2013 Velvet & Willow Clare Valley Riesling

This Riesling smells of pear, musk and, at the outside, green apple and citrus. Its colour is unusually gold for the grape variety. On the palate its watery, followed by savouriness, so it is a Riesling definitely to be drunk with food: something salty such as whitebait or sardines – in fact, both would be fab with this quite unusual Clare Valley/Watervale Riesling.  $20 from the Clunes General Store and Cellars, NSW/Bryon Bay hinterland, and the eclectic choice of young winemaker, Jared Dixon, who runs the Wine Store. Velvet and Willow is such a lovely thing to say! Produced by Andrew Miller wines with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt  about perfection and failure, which is true to all creative production.

2013 Sigurd Barossa Riesling Gewurztraminer

The 2013 Sigurd Barossa Riesling Gewurztraminer comes with a handwritten-style white muted-texturde paper wraparound label with Sigurd in sunshine yellow. Sigurd seems only to have a Facebook page at the moment. But the young winemaker of Jilly Wines, Jared Dixon, with a home-base at Clunes Cellars on the far north coast of NSW, tells me this is another young winemaking friend of his making his wine in the South Australia's Barossa, Williamstown specifically. This Sigurd white is bottled with cork and wax as are Jilly wines. If you're thinking Riesling and Gewurzt are an intriguing combination, especially given wild ferment, you'd be right with this wine. Its perfume is that of Scheherazade's storying telling in 10001 Nights, as it smells of honey mead, with lavender, cinnamon and more sweet spice. In colour it is more golden than Australian Riesling on its own is, and, with its non-filtered status, has a cloudy body in this instance. The palate is noticeable – intriguing, unforgettable. Combining jube, lemon, almond paste and aniseed, it is just luscious enough but  restrained for credulity – to keep you coming back for more.

2013 Lock and Key Single Vineyard Hilltops Chardonnay

Usual pale gold in colour, with sweet pineapple and a depth of classic oil on the palate, this is a Chardonnay I could keep returning to when I do want something classic and reliable.

Single vineyard is usually an indicator of quality. This is a wine from Moppity Vineyards in Young, a new wine region in NSW, from the winemaker Jason Brown.

2014 Cake Wines Adelaide Hills Rose

A Rose to add to Rose-lovers' lists: 2014 the Hills (SA) Cake Wines. A Grenache Pinot Noir. That mid-red, strawberry pink or tangerine/blood orange. It smells of milky apple, strawberry sugar or piquant pepper orange; on the palate just that little bit sweet, but ultimately dry through orange peel. Ten per cent of proceeds go to independent radio = go figure. And they select parcels of grapes etc. Found at the fab-O Bangalow Cellars.

The image below is from their website = see flavours:

This is from their 'Artist Series', 'a light to medium bodied approachable range of wine'. Cake is 'a boutique wine producer, created in 2011 by young wine makers and young wine lovers. [Their] wine making team is based in Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills headed up by Tim Burvill'. The artist is Bennett.

2012 Betty and Max Clare Valley Reisling

From the FabO Bangalow Cellars. The beautiful, clear gold of Reisling. And it smells of a strangely, even alien sweetness with a citrus lime/lemon. On the palate it's unexpected: a kind of drinkable/not so easily drinkable subtle citrus.  A great Reisling, I think. But I may not return to it. Try harder, I implore, and I may be with you forever. Reisling can be astonishing. You just got to get there.

2012 Tahbilk The Tower MVR

Tahbilk make an Australian icon: their Marsanne. And the MVR is a mixture of that and Viognier and Roussanne. Both Marsanne and Roussanne are what I would describe as pretty rare in Oz wine. But try the MVR if you want to get back to wine the colour of rock-pool seawater:  a kind of clear gold tinged with green. It smells of strawberries and lime, if that's possible. And is kind of salty like sea water. It would be fab with food: whitebait or sardines. At the time that I write this, it's new to Dan Murphy's in Lismore: thank god someone had the nous to get it.

2013 De Casta Torres Catalunya Rose Wine

Made from  Cariñena (Mediterranean) grapes (only found this out by looking up the winery on the web: I wish all wineries would put the grape variety on their labels!), this s a rose, made by Miguel Torres, which you think of when you think rose. Sensual if not luscious: just the tiniest bit underplayed to be exceptionally luscious (but, then, who wants a luscious wine?), but very close to it, too close to call probably. A scintillating strawberry-pink (mind, I said pink) of great clarity, with strawberries and cream on the nose and palate, but without any sweetness in the fruit or cream, perhaps only a hint, like strawberries on the turn from mid-ripe to full ripeness. A completely luscious wine, there I said it, to drink in early summer, or winter when you're having red beans in a fake shepherd's pie or in tacos, or salami pizza. Under $20. I got mine from the fab Clunes bottle shop/cellars, under the helm of Jared Dixon of Jilly Wines. He knows a good wine when he drinks it ... or makes it! Pretty much a to-die-for rose. (Possibly a bit too lolly water for some, but those some, then, don't get it.)