Barossa Valley – Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre (GSM)

GSM’s are all about hedgerow fruit- blackberry, mulberry, blueberry – as well as savoury tones that cover licorice, tar, leather and cloved spice.  These two and three varietal blends display a rich tapestry of flavours and textures.

Not to be missed: Langmeil Three Gardens GSM. The blend of 43% Shiraz, 37% Grenache and 20% Mourvèdre shows great balance and integrated structure, with full, ripe fruit, supported by firm but fine tannins. Flavours of cherries and blackberries dominate, with hints of chocolate and spice.

James Halliday’s 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 Australian Wine Companion has rated Langmeil Winery five stars, placing it amongst the very top echelon of Australian Wineries.

Adelaide Hills – Sauvignon Blanc

There is something wonderfully unpretentious about Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc – the flavours are so zingy and vibrant. Fresh, fragrant and aromatic, yet crisp and perfect on a summer’s day with fresh oysters and prawns. Delicious!

Clare Valley – Riesling

With great dollops of lemon zest and pithy sherbet, Clare Valley Riesling delivers a jolt of teeth jangling acidity when young.  As it ages, complex characters of minerality and white pepper spice emerge.

Eden Valley – Riesling

Eden Valley Rieslings really come into their own with bottle age.  Along the way, signature flavours of lime zest are always prominent, along with a delicate textured finish that many liken to talcum powder!

Not to be missed: Cascabel Riesling. “Initial sniff, it seems like textbook limes.  Give it a breathe, and you realise how complex, but austere, sullen and reserved it really is, and how much it will eventually give.  It smells like a bowl of citrus and it made me salivate for a gin and tonic. It’s incredibly tight, with pithy citric tannin and that slaty dryness of its terroir.  Give it 20 years if you wish. 94 points” – Philip White, The Adelaide Advertiser ‘Top 100 Wines’.

Click on ‘Australia’s Regional Heroes’ tag below, to view previous posts.

Content used with permission from Wine Australia.

Tasmania – Pinot Noir

While Tasmania white wines lean towards purity and finesse, the emerging profile for Pinot Noir is one of earthy structured roundness, still with plenty of crunchy red berry and stone fruit varietal character.

Coonawarra (South Australia) – Cabernet Sauvignon

Coonawarra’s regional accent is all about weight and aroma, both of which are very distinctive. First up, Coonawarra tends to produce medium bodied reds, and this is an expression that is best suited to its Cabernet style. Secondly, the nose is characteristically ‘leafy’ with a herbaceous, bell pepper ring that can range from grassy through to minty.

McLaren Vale (South Australia) – (1) Shiraz

Typically full bodied, the best examples of McLaren Vale Shiraz have immense blackberry and licorice aromas, fleshy palates with concentrated, ripe tannins. They are richly flavoured and quickly develop a velvety texture.

Not to be missed: Rockbare Shiraz and Rockbare Chardonnay. The approach of Rockbare to Shiraz is to find the oldest vines possible, crop them low, nurture them through the ferment and then allow them to mature in oak for a year or so.  Grapes are sourced from a small group of vineyards, producing fruit of exceptional quality – with quality like this the wine pretty much makes itself.

“Exceedingly well-priced, (Tim) Burvill’s Chardonnay and Shiraz are truly outstanding” – John Fordham, Sunday Times Newspaper (Body & Soul) 29 Jan 2006

McLaren Vale (South Australia) – (2) Grenache

Tell-tale rust or brick red colour is the first sign of McLaren Vale’s unique contribution to regional Australia. Gnarled old vines and a generational gift for coaxing the best out of Grenache does the rest. The result is easy drinking reds that manage to be both sweet and savoury – red currants through to well worked leather!

Not to be missed: Cascabel Tipico GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre) & Cascabel Tempranillo. Tipico is produced from mostly Viña Cascabel grown grapes, with a small addition of Grenache from a vineyard near the winery.  The soils are particularly well suited to grow these Spanish varieties, with the soil and weather allowing for the production of grapes with freshness and character. Cascabel do not follow the latest fad, preferring to use more traditional viticultural methods.  All grapes are hand picked making for a good vine canopy whilst discouraging high crop levels.

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Click on ‘Australia’s Regional Heroes’ tag below, to view previous posts.

Content used with permission from Wine Australia.

Lar Veale is at it again with his trusty camera – this time John McDonnell of Wine Australia helps describe the meaning and significance of Australia’s regional heroes.

Wine Australia will have a stand at the Good Wine Show in November, so you’ll have the opportunity to conduct you’re very own Q&A!

Click on “Australia’s Regional Heroes” tag below, and then scroll down to catch up on our ongoing ‘Regional Heroes’ series. And keep an eye out on sourgrapes.ie for further videos with John McDonnell.

Mornington Peninsula (Victoria) – Pinot Noir

The signature of Mornington Peninsula (pictured right) is as supple as it is alluring, coaxing light and delicate varietal character from the locally grown Pinot Noir. Appropriately, the region’s wines are also slightly lighter and fresher in colour than its counterparts. Don’t be fooled by this apparent delicacy, as these wines lack nothing in intensity.

Not to be missed: Dexter Chardonnay and Dexter Pinot Noir. Tod Dexter was one of the pioneers of the Mornington Peninsula, and as head winemaker at Stoniers and then Yabby Lake, he was responsible for some of the most highly regarded Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in Australia. From the very first release it was evident that these were something special, refined in style with wonderful elegance. Quantities are tiny but worth searching out.

