Taylors Vermentino

While this smells of sweet lemon sherbet, it falls away on the palate to something much less exotic. I am used to Vermentio as mid-to full-bodied, and this tastes more like an Australian sav blanc or pinot grigio or reisling.

2011 Danet Gabriel Reserve Pinot Gris

This wine was available at the usually reliable Bangalow Cellars. I hadn't bought from there for a while,  so it was good to see some labels new to me. This is a Canberra district wine: a fabulous pink-tinged pale gold in colour, it smells of unripe strawberries, probably unusual for a pg, so maybe I imagined it. On the palate it tastes of those strawbs mixed with a citrus such as pineapple, so it's pretty morish. $16.99.

2011 Quea!y Mornington Peninsula Pinot Grigio

In this pale, clear, lemon-coloured wine, made by  Kathleen Quealy at Victoria's Balnarring vineyard,  there is sweet pineapple, green pea and nut in the perfume, and an initial sweet palate followed by a lengthy tartness. The winery says there is hay and seashell in the aroma, and brine on the palate. So I am kind of close, with the attempt at identifying something different other than citrus, apple, berry, or stone fruit. I'm excited by the arrival of women winemakers in Oz. Jared, at Clunes Cellars, next to the Clunes General Store, on the NSW far North Coast, knows his stuff, because this was part of the new stock. I was unbelievably glad to see it, given the lack of variation in wine selling in the immediate surrounds. It's the very small, independent  shops that still hold out, with the great secrets of Oz wine-making to be found there. Just over $20.00. A discovery worthy of discussion.

2011 Tinta by KT Tempranillo

I bought this Tempranillo at my local cellars, Clunes, NSW, the selection for which is developed by the eclectic (probably iconoclastic) Jared, the winemaker at the Clunes Cellar, the one with the great judgement skills. KY is Kerri Thompson, and the Temp is smooth as. It is ruby red in colour. There's toasted almonds and some peanut on the nose, with just a drift of deep red rose. On the palate it is so smooth it's hard to believe your drinking a Spanish grape. It would be good ... well, just about any time, with anything. You'd be happy to pay the $23.99 I did for this elegance, this understatement, this enviable wise and knowing sense of balance. You have to search a little for the credentials on the side of the single label that's  a cross between a Rubik's cube and a 1970's advert of differently neon-coloured spots. But the wine is so good, you overlook anything, and even begin to think it's high-art design.It's such a good wine, when you see it (and you've never tried it), buy it and drink it.

2012 Plantagenet Omrah Great Southern Rose

My god, this is a good rose. Complex, with its coupling of sweetness and dryness. It smells of strawberries, vanilla and a hint of something more quirkily medicinal like green kiwi fruit, or perhaps stone fruit like nectarine or peach. It's that wonderful raw salmon pink in colour. In the mouth it might immediately seem sweet, but it's trustworthy, and delivers smoothly into dryness. My sister bought it home from the Centennial Hotel.