2013 Twelve Signs Hill Tops Classic Dry White

So this is a wine from Young, to the near West in NSW, perhaps one of, if not the newest wine area in Oz. The discerning people in the family-run Cellars in Bangalow and Byron and Ballina know what to order in. This is ok/reasonable drinking. What I do not like is not being told the grape variety.

2013 Mitchell Clare Valley Watervale Riesling

Clare Valley, South Australia, and/or Watervale, and then Mitchell: all of these are going to mean excellent Riesling. Mitchell is a winery that has never failed me. I remember sitting once in a restaurant, oh, somewhere in the last two decades of the last century in South Australia, in Rundle Street and having a Mitchell and thinking the same: this is a winery that will never fail me. Mitchell, I think, have a really distinct label, although not necessarily immediately recognisable as such, perhaps because of its grey-silveriness and limited decoration.

2008 Lawson's Dry Hills Marlborough Gerürztraminer

A terrific elegantly spiced but dry Gerürz that you'd happily take to an event to impress with your unusual but distinct taste. Gerürz would then surely have more followers. Very, very drinkable. From Ballina Dan Murphy's. Lawson's, so the label says, is an environmentally aware winery.

2013 Spring Vale Freycinet Coast, Tasmania Pinot Gris

This is a label which looks deliberately aged: from a distance the dripping black paint across the top looks like a tear on paper, the colour of aged paper. The label has a cluster of ye olde nineteenth-century-looking/early white settler images (minus the Indigenous peoples). But I've been looking for years for a pink Tasmanian Pinot Gris that I once had late in the last decade of last century, and I think this is as close as I'm going to get, apart from Victoria's Tar and Roses Pinot Grigio. This is just-so-ever vaguely pink-tinged and, as the label says, very 'moreish'. From the Ballina Dan Murphy's . Something I'd return to.

2013 Mike Press Adelaide Hills Chardonnay

A very light white-gold even lime-tinged colour. A soft, subtle honey-almond on the palate (white stone fruit, the label says). A very drinkable Chardonnay that you'd always be well-respected for bringing to the table.  The palate has length, even though mid-weight. After all, this is a single vineyard, Adelaide Hills Chardonnay, moreover by a winemaker ALWAYS on the pre-eminent Australian wine critic James Halliday's annual list of best Oz whites under $20 – how COULD you go wrong? So when in doubt, and if available, choose this. Simply recognisable in the simple big print of the winemaker's name on the label with first name in the colour of the grape variety.

Sigurd Barossa Valley GSM

In colour, a richly soft cross between antique ruby and American beauty ruby/scarlet. An unusual perfume: a kind of soft spice (pepper, cinnamon) sugar/honey, with strawberry-plum jam as a high end note. In the mouth it's soft and luscious, medium depth, a red you'd be very happy to drink in summer. It seems to be a really well-balanced complete package, like a good poem that, if you disturbed one thing, the whole would fall apart. But, then, a GSM is rarely bad. And Sigurd comes from the old Norse of guardian and victory!The label, I think, of a ship in sale in big waters at sea, doesn't really suit. (And with not year!) Sigurd could have gone with a version of the Chardonnay, but in the fantastic colour of this GMS: in fact the Facebook cover photo on at the time I write is much better: that is the very use of that colour in the name. Around $25, I found this at the Clunes Cellars/Wine Store, far north coast of NSW, under the canny stewardship of Jared Dixon, Sigud's young winemaker friend.

2014 Mike Press Adelaide Hills Single Vineyard Pinot Noir Rosé

Ok, I can tell you, it was a grand day in wine drinking. I had finally sighted and bought and drank a Mike Press wine, he of the regular positioning on the annual James Halliday list of wines under $20. nurtured vineyard, more than four decades of experience, and a commitment to the consumer.
Mike Press has worked alongside Max Schubert at Penfolds, and at Seppelts, planting his own vineyard in 1998. The  Kenton Valley Vineyards has a cool climate, at an altitude of 500 metres above sea level. With the Rosé  made from a single vineyard Pinot Noir in the Adelaide Hills, what more could you want? Well, let me tell you. I found it in the fab-O Clunes Store & Cellars (far north coast, NSW), selected by the very knowing and canny Jared Dixon. The most beautiful colour (tomato, pink, blood, salmon, rust in combo). And the perfume! Chocolate, strawberries and rose. But on the palate: for me, a little tart, acidic, thin and watery. ALTHOUGH, as it warms, there's a kind of sour red jubeness almost mouth-fill – an Orange Chiffon Pie distinctiveness, a blood jam drinking. '[A] serious wine,' says the website. BUT a cutesy label of Mike in pink (as the Chardy is in yellow). So glad to make your acquaintance finally, Mike Press.