Lots of black olives with some conifer and mushrooms. Raspberries, too. Full-bodied with soft and round tannins. Really savory. Juicy. Drink now.

Aromas of white peaches with hints of apples and stones. Medium to full body with a creamy texture and tangy acidity. Wonderful, agile layers and mouth-feel. Hint of peach pie at the end. Unique character. Drink now or hold.

Lead pencil and dark fruit with wet earth. Purple fruit, too. Full-bodied with velvety tannins. Solid as a rock and gorgeous. Black olives at the end. Big and attractive. Needs time to open, but already beautiful.

This is soft and round with juicy fruit. Blackberry, stone and gunflint. Full-bodied with firm tannins and an intense finish. Opens at the end with savory character. Green olives. Drinkable now, but better in 2025.

This is aromatic with fresh herbs, such as basil and sweet tobacco. Medium to full body with lead-pencil character, creamy tannins and a long, bright finish. Dusty at the end with some mahogany. Fine, polished furniture-like undertone to this. Drink or hold.

Lots of lead pencil, iodine and black fruit on the nose. Some dried fruit, too, following through to a full body with a rich, juicy palate with lightly toasted oak and spice at the end. This needs another four or five years to come completely together.

Bright pure-grape character with citrus and blackberry aromas and flavors. Medium body, fine and fresh tannins with lemony and stony undertones. White volcanic-stone minerality. A new second wine from Anakota. Drink or hold.

Alluring notes of violets, licorice and chocolate-dipped raspberries lead into a ripe and cushioned core full of life. There's a pleasing texture to the wine, a gliding tannin with a fine chew. A warming alcohol glow appears on the finish. This is heady and vibrant with dimension.

The 2019 Syrah from Ex Post Facto was made entirely with whole clusters and spent, "a zillion years in the fermenter, as always," quips winemaker Greg Brewer. It's fantastically expressive this vintage, with pure scents of red and black currants, cracked pepper, mint, coffee beans and wildflowers. Medium-bodied and silty in texture, its intense, spicy fruits are perfectly ripe, and fresh acidity adds crunchy appeal on the long, layered finish. Yum!

Pale ruby-purple, the 2019 Pinot Noir Hapgood is scented of raspberries and pomegranate with touches of licorice, iodine and earth. The medium-bodied palate offers bright, pure citrus flavors, a gently chalky texture and great uplift and length.

Medium ruby, the 2019 Pinot Noir Machado is scented of blackberries, aniseed and citrus peel with loads of fine, earthy accents in the undercurrent. The palate is chalky, fresh and detailed, with a very long, spicy finish.

Made from a section of the vineyard planted in 1991 at 2,400-feet-elevation, this wine is concentrated and full of intensity, impressive on every level. Powerfully built to age and evolve, it shows defined layers of dried herb, rock and blueberry, with an underlying crispness and crunch to the texture. Enjoy best from 2027–2037.

Grown on clay-loam soils, with tough ironstone rocks running through, this wine is the most savory and brambly of Giant Steps’s single-vineyard Pinots. A thicket of red and blueberry fruit entwines with white pepper and other savory spices, dried roses and meaty bass notes. In the mouth, fleshy fruit is again met with lovely spice, cinched by fine tannins. There’s freshness, structure and elegance here that makes this a complete wine now, but one that could cellar until around 2032.

Impressive, rich and fleshy, with blackberry, blueberry and huckleberry notes at the core, but shows tremendous depth, concentration and polish. Features accents of bittersweet chocolate, espresso, salted caramel and rosemary, with velvety tannins on the finish, with the flavors gaining extra torque and momentum. Drink now through 2038.

Appealingly briary yet refined in structure, this Zinfandel slowly unfurls handsome cherry and blueberry flavors, which take on roasted sage, green peppercorn and licorice notes toward zesty tannins. Drink now through 2031.

Peter Fraser and Michael Lane rely on a gravelly outcrop of ironstone in the midst of their sandy soils to farm their flagship shiraz. In 2018, that parcel gave a wine of sunny intensity and athletic grace, its mineral power resonating within the frame of the oak tannins, its fruit continuing to gain layers of freshness over the course of days. Panelists described the wine's complexities before turning back toward its fruit, which ranges from "black currant pastilles" to "plum leather and blueberry leather," before the fresher elements of those fruits come forward with air. A great vintage of Ironheart, this should age for decades.

A ripping blend of 55% merlot, 40% cabernet sauvignon and 5% petit verdot, grown on the north-facing slope of the Warramate Hills, this is one of the Yarra’s most impressive merlot-based blends.
With a deep, vibrant purple/red colour, with cassis and blueberry, spices and violets to sniff. Medium to full-bodied with intense flavour, loads of tension and energy plus. Abundant ripe tannins provide backbone. Long, reverberating aftertaste.

What We Are Drinking This Week
La Crema 2019 Pinot Noir lovely colour with ruby tints and a glowing intensity at its heart. Pure beetroot and strawberry its a Burgundian on the nose with the mineral tension from the winemaking. Full and flavoursome upfront well wed fruit and oak with texture and length with a depth of flavour generosity. A yummy, good value wine.

From a 34-yearold vineyard of volcanic loam soils, this is a beautifully crafted, world-class Aussie Chard that is, when compared with top white Burgundy, a bargain. It opens with intense aromas of orange and lemon peel, walnut, flint and toasty oak spice. The mouthfeel is chalky and refreshing due to mouthwatering acidity, juicy fruit and a long, citrusy finish. Concentrated yet harmonious, it’s a highly classy wine to pair with a meal or cellar until around 2032.

This is brooding, intense and quite savoury, with notes of blood and iron, as well as sweet blackberry and blackcurrant fruit. It’s a fresh, structured and slightly backward wine, with acidity prominent, and a slight pithy, reductive tension. Has a bitter plum finish. There’s lots to like here, but it’s unyielding and unresolved at the moment, even though it promises a lot more to come. As such, it is hard to rate. I followed it over three days and it slowly began to yield, but not much. There’s not a hint of overripeness here, nor any obvious oak, and in terms of profile it reminds me a bit of Wendouree, although the region and soils are different. But it makes me think it has a long life ahead of it.

The 2019 Malbec is a real head-turner. Ample and explosive on the palate, with tremendous depth, the 2019 packs a huge amount of fruit into its full-bodied frame. Red plum, pomegranate, rose petal and spice are all kicked up in this flamboyant, exuberant Malbec. In a word: stunning.

The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Sycamore Vineyard is rich and expansive from start to finish. Succulent red cherry, plum, mocha, espresso, licorice and dried herbs flesh out in an ample, large-scaled Cabernet loaded with class and personality. There's a lot of wine here.

Black raspberries, cassis, spring flowers, and tobacco notes dominate the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, a beautiful, classic, medium to full-bodied, incredibly satisfying Cabernet that does everything right. Drink this complex, perfumed, elegant beauty over the coming two decades. The blend is 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec, aged in 81% new French oak.

Black fruits, scorched earth, graphite, toasted spice, and some chalky minerality all emerge from the 2019 Cabernet Franc. It's a straight, focused, layered Cabernet Franc that's going to benefit from 2-3 years of bottle age.

Also beautiful, the 2019 Cabernet Franc checks in as 100% varietal that was raised in 67% new French oak. Inky purple in color, with a brilliant perfume of raspberries, cassis, spring flowers, scorched earth, and graphite, it hits the palate with medium-bodied richness, a terrific sense of elegance and purity, ripe yet present tannins, and a great finish. It's going to benefit from 3-5 years of bottle age and shine for two decades.