(2024) The apricot - and dried apricot - aroma is unmissable in this wine. Fermented and matured in older French oak for 10 months, a little cedar and spice adds piquant highlights to the fruit. In the mouth it is medium-bodied, again apricot and peach, a gentle nutty background and enough acidity to keep this fresh makes for an all-round satisfying wine.
(2024) I rather enjoyed this unusual Sauvignon Blanc from RedHeads Wine, unusual because the fruit comes from Coonawarra, a territory normally associated with Cabernet Sauvignon. Unoaked, I liked the suggestion of lime peel and melon skin on the nose that added a certain savoury character rather than just overt fruit. Fruit is there, some gooseberry, grapefruit and just a hint of more tropical passion fruit, and the acid balance in this 12.5% wine is good.
(2024) Delicious fat limey aromas, quite luscious but with that green citrus edge that keeps things keen. There's a lovely hint of smoky minerality. The palate is dry, a bright acid core is savoury and mouthwatering. Price and stockist are for the previous vintage at time of review.
(2024) Fermented with natural yeasts and spending seven months in French oak barriques, there's a gunflint whiff of cordite, vanillin creaminess and a lovely melange of peach and orange aromas. quite luscious on the palate, the peach and nectarine flesh and juiciness is pleasing, just a smidgen of creamy, nutty oak and well judged pithy citrus acidity. Really nicely composed.
(2023) 100% Fiano from McLaren Vale, two separate pickings on week apart in search of a broader range of fruit characters, fermented in equal parts concrete egg, old oak barrrels and stainless steel tanks. The lees was stirred for around two months before blending. The climate here is similar to that of Sicily and the south of Italy, the variety's home. Fine, soft and leesy pear and lemon. Quite full textured with orange and peach, but plenty of tangy acidity too. No UK stockists at time of review.
(2021) Made from the Mendoza clone of Chardonnay and partially fermented in French oak barrels, this has a rounded, lightly buttery character, lemon and a light bob-bon character. The palate has good clarity, a lot of fruit sweetness, the oak not apparent in the mouth and a pithy citrus acidity to finish.
(2020) A fine example of the 'new' Australian Chardonnay, though in truth there's nothing new about the story of the country's Chardonnays having changed style from the golden 'oak bombs' of the 1990s. From the Eden Valley, home to so much excellent Riesling, this is barrel fermented with wild yeasts, and spent six months in fine-grained French oak. A pale green-straw in colour, the nose is pretty and cool, with just a little almond sheen of richness, hinting at creaminess, before a palate of zippy pear and apple, much more citrus driving through the core of this, the finish clean and well-tempered, with a clarity to the balanced acid and fruit finish.
(2020) I see from my database that I did taste a Sauvignon/Semillon blend from Hollick way back in 1998, but it was still something of a shock to see this: a Sauvignon Blanc from Coonawara, normally associated with South Australia's premium Bordeaux-style red wines. It's certainly packed to the rafters with character; abundant and pungent herbaceous and elderflower aromas, pea-shoots and tropical fruit, then the palate showing just a little bit of a sweet-sour character for me, the vivid exotic fruit surely a little residual sugar against lemon-jelly acidity.
(2019) Don't even ask about the unusual name of this wine, but instead concentrate on a very good example of a wine in the 'orange wine' idiom, that is not too extreme and will serve both as a more gentle introduction to the style, and simply as a very nice wine. It's a blend of 66% Semillon and 34% Viognier, fermented with skin contact and aged 18 months in old barrels. The colour is an astonishing, luminous buttercup yellow, and the careful winemaking is evident: picking the Semillon a little late to avoid its sometimes herbaceous character, and the Viognier a little early to minimise it's tendency to become a little heavy and alcoholic - this has only 12.7% abv. Don't come looking for upfront fruitiness however: this has notes akin to Fino sherry on the nose, nuttiness and light kaolin, the palate dry, earthy and savoury, a bit of lemon curd and plenty of yeasty funk adding to the intrigue. A food wine for sure, watch the video for more information.
(2018) Yalumba have long been masters of the Viognier variety, now quite widely planted outside of its Rhône Valley home, but sometimes producing wines that verge on being 'blowsy' and too alcoholic. Not here, with this 13% abv rendition from the cool-ish Riesling heartland of the Eden Valley. It doesn't miss out on the exotic and quite flamboyant aromatics of the variety, with lychee and a touch of sweet potpourri spice, nectarine fruit and yet a lightly flinty, smoky note too. In the mouth it juxtaposes sweet stone fruits with a lemon and lime-rind acidity, and that lightly salty and stony note adding definition. For more information and food-matching ideas, please watch the full video review.
