new oak. Paradoxically succulent and firmly spartan, ballerina poise. All my golden russet autumns in a bottle and there’s a few of them now.

13% alcohol. Cork. Was about 35 euros, contributing to a very heavy carry on before the 100ml limit. Them were the days.

96 points.

Well, it seems there’s more than one bottle of this in the cellar, so now there’s two less. The second from an the Australian importer looks considerably more developed with an autumnal and caramel fog lying across the cool flow of dense fruit and stern rocks. It had been on the shelf for a while, so maybe some early damage done? Much is made of the fanciful detail in Burgundy’s individual vineyards but slow sniffing and sipping is like a weird geological exploration, yes really. If you’ve ever driven out of the city’s fug, opened the car door somewhere refreshingly rural and taken a deep breath, well, it’s sort of like that. Silly old wino you say, definitely. Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful drink of that Burgundian paradox of poised fruit and rugged stone.

Still as above in numbers apart from the price in Australia. Just been in a warmer place for a while.

2016 Jean-Paul Thévenet Morgon Vieilles Vignes

Vibrant lifted aromas of raspberries, cherries, yeasty bits and Northern Rhone Syrah like rocky granite or something like that. Same in the mouthful with great acid freshness but also a composty sort of earthiness which one of us thought a nice complexity and another couldn’t stand to drink. That’s the fun of wine and the way we all see the world through different lenses, n’est-ce pas? For some an exuberant, delicious example of one of those very much alive, fanatically made natural Beaujolais Crus, for another too far off the edge.

13% alcohol. Cork. About $70.

94 points for one, somewhat less for another!

2012 Wilson Polish Hill River Riesling

Some toast but few if any petro chem smells. Fine citrus, touch of white peach and beeswax. Pure and delicate with a rainwater like gentleness and beautiful mouth watering acidity. Properly dry, refined and relying on balance and definition rather than raw power. Held up superbly over two days. Graceful. Will sail on for a few more years yet and could even get better!

12.50% alcohol. Screwcap. About $20 I think six years ago.

94 polished Polish Hill River points.

Another bottle January 2020 and a few developments. Richer, touch of toast and lime marmalade, deeply delicious now but still a beautiful cut of cool pebbly brook acidity. Pushing a point more.