Calvados, Bitters, sauvignon B...

No, this is not just another "Light Dry Red" playing to the recent fads but a serious nod to the 'Burgundies' of the 50's 60's and 70's which Nick Spencer is paying homage to. These were classic light-bodied Shiraz and Shiraz/ Pinot blends that emerged from the Hunter and are highly sort after now. They are back in fashion and tasting this it's not hard to understand why.

The style can be a little hit or miss and getting that combo of pinot and shiraz just right is critical, which Nick has done a brilliant job of here. A touch of sour cherry, cranberry and strawberries that plays off broodier black currant and blackberry fruit swirling around in the background. It's served on a palate that is crunchy and vibrant with lovely fine structure and soft melting tannins. Great poise between the fruit and other elements and while this is wonderfully easy to enjoy there is a plenty going on here that belies the seriousness of the wine.

While its ready to go now and easy to love if you put a couple of bottles away for just a couple of years or so I think you would be a very happy camper!

Syrah from two vineyards farmed organically by Ryan the winemaker himself.

Powdery dry with amaro laced dark berry fruit flavours, botanicals, blood orange, sour cherry and refreshing, minerally acidity. Fine, silty tannins shape things nicely, decent length, liveliness and good depth. Very good. MIKE BENNIE, The Wine Front

Express Winemakers is Ryan O'Meara's mini-me wine operation from the deep south of WA. He has over the years assembled a top-notch set of vineyards in the Great Sothern making slippery and sensual wines, sometimes a little funky, definitely a lot of fun and always delicious.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

60% Syrah 25% Cabernet Sauvignon 15% Grenache, They say “perfect with your favourite wood-fired pizza (hold the pineapple)”,  though I like pineapple on pizza. Gino D’Acampo would have conniptions.

Plenty of flavour of red and blue fruits, bay leaf, a dusting of spice. Medium-bodied, quite fleshy, some earthy/sooty tannin sweeps through it, with a soft and supple finish of blue fruits and spice. Length is moderate, but OK. Good wine. Easy to like. GARY WALSH, The Wine Front

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

Sourced from a range of Vale sites, this is at the ‘vin de soif’ end of the Aphelion grenache roster. Grenache in this zone can be juicy and jubey, but not this. It’s a thread that runs through the Welkin range, with fruitful pleasure in a mid-weight zone tempered by savoury structure. Macerated strawberries and tart raspberries, redcurrant, red licorice, rhubarb and orange, pink peppercorn and a seasoning of dusty spice. It’s bright and lithe, savoury and zippy – a fine all-rounder at table that can take a gentle chill. MARCUS ELLIS, Halliday Wine Companion

Seems like my brilliant treatise on whelks fell on deaf ears. Oh well, sometimes it feels like I’m feeding strawberries to pigs here. And speaking of strawberries…

Poached strawberry, raspberry, lemon thyme and rosemary perfume, hazelnut, candied orange peel and mint. Juicy, strawberry, kind of sweet and succulent, but also has a little savoury stony stuff, nutty things and solid length too, and gee it’s a fun little wine. Nice. Kind of like a big rosato in a way. GARY WALSH, The Wine Front

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

Pete Schell's Papillon and I have had a thing going for a while. If I spy it on a wine list it's often what I'll go for as it consistently delivers a great drinking experience and matches a range of foods. This year it's 66/31/3% grenache/cinsault/counoise 3%. Spacious, sapid and energetic, it's all raspberries and cranberries daubed with exotic spice, rose petals, sour cherry, dried herbs and stone. That whoosh of sour red plum at the end gets me every time. So good! (95) DAVE BROOKS, thewinecompanion

This is 66% grenache, 31% cinsault and 3% counoise. Always the shapeshifter is Papillon.
Cool and fresh. Lively and bright. A chillable, slurpy, crunchy red emerges. Red cherry, raspberry, cranberry, alpine herbs, some menthol-like lift, aniseed and pepper, a touch of white chocolate. Good energy here. Some real get up and go. Freshness implicit. Cool. MIKE BENNIE, The Wine Front

Light cherry red hue. Raspberry, blueberry and anise aromas. Bright on the palate: juicy raspberry fruits with hints of rosemary and dusty earth adding complexity. The freshness of the acidity makes for a deliciousness that really appeals, and tannins kick through at the back end to dry the finish. STUART KNOX, The Real Review

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

This is the 2nd release of the 'Viceroy' Syrah for young winemaker Matt Keoghan who has worked extensively locally and abroad to try and hone in his craft from places such as Hermitage, Barolo and ChateauNeuf Du Pape.

The vineyard from which these wines are made from are on the GI border of Mclarenvale (Clarendon) and Adelaide Hills from the Wind River Vineyard which is family owned and farmed. The soils are Buck Shot ironstones and quartz through Sandy loams on a light orange and red clay base. This leads to leaner alcohol wine and some slight reduction but almost pithy tannin and slurpee acidity.

