2016 Vinoque Yalla Valley Nebbiolo Rosé

Nebbiolo is unusual grape to use for Rosé, but that seems to be the way things are heading for Rosé-making: think Rosemount’s 100% Chambourcin Rosé success. The 2016 Vinoque Yalla Valley Nebbiolo Rosé is from De Bortoli’a Dixon’s Creek estate planted in 2007. De Bortoli are usually a sure bet for Rosé. While gorgeously pale, bronze pink in colour, its palate is a little too sharp and tart for me. Exciting to see, nevertheless, especially with its elegant, spare label in black-and-white with bronze pink for the branding.

2015 Lightfoot & Sons Myrtle Point Pinot Noir

Another disappointment for the price was the 2015 Lightfoot & Sons Myrtle Point Pinot Noir. So, as a result, I’ve yet to relive my long-ago Gippsland experience of terrific Pinot Noir. While ticking all the quality-ensuring boxes – single vineyard, wild ferment, unfined and unfiltered – I was unmoved. 

The Stag Yarra Valley 2016 Chardonnay from St Huberts

The single engaging aspect the aroma of The Stag Yarra Valley 2016 Chardonnay from St Huberts is its soft, ripe peach, alongside, for this drinker, something more unsavoury, off-putting and unmentionable. It’s typically gold in colour, but, in this case, milder. And though it has classic stone fruit on the palate, it’s also a little severe. Nevertheless, with a deep and rich palate, again it would be good with fried or roast chicken. Overall, though, it’s disappointing for the price. 

Sigurd 2015 Fjörd Adelaide Hills Chardonnay

Daniel Graham’s Sigurd 2015 Fjörd Adelaide Hills Chardonnay would be glorious with food, though the food would have to be equally bold (maybe Southern-fried chicken), for the Chardy, bold in