Calvados, Palomino, monastrell...

From Kuitpo in the Adelaide Hills. Lots of ripe cherry scents, a touch of medicinal cherry in there too, a flicker of game meat aromas, black pepper dashed over it all with a whiff of clove. Sloshy and appealing in the texture department, quite a decent feel of concentration, an almost creaminess, ripe cherry flavours flecked with nougat, cinnamon spice, a splash of white chocolate-orange. Easy-drinking style, with plenty of pinosity on hand. MIKE BENNIE, The Wine Front

XO Wine Co is a boutique, contemporary producer based in Adelaide Hills, South Australia, known for making small-batch, minimal-intervention wines that celebrate both site and season. Founded by Damon Koerner and Jono Koerner (yes, the same talented family behind Koerner Wines in Clare Valley), XO Wine Co focuses on expressive, fresh, and vibrant wines made with a deep respect for nature and terroir.

With The Hills cooler climate, diverse soils, and varied altitudes it's the perfect backdrop for their style crafting bright-fruited, textural, and beautifully balanced, often with a playful, wines with a modern edge that still respects traditional craftsmanship.

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Fine and polished nose - floral, figgy and gently meaty, it's a delicate and perfectly varietal expression of Monastrell. Soft, wide tannins start the mouth off and a long rip of ripe acid in the back half really straightens things out. Almuvedre has long been one of the bargain wines of the world and the style-quality-value amalgam continues to boggle the mind. IMPORTER

Estate grown field blend of Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay Musqué, Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. Up to 7 days of skin contact before pressing. Natural co-ferment and maturation in a Pozvek foudré for 9 months on full lees. 100% malolactic fermentation. Bottled in January 2024 unfined and unfiltered.

Amber hue in the glass, this wine is complex and highly aromatic with scents of fresh apricot, musk and lychee. Peach, beeswax and subtle smoky notes. A creamy mid palate with a refreshing saline finish.

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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!

STAFF PICKS 2024 - RICH

Gewurtztraminer can be often misunderstood with low quality examples from the and 80's and 90's still in the minds and on the palates. This is a great wine to help change that mindset. Floral notes with honeysuckle leap from the glass with a hint of white pepper and the traditional spiciness. Due to an drier than normal vintage the alcohol is lower than usual and coming in at less than 1g residual sugar, there is a mineral freshness not often seen from this varietal. The palate follows the nose but brings in elements of stone fruit and sweet spice. If you haven't had a Gewurtztraminer in a hot minute, this is perfect. RICH

Hard as it may be to believe, this gewurz has stacks of yellow rose and star fruit aromas, but is only medium-bodied and tastes so bright. The interplay of the acidity and the exciting touches of tannin and bitterness drive the long, bone-dry finish. Just 12.6% alcohol. From biodynamically grown grapes. Drink now. STUART PIGOTT, jamessuckling.com

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Big fan of Jumilla Monastrell, there's great Monastrell made in Spain, with a ton of character. This particular Monastrell; concentrated with red and dark berries, balanced with a touch of chocolate and savoury components. Great wine and food pairing!  NICK CAPEL, PWS SYDNEY

The grapes are from 13 plots of Monastrell vineyards in La Raja (where the winery is located) between the mountain ranges of El Carche and La Pila. The vines range from 20 to 70 years old sitting at 800 metres, within the wine region D.O. Jumilla, in the south of Spain. Steel tank ferment with 5 months in small French oak.

Red licorice, pastille fruits, and a hint of charry savouriness and scorched earth layered in with sweet, heady spice. Black cherry, black raspberry fruit paint the palate then slowly melt away to reveal spice box and savory herbs then rushes back in with plum, blackberry compote, blueberrie, and blackcurrant that bring the finale to a luxurious finish that trails off with some dark chocolate, and tobacco.

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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!

A juicy and very fresh gewurz with stacks of star fruit and licorice character. Just a touch of positive bitterness helps lift the medium-bodied palate, which is otherwise really silky. Beautiful balance in spite of the touch of unfermented grape sweetness. Mostly from young vines in the Grand Cru Hengst and the Clos Windsbuhl sites. Picked at the end of the 2022 harvest. Drink or hold.  STUART PIGOTT, jamessuckling.com

A dry pink style of sparkling, using the classic blend of xarel.lo, parellada and macabeu, along with monastrell to create an amazing pink hue to the wine. Varieties are fermented separately in stainless steel before blending to create the base wine. Minimum of 18 months on lees in bottle before disgorgement, with a tiny bit of dosage at the end.

