Matured 15 months in 35% new French oak, the 2019 Pinot Noir Fog Dance Vineyard is stunning, with the intensity, energy and detail of a Pinot Noir that promises a long life ahead in the cellar. Medium ruby in color, its aromas are pure and dynamic, a core of dried cherries, rhubarb and orange complemented by layer after layer of earth, floral, flinty and savory nuances. Medium-bodied, it combines powerful, hedonistic fruit with a silky, seamless feel as it glides across the palate, and its stunning floral perfume defines the extended finish. Located in the Green Valley district of the Russian River Valley, the Fog Dance Vineyard has been farmed organically for 15 years.

The 2019 Pinot Noir Far Coast Vineyard, aged 16 months in 33% new French oak, has a medium ruby-purple color and loads of aromatic complexity, with pure scents of blueberries, rhubarb, violets, white pepper, conifer, tobacco and moss. The medium-bodied palate explodes with intense, fragrant fruits supported by silty tannins and soft bursts of fresh acidity. It's long, detailed and expressive. It deserves another 2-3 years in bottle despite all that hedonistic, floral fruit. The Far Coast Vineyard is north of the town of Fort Ross on the Sonoma Coast, where vines are planted at an elevation of 800-1,000 feet.

The 2019 Chardonnay Seascape Vineyard is complex and intense with soaring aromatics and a very concentrated, spicy expression. It has exotic scents of apricot, ginger, grilled pineapple and blood orange, hinting at some possible botrytis. It makes for a singular expression and complements the satiny, expansive palate. It offers layers of tropical tones, honey, exotic spice and seamless acidity, and it finishes with tremendous length. The Seascape Vineyard is located at 1,150 feet in elevation, west of Occidental, and faces Bodega Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was barrel fermented and matured for 13 months in 27% new French oak.

The 2019 Chardonnay Jennifer’s Vineyard, from Wente selection vines planted in 2005, was barrel fermented and matured in 30% new French oak for 13 months. The nose offers delicate, classy dark spices with a core of white peaches and touches of roasted almonds and honey. The medium-bodied palate is dynamic, beginning with broad honeyed flavors before its tangy acidity brings all that ripe fruit into focus on the very long, stony finish.

The 2019 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon comes mostly from the Wurtle vineyard near the bottom of Spring Mountain, which the Jackson family had been farming and has now purchased. Deep garnet-purple in color, it is a tad shut down to begin, revealing notes of crushed blackcurrants, boysenberries, and fresh plums with hints of dried herbs and iron ore. Full-bodied, the palate delivers a firm, grainy texture and well-knit freshness, featuring vibrant black fruits and a long, lifted finish.

A blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Petit Verdot, the 2018 Sycamore Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is deep garnet-purple in color. It sashays out of the glass with gorgeous floral notions of candied violets and lilacs over creme de cassis and blueberry compote notes with wafts of Morello cherries and Indian spices. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has fantastically ripe, fine-grained tannins and wonderful tension supporting the ethereal black and red fruit layers, finishing long and perfumed. 2,000 cases were made. The soil is more of a clay loam at Sycamore, at the end of Bella Oaks lane, only about a quarter of a mile from Bosche vineyard, and also on the west side of the Valley.

Named after the road where the vineyard is located in McLaren Vale, the various blocks which provide the grapes for this wine were planted between 1971 and 2002. Unirrigated, the grapes are hand-harvested and the yields are seriously low. 30% destemmed, 20% whole bunch and the remainder crushed to open top fermenters, the wine spent around 20 days on skins, before being drained directly to barrels – 1/3rd new French oak puncheons with the lees, the rest one or two years of age, for ten months. After blending, the wine was returned to older foudre and a concrete egg for a further 8 months. The result is a wine which is opaque purple. We have deep perfumes here; plums, chocolate, mocha and mulberries. There is nicely integrated oak and we see the arrival of blueberry notes. This is utterly delicious. Seamless on the palate, nicely balanced, through to plush tannins. There is great length to be found in this wine. Youthful but already a joy to drink, ten years if needed. Love it.

Bright, glowing youthful purple-red colour, medium depth; the bouquet is concentrated and rich, plummy and dark-cherried, bold and bright and punchy. The wine is at the fuller bodied end of the Aussie pinot spectrum. Great depth of concentrated black-cherry flavour, terrific length and assertive but nicely balanced tannins. Almost luscious. A very impressive pinot.

Medium colour, purple-tinted, spicy and vegetal aromas greet the nose, floral and raspberry too, with some vanilla and chocolate notes, the palate light-medium bodied with good intensity and a backbone of fine and taut tannins adding tension to the finish. Dried flowers and dried herbs. Great intensity, focus, depth and complexity and it has the potential to build more with time in the bottle. A pinot of real beauty.

Yangarra High Sands Grenache 2019 is youthful with red cherries and slight whole bunch fragrance. It’s supple with excellent balance and fine tannins. Pritzker noted: “An intriguing bouquet of dried roses, redcurrant, peppery spice and damp earth. Fresh, fruit driven and juicy, crunchy red fruit. Lively acidity. I love the buoyancy and freshness.”

Dark and brooding with layers of spicy dark cherry, this wine is earthy, lengthy and deep in raspberry flavor. Tart, bright acidity lifts the concentrated core of intensity and structure, giving the wine a chance to breathe and coalesce on the palate.