Great Southern (Western Australia) – Riesling

Great Southern Riesling differs from other regions – notably Clare Valley and Eden Valley – its aromas and fruit character lean towards the floral and spice spectrum rather than the citrus. Look for honeysuckle, orange blossom, chamomile and lemon thyme.

Margaret River (Western Australia) -Chardonnay

For many this is now the benchmark region for Australian Chardonnay with the ability to be both complex and easily alluring. Always generous, always balanced and instinctively matched with a toasty lick of new French oak, Margaret River Chardonnay will run from intense citrus flavours through to white stone fruit and tropical generosity.

Not to be missed: Fonty’s Pool Sauvignon Semillon and Fonty’s Pool Pinot Noir. Although initially renowned for its Pinot Noir, Pemberton’s cool climate is proving to be equally suited to a range of other noble varieties producing wines characterised by pure and precise flavours.  Recent reworking of some of the best vineyard plots for even lower yields seems to have brought an extra layer of complexity to the wines and the new vintages represent an exciting leap in quality, making Fonty’s Pool one of James Halliday’s ten ‘dark horses’, earning a coveted 5 stars.

Hunter Valley (New South Wales) – Semillon

(Picture right: Bronagh and I at Sobels Winery, Hunter Valley, where we tried some very drinkable Semillon!)

Semillon is regarded as the great wine of the Hunter, a wine with two lives -vibrant, fresh and crisp when young and then wonderful toasty rich characters with five years plus in the bottle. An Australian speciality that can live for 30 years!

Not to be missed: Keith Tulloch Botrytis Semillon and Keith Tulloch Shiraz Viognier. James Halliday commented “I cannot remember being more impressed with an initial release of wines than those under the Keith Tulloch label. There is the same almost obsessive attention to detail, the same almost ascetic intellectual approach, the same refusal to accept anything but the best” and four years on they remain in his elite 5 star category.

Click on ‘Australia’s Regional Heroes’ tag below, to view previous posts.

Content used with permission from Wine Australia.

There’s nobody more keen to get you Curious about your wines than us, and we continue to fly the flag in Ireland for encouraging people to explore new countries and regions. In reading our ‘Regional Heroes’ series, you’ll be armed to the teeth with the knowledge and the sense of adventure you’ll need.

Few, if any, wine merchants carry wines from all of these regions that we’ll look at over the coming weeks, so it’s worth seeking out the heroes from a number of sources, including your local independent, supermarket, and of course, on-line wine specialist.

We kick off our ‘Regional Heroes’ series, of which you can view our first post here, with a glance at four very interesting regions of Victoria.

Yarra Valley – Chardonnay

Yarra Valley’s regional accent for Chardonnay is fast emerging and constantly evolving, defined by both vineyard and winemaking practice. The fruit expression is distinctly white stone fruit – peaches, nectarines – through to more opulent fig, while winemaking practice has certainly now mastered the elegant integration of oak. (Yarra Valley – see pictured)

Heathcote – Shiraz

If you are searching out cool regional expressions that are currently ‘hot’, Heathcote and its Shiraz would be up near the top of the list. Dense and mouth-filling, but not without elegance, the flavour spectrum ranges from berry and stone fruit richness through to spice and licorice, and is usually accompanied by long, supple tannins.

Rutherglen – Fortified

Always leave room for dessert… especially when it’s wine! To sip a Rutherglen Fortified is truly to taste the flavours of history. Explosively rich and sweet, these luscious wines offer undreamed-of layers of complexity as it ages in cask.

Grampians – Shiraz

It is as if Barossa Valley had discovered it’s feminine side – still undeniably Shiraz, with dark fruit and earthy richness, but here with a regionally distinct nose of black pepper spice and an almost violet, floral aroma.

Content used with permission from WineAustralia.com

While our customers are being tempted by our Aussie sale, I think it fitting to run an Australian series on the Curious blog for the next month or so. Wine Australia have been very good about helping me out with content on this one, so I have twenty fascinating regions (out of more than sixty), along with the type of wine, or grape variety, that defines them (the regional hero).

Australian wine is my favourite topic. I love the freedom they enjoy with their winemaking, I love their branding and packaging (Are cork stoppers really necessary? That’s a blog post in itself!) and I’m not surprised that they are now recognised as one of the world’s top producers of fine wine and ultra-fine wine (Langmeil’s Orphan Bank says it all), as well as high quality inexpensive brands (such as Stickleback).

Regional heroes are Australian wines and winemakers best defined by a distinct sense of place and expression. They’re a perfect marriage of the right grape, grown in the right region to produce a winning wine. The following factors help define a regional hero:

Place: Australian wines from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere

Authenticity: the credible claim that people and site influence varietal choice and regional wine-style

Heritage: culture, generational learning and imported influences which result in wine quality and expression

People: the Australian faces behind the places

Interest: wines that maintain and sustain interest

Family: generations who have influenced the landscape and the wine

Honesty: wines that display authentic claims

Accent: unique and discrete regional wine styles that are unmistakable

Character: valuable personalities that have stories to tell

First stop – Victoria! Coming to the Curious Blog this Friday.

Content used with permission from WineAustralia.com