Dry pink of great elegance. A lovely faded rose pink colour, it smells of gently boozed strawberries, dusty rose aromatics - perfumed without any outrageous fruitiness or excess. Nice false sweetness on entry -the balance is ultimately off-dry, juicy and gentle, with high quality delicate bubbles underpinning the fruit, cutting the fruitiness and running on to a super-gently acid close.

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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!

A Vino de Pasto from the laminated Albarizas Barajuelas of Pago Macharnudo. It's aged in 80 year-old bota with 12 months under velo de flor. It's 13.5% natural ABV (no soleo used). 'La Escribana' is a single parcela wine, facing south-east and at 100metres altitude (one of the highest in Marco de Jerez). There's a green harvest, for all the normal reasons, but which also gives a reserve 'green wine' which Willy uses to correct acidity naturally, and add finesse. 'La Escribana' is 'the writer', perhaps a chalk board medium for the illiterate, a translator, documentor, faithful witness.

The wine is a new stop along the Palominos-Finos continuum. As we often find with Spanish, there's a Japanese connection. It's a wine of green bamboo washed by billy tea, of pistachio skin sake. It's Japanese like barely beer witha rice lining.

Gold and green to look and smell. It has a semi-fermentated barley-sake-ricey-acetic tang and gourd skin, paddy-melon-in-the-cool-of-night-edginess. There's a titch of steel and the smell of reeds and rush matting, stripped bamboo, lemongrass outers and typical pistachio skin. It's a wine of lovely depth with some richness, but edged sweet-sour.

Aged in small apple brandy casks for over 12 months, this rich and generous liqueur is a result of blending pressed French and British heirloom apple varieties with our apple spirit.

Complex and well-structured with baked apple and spice, balanced with firm tannins and cask influence.

Our take on the traditional aperitif from North-West France – enjoy as such or serve with blue cheese or dessert. WILLIE SMITH

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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!

I love the subtle floral honey, ripe grapefruit and shiso leaf aromas of this super elegant and creamy, full-bodied gewurz that is so unique you might well not recognize the grape variety. What delicacy and vitality at the long, silky finish. From biodynamically grown grapes. Drink or hold.  96 STUART PIGOTT, jamessuckling.com

M. Antonio de la Riva (by Willy Peréz and Ramiro Ibañez)
Manuel Antonio de la Riva founded his Jerez bodega in 1858. Located on the famous Arcos Street in Jerez, La Riva enjoyed great success with wines sourced from Manuel's vineyards in Pago Marcharnudo. More than a century later (after Manuel's death), it was bought by Domecq, who added La Riva to some of their best wines. With the decline and devaluation of Jerez after the 1960s, Domecq slowly began eliminating brands and La Riva ceased to exist; the brand names were sold to Beam International.

Before the end of La Riva, young winemaker Luis Pérez (who later founded Bodegas Luis Pérez) had started working as a winemaker in several of the Domecq subsidiaries: Blázquez, Florido, Hermanos y Sancho and … La Riva! Luis learned the vineyards, practices and wines of the La Riva brands just before they were deleted. With the historical knowledge of Luis to guide them, next generation winemakers Willy Pérez (son of Luis) and Ramiro Ibáñez decided to recuperate the brand and its historical wines before they became entirely forgotten. Willy and Ramiro bought back the rights to the La Riva brands in 2017, and have since negotiated access to some of the famous plots from which they were sourced (and which had since become anonymous fruit sources for un-aspirational Sherries), in Balbaina Alta, and particularly Macharnudo.

M.ANTONIO de la RIVA Macharnudo Palomino de Flor con asoleado

La Riva Macharnudo Blanco recuperates a great wine based in the 'el Majuelo' vineyard (specifically in the tiny sub-vineyard parcela, el notario) within Pago Macharnudo[1]; a historical wine of el Marco de Jerez which disappeared under Domecq in the 1980s. 'El Notario' faces north (just under el Castillo de Majuelo, a castle crowning the pago) at 115m altitude, 18km in from the Atlantic, in a mixed poniente-levante setting. The soils are Tosca cerrada and barajuelas with a high level of diatomaceous fossils promoting great freshness. The fruit (Palomino 84) is hand-picked, with individual bunches selected in repeated passes over 2 months, which gain a degree or so of alcohol from an 8 hour soleo. It's then whole bunch pressed (only half the juice is taken). An ambient spontaneous fermentation in 600l  bota precedes 20 months ageing under a film of flor. 1,500 bottles were filled in May 2019 at 14% abv, 5.5 ta, and neither filtered nor fined. It faithfully reflects the origin and style of the structured white wine elaborated under this brand in the past. THE SPANISH ACQUISTION

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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!