The wines are more savoury than what is usually seen from the Adelaide Hills with great structural framing around a blue/black fruited palate. The lift from the hallmark whole bunch kiss, an almost mineral fresh finish, this wine is really letting the fruit speak rather than the winemaking, with elevage in neutral Hogs Heads and all Natural fermentation and minimal sulphur added prior to bottling.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

This wine has dropped the Bozeto styling and is now simply called Exopto. New name, same vibrant, great-value Rioja. This pan-regional expression of Rioja’s three principal grape varieties is conceived as a lively, easy-drinking introduction to the range. Most entry-level wines from this region are based on Tempranillo (a variety easier and more profitable to grow), yet here Garnacha represents 65% of the blend. This Garnacha hails from very old vines in the sandy, river-stone terroirs of El Agudo and Al Casillón at Alfaro (Rioja Oriental). The Tempranillo is drawn from a selection of mature vines in Ábalos (high-county Rioja Alta), and some Ábalos Graciano adds freshness and finesse.

The wine ferments in a combination of concrete and steel tank, then ages for six months in concrete and 5,000-litre oak vats. These days, Tom includes a measure of semi-carbonic maceration for extra buoyancy. Opening with perfumes of dusky berries and well-judged spice, this is a wonderfully aromatic, restaurant-friendly wine. It’s a wine that impresses with its precision rather than power. Even so, the warmer year gives an open, juicy wine and a great deal of drinking pleasure: spice, vibrancy and velvety flow flecked with notes of espresso, dried flowers and wild woody herbiness to go with its smoky blackberry fruit. If you’re looking for a bright, succulent grower Rioja, few will deliver better value than this.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

Demi is such a vital expression of Heathcote shiraz. It’s also an essential expression of value, from a small producer.There’s complexity here. There’s juicy fruit. There’s fistfuls of spice and yet there’s a general we-are-one cohesion. Blue, black and red summer berry flavours, an ironstone element, woodsy spices roasted in an iron pan and modest inputs from florals. It’s a better wine than its asking price would suggest. It’s firm, confident and flavoursome. CAMPBELL MATTINSON, the wine front

Red earth, black cherries and olive tapenade pronounce themselves. There's a charming rustic character to this wine - much like the person behind it. It's got grunt, spice and power however it's a very graceful medium-bodied red. The palate is loaded with complexity  - black and purple fruits sit alongside a graphite minerality and oh-so-soothing tannins. Easily loveable and very much enjoyable! KAYLEEN REYNOLDS

It’s a new plot of vineyard (on the estate) and this is the first year where there was enough crop to make/release a wine. It was fermented wild in old oak and then matured in a (not new) 1000l foudre.

Time in old oak was important here because it’s added texture to what is, at heart, a structural white wine. It’s a wine of skin and bones, stones and spices, its dryness a key part of its appeal. We’re almost into brine territory here, or stones sitting in a saline solution, perhaps. It knows what it wants, and it wants for food. This is a good, interesting wine, worth buying and drinking, and future releases will be worth following. CAMPBELL MATTINSON, The Wine Front

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

Grown in the sandy, clay soils of our Osmington family vineyard. Planted in 1995 with rows running north to south on a slight northeast facing slope. The vineyard is certified biodynamic. We treat it like a veg patch, heavy compost in autumn and sheep snapping the odd wire as they browse in winter.

20% handpicked early April before machine harvesting 2-days later. The whole bunches added to vat, the machine component going on top, no crushing or destemming. Wild fermented on skins, until dry. Pressed to a mix of new & old French barrels. A single racking after the Spring equinox otherwise it sits on full lees until January, topping every two weeks. Spontaneous malolactic fermentation from Autumn to Spring giving a natural CO2 cover during maturation. The wine remains undisturbed with minimal sulphur added prior to bottling in February. High-quality, smaller corks provide a more drinkable style through bottle aging. The wine is unfined & unfiltered so may present some harmless deposits in the bottle.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

Sauvignon Blanc of the Year. Score awarded by the Halliday tasting team at the annual Awards judging. SW writes: Fermented in stainless steel tank (52%) and older oak (48%). Aged on full lees with no battonage. Pineapple, guava, perfectly ripe mango skin and lilikoi. Driving and elegant natural acidity and a wash of juicy tropical fruit with hints of glacé ginger and nutmeg spice. A fuzz of nettle texture and the wine finishes quite full bodied. It's a sauvignon blanc made with care, attention to detail and purity of fruit. (97) WINE COMPANION TASTING PANEL
 
This must be one of Australia’s top sauvignon blanc wines. And the value is pretty epic.

It’s got exceptional energy and persistence, a major feature is the tension in the wine, the torque of powdery pucker and the core of briny minerality. Around this, preserved lemon, a faint ginger lift, almond, attractive parmesan cheese characters, salt bush and gentle white pepper. It’s a compact and yet flavoursome white, refreshing as it is interesting and intellectual for the fanciers of fine sauvignon blanc. Cellar some too. MIKE BENNIE, Wine Front

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!