Oh how we love Rutherglen! It must be Victoria’s best kept wine secret, its most underrated wine region. Two specific features make Rutherglen so special to us. First, the region boasts a unique ability to produce an exceptionally wide variety of great wines, from Gewurztraminer and Roussanne to Chardonnay to Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache, and of course Durif […]
We’re unabashed Heathcote wine lovers, and the Heathcote Wine Show is our favourite annual industry event! 2023 was no exception! Medal-winning wines clearly showcased why Heathcote Shiraz holds such a special place in the Shiraz pantheon. But this year, for the first time ever, we also discovered two Heathcote Grenaches we absolutely loved (yes, you […]
Coonawarra is one of our favourite wine regions in Australia. It’s really everything about the place. The quaint small-town charm. The main thoroughfare flanked by oceans of vines as far as the eye can see. Hosts at cellar doors who are genuinely hospitable – actually happy you’ve come to pay the visit. And of course, […]
There. We said it. And if you read this blog, you know we mean it – Heathcote can produce Australia’s best Shiraz – right up there with the best of Barossa or McLaren Vale and sometimes better. With their unfathomable “t-rex on a tightrope” dialectic of power and finesse, peak Heathcote Shiraz offers something that simply cannot […]
Heathcote is a magical wine region and (shockingly) one of Victoria’s best kept wine secrets. In the right vintage, we reckon Heathcote produces the best Shiraz in all of Australia. But Heathcote is so much more than the Shiraz for which it is best known. Here you will find striking Cabernet Sauvignons and a flurry […]
We recently did a vertical tasting of Chirping Bird‘s delightful Mornington Peninsula Shiraz. At release, Chirping Bird Shiraz almost always strikes such an inviting balance – offering enough heft and dark fruit to engage, but never overpowering or assertive. With that said, it was intriguing to discover how some of these wines have aged, with […]
Recently, we hosted a tasting to explore some of the most commonly planted varieties in Australia. Below you can find the wines we chose that we felt “exemplify” the varietal types (e.g., is there any Shiraz more Shiraz than a Sanguine Estate masterpiece?, etc.) Which wines would you have chosen to capture the essence of […]
A true Brockenchack Wines / Eden Valley masterpiece. We so loved this – one of those wines that breaks your heart as you finish your last bottle, realising you’ll never have it again. Truly a dream in a bottle. Aged to perfection. Longest finishing run of deep, polished dark fruit flavours that we can remember […]
We recently had the opportunity to do a vertical tasting of some of Blowfly’s striking Shiraz. “Striking” really is the word for all the Blowfly wines we have tried. The Northern Slopes Zone is not a well-known wine region (and indeed, Blowfly is one of the only two or three wineries we know therefrom), but […]
Heathcote‘s annual Wine Show must be Victoria’s premier wine dinner. For Shiraz-lovers in particular, the event is a singularity. We cannot think of any other wine dinner anywhere across Australia at which we would rather find ourselves. Sadly, the most recent (who can keep count anymore!) COVID outbreak/lockdown has just forced the postponement of this […]