2013 John Kosovich Chenin Blanc

I have written before that Coriole Chenin Blanc is an iconic Australian wine, and a flagship of Coriole in South Australia. That's strange in itself, because Chenin Blanc is a workhorse grape, selling in casks or a back-up blend with other varieties. But to discover Chenin Blanc through Coriole is to appreciate it – the Coriole Chenin never fails. Another lovely Chenin is the sherbety Voyager Estate. So to make a new discovery is a pleasant surprise. The 2013 John Kosovich Chenin Blanc smells of peas, buttered with rice in a chicken-stock risotto, with some spice and tomato jelly. As usual for Chenin, this is a very clear, pale lemon in colour – almost colourless. It makes a good, high-summer wine – not too much of anything in the heat. But it is the palate that's great, smooth and with good length. Like Pinot Blanc, it's a wine you could drink like water. It would be really good with salty slithers of fried whiting, a fish without strong flavour, but soft, and not bony. The wine would be overwhelmed with something like olives or even cheddar. The label is new to me. The principles of the label should be theoretically good: three black birds standing in an abstract topographic map-like image, all in black and white. But it is underwhelming, possibly too plain, which is never a fault with Chenin Blanc. But the information on the label says the Swan Valley does Chenin well, making it rich and complex. True.

Oltretorrente Cortese Colli Tortonesi

In Oltretorrente Cortese Colli Tortonesi, Oltretorrente is the company and Cortese the grape (south-east Italian grape, Piedmont). I worked this out from the website, because it's difficult to tell from the label which is partly unreadable because of tiny, orange text. It is almost the colour of lemon water, with nut in the aroma and some pear and lemon there too. It's clean, light and refreshing on the palate. You'd want quite simple food: peanuts or a light fish like whiting, or maybe steamed chicken, maybe pesto pasta, or spinach and fetta pastries. It's delightful in its lightness and freshness. There's no year on the label, but the profile of a man's face.  

Konpira Maru Vermentino and Garga Nola

Konpira Maru Wine Company make a Vermentino, but the company is new to me. The website says 'Wines made in Melbourne, true to variety and the ground in which they're grown'. But the website does not tell you where 'Konpira Maru' comes from. The young men featured on the site, Sam Cook and Alastair Reid, are the winemakers, helped by our local Jared Dixon. Like most of Dixon's not-interfered-with white wines, the Konpira Maru V for Vermentino is a cloudy gold in colour, being unfiltered and unfined. Nuts, citrus and butter feature in the aroma, and the well-judged, mid-length palate is creamy with green apple. If I wanted to say what Vermentino is, this is it … as well as the Yalumba Vermentio. There's no year on the bottle, but the label is black, with grape in white and company in red. The detail of winemaking includes 'batonage', an old wine-making technique: stirring the wine-in-barrels with a baton.

Konpira Maru's Garga Nola is made with Garganega (Soave) and Noisola (northern Italian grape, Trentino). I would have expected to like this because of the Soave, but, of the two wines, the Vermentino and Garga Nola, the Verm is the better. The GN is again a little cloudy but nevertheless gold in colour, has a perfume of dense mead and honey, but I found it Retsina-like on the palate. This label features white on red.