The 2020 Chardonnay 3D is a classic Sta. Rita.Hills wine. Rich, heady and explosive, with tremendous energy, the 2020 dazzles right out the gate. Readers will find a Chardonnay of real dimension and breadth. Lemon confit, mint, tangerine and tropical accents fill out the layers effortlessly.

The 2019 Pinot Noir Slope is rich with kirsch, umami with dried porcini, lavender, and licorice, and on the palate, it is fleshy with blackberry, fresh leather, and iron-rich earth. Drink 2024-2034.

Giant Steps continues to produce benchmark single-vineyard Yarra Valley chardonnay and this is a stellar example. Pale straw, bright and youthful in the glass. Complex and lifted aromas of grilled nuts, nougat, nectarine, green melon, wet stone and white flowers. Pinpoint and precise on the palate, really fine and focused flavours of just-ripe white peach, mineral, grapefruit pith and some nuttiness. Zesty and crunchy acidity brings cut and drive and there’s a touch of phenolics bringing savouriness and texture. Top notch Aussie chardonnay.

Inky purple in color, opaque and bright. The nose is very tight, but with air it shows cassis, blueberries, spice and slight mocha notes. full bodied. Firm tannins. Very concentrated. On the palate, black cherries, cassis, blueberries and mocha. A bit of menthol on the finish. Long finish. This needs time or a few hours in a decanter but it is quite good. Maybe another three to five years of cellaring and drink for fifteen to twenty after that. Great on its own, it will need big, fatty foods such as prime rib.

Power but with subtlety, generous fruit is laced with delicate spices. This is another brilliant Ironheart Shiraz.
It's concentrated and focused yet shows great width and persistence. Over a few days it held its shape impeccably. Baking spices spiral around purple and blue fruits. Some bramble and cola provide layers of intrigue too. Generous in its delivery, you get a sense it's painted across the tongue. The class here is evident. Persistent on a long and engaging finish, the spices cling on for a moreish ride. Sublime and then some.
Certified organic and biodynamic.
Drink to ten years+

60/40% upper/lower Yarra Valley fruit. Hand picked and open-fermented with 60% whole berries, the remainder whole bunches. A very bright, light–medium crimson red. A gentle waft of fresh raspberries and cranberries, with just the right amount of spice-rack spices. Delicious right out of the gate, this medium-bodied and refreshing wine will age well too. The perfect introduction to modern Yarra pinot.

From the Nocton vineyard in Coal River Valley. Hand picked by 10.30am, into a refrigerated container. The MV6 clone (60%) is whole bunches and the D5V12 clone is fully destemmed. All barriques, 20% new. A gorgeous, bright, crimson. Perfumed and seductive, this leaps out of the glass with an array of aromas including red and black fruits, peony, Asian spices, orange peel and a hint of fresh vanilla bean. More sweet fruited and textured on the mid palate compared to the more fine-boned and linear Yarra single-vineyard pinots. Concentrated but not heavy, with ripe, gently chewy and persistent tannins rounding out an impressive and still quite tightly wound wine, that will need another year or 2 to relax and really hit its straps.

From the Sexton vineyard in Gruyere, planted on the same grey clay as the Applejack vineyard; 50% whole bunches and 50% destemmed. Matured 11 months in French barriques (20% new). Bottled unfined and unfiltered. A dark, deep crimson. A more robust Yarra Valley pinot with its aromas of dark cherries, black plum and a dried-earth character that makes it quite different to the other Giant Step single-vineyard pinots. Sweetly fruited, concentrated and structured on the palate, what this impressive wine doesn't have in finesse, it makes up for in power and grunt. This should still be looking good, 10, if not 15, years from now.

The 2019 Pinot Noir Arrendell Vineyard is intricately layered and unfolds with pine, sweet smoke, and black cherry candy. The palate is full-bodied, with root beer spice and fleshy ripe fruit that fills through the mid-palate and long finish. Drink it over the next 10-15 years.

Sourced from a vineyard named after Don and Jennifer Hartford’s son, MacLean and located east of the town of Occidental on a gentle east-facing slope, the 2019 Pinot Noir MacLean's Block commands your attention with forward aromatics of dark mineral earth, Amarena cherry, cedar, and baking spice. One of the only Russian River Valley wines where some whole cluster is used, its structure is more powerful and well-balanced within its larger, more firmly tannic framework. Drink 2024-2042.

The 2019 Pinot Noir Docker Hill Vineyard is cloaked with a light confectionary aroma of roses, sweet red plum, and cinnamon spice. The structure is ripe, with tannins that emerge on the finish with warming spice. Drink 2024-2036.

The 2019 Pinot Noir Jennifer's is more richly spiced and more brooding, with sassafras and cherry pit. The palate is more structured with saline savor, and the wine has fresh and energetic tension through the finish. Drink 2024-2038.

This vineyard is located on a mountain ridge north of Fort Ross on the Sonoma Coast at 700 feet elevation, and the wine was aged for 14 months in 39% new French oak. The 2019 Chardonnay Far Coast Vineyard offers more lime citrus, saline minerality, and white peach, and the palate is fresh, energetic, and consistent with the nose. Texture-wise, it is markedly different, with more focused structure and tension. Drink 2024-2034.

Large-scaled but sleek in profile, with boysenberry, açaí and loganberry pâte de fruit notes that are brightly defined and inlaid with a violet, anise and graphite spine, which lets the fruit just sail through. Shows serious grip, too, but it's well-buried in the fruit. Best from 2024 through 2040.

Seriously packed, with dense black currant, plum and blackberry fruit flavors embedded with prodigious grip, this manages to have a sleek and well-defined feel. Reveals a long iron spine and flashes of anise and violet in the background. A lovely combination of power and purity. Best from 2024 through 2040.

The fruit for the 2020 Ovitelli Grenache is sourced from bush vines planted in 1946, just after the second World War. This is incredibly fine. It is pure and layered with blood, red licorice, crushed minerals, black tea, satsuma plum, black cherries and framed by ferrous tannins. What a joy this is... it lingers in the mouth long after the wine is gone, allowing for a bit of chew and thought before the next sip. Elegance 101.

The 2006 La Muse is in the prime of its life and at an ideal stage for drinking. A blend of 86% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 4% Malbec, it has soaring, complex aromas of dried red and black cherries, black truffles, dried sage and old leather, plus wafts of dried roses and mint. The medium to full-bodied palate is beginning to soften gently, its rounder tannins and acidity complementing its arresting layers of truffle and savory maturity. It will continue to hold in the cellar over the next decade.

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.