Complex from the very first moment. Aromas of blueberries, red and dark cherries, sappy and herbal notes, as well as hard brown spices, blackcurrants and violets. The palate has such succulent and energetic style, with red and dark cherries and blueberries sitting in a very complete and layered, fine brand of tannin. The depth and plushness are both impressive. Drink over the next eight years. Screw cap.

Brashly spicy and complex, this has aromas of espresso, blueberries, toasted spices and grilled bread, as well as forest wood and violets. The palate delivers alluring depth and a round, fleshy build. Acidity explodes on the finish, releasing fresh red-cherry and blueberry fruit flavors. Wonderfully layered and complete. Drink over the next eight years. Screw cap.

I met with Steve Flamsteed and new Giant Steps winemaker Mel Chester last week to taste through the 2021 Single Vineyard releases and wow, what a range of wines. Everything was excellent but this Tarraford was really up and about on the day. I’ll post my chardonnay reviews in order of altitude or ‘meters above sea level’. Tarraford is the lowest of them, and each from there is about 500 metres higher.
Sweet oak into white stonefruit, citrus and apple, grapefruit. Powerful from the outset. Hand picked, whole bunch pressed, full solids for all of the single vineyard releases. A bit of mlf for all of them too. This is in impeccable – not to mention incredible – shape. Controlled. Powerful. Tarraford should be the most rich, for site and aspect, but it’s so taut, almost salty in its savouriness. Cracking wine. The ‘loudest’ of the single vineyards in that it brings the flavour but simultaneously so very, very good.

This is made with fruit from the Sexton Vineyard, at 200 meters in altitude (80 meters higher than Tarraford). Within the vineyard, the clones are dominated by Gingin (brought over to Victoria by Phil Sexton), followed by Dijon clones, planted in the 1990s. The 2021 Sexton Vineyard Chardonnay is composed of 60% Gingin. Twenty percent of the parcels went through malolactic fermentation—clone 277 and some of the 96. This is salty as anything—a very good thing in my book—and the sheer intensity of flavor in the mouth is mouthwatering. Preserved lemon and grapefruit pith lace the edges of the mid-palate. Very smart—it has the Yarra precision of acid and streamlined phenolics, but it brings concentration of flavor and thrilling phenolics. Super smart wine.

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Diamond Mountain is a blend of two parcels: Wallis and Rhyolite Ridge, with mainly volcanic soils. Scents of crushed stone, pencil shavings, cassis and cherries lead the way, while the palate is full-bodied but not overly ripe or broad, just finely honed, polished, silky and long, with a dusting of fine-grained tannins on the finish.

Part of this year's library release, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Sycamore Vineyards shows ample cedary, cigar box notes on the nose, but it still offers plenty of cassis on the palate. It's a rich, full-bodied, velvety wine, probably drinking at its peak, with a long, mouthwatering, finish. It can hold a number of years still, but will it get any better?

The 2019 Cardinale is a blend of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Merlot, with the Merlot from a particular block on Howell Mountain. Overall, it's about 80% mountain fruit and 20% valley-floor fruit, according to winemaker Chris Carpenter. Cherries and cassis dominate the nose, while the full-bodied palate is rich and velvety, with a long, mouthwatering finish that adds barrel-derived notes of vanilla, powdered sugar and cedar.

This puts down some roots. It offers a monumental spread of rich, ripe, deep-hearted fruit flavour, plums cascading over boysenberries, though there’s also enough going on around the edges to make complexity a given. The spread of tannin here, the mouth-filling volume, the way it sets flight through the finish; everything is top grade. It’s a commanding wine of emphatic quality, a blockbuster with an elegant turn.

Lemony in rock candy and salty stone, this is a lively, fresh and full-bodied white from an estate vineyard. It is also flinty and fleshy, with complex layers of texture. Fresh hints of tangerine and grapefruit contribute a lively brightness that persists through a long, beautiful finish.

With a delicate opening of vibrant acidity, this wine offers an all-around ethereal quality of sea air and salty stone. Earthy, herbal and fruity in lime and blood orange, it packs a powerful punch of complex oak and structure that finds its way to a place of balance.

This bright, effusive wine is juicy in citrus and mango. It’s also flinty and bursting in sea spray, offering a lush, voluptuous midpalate of complex concentration. The contrast leads to a viscous, lengthy finish of floral beauty.

This site provides fruit of exquisite purity, but it’s the winemaking that deserves praise for exercising poise and bringing every component into ideal balance. A waft of wild herbs frames fresh plum and raspberry, but it’s the lean muscle of a complex mid-palate that marries beauty and power, with extraordinary persistence of pure flavours.

It is paradoxical to think that in the New World order of the right grapes planted in the right places, the Vale now produces among Australia's most exciting white wines. This, destined for legendary status. A synchronicity of 50/25/12/9/4% grenache blanc/roussanne/clairette/piquepoul/bourboulenc, all innately of the southern Rhône and well at home here. Partly macerated on skins (59%) for 90–126 days, the remainder whole-bunch pressed to ceramic eggs for wild fermentation. Taut, salty and nascent of feel. Then, an explosion with air. Loads in store. Lanolin, sea salt, skinsy quince notes, nashi pear, baked apple and preserved Moroccan lemon. Yet it is the texture that compels, from the first rail of chew, to the last lattice of saliva-sucking bite and pithy mealiness. Stay tuned. This is only the beginning of the ascension.

The fruit comes through wonderfully on the nose, from raspberries to light, ripe strawberries. Earth and black mushrooms, too. Full-bodied with a very attractive texture and focused sensibility. Silky tannins blend in nicely. Drink or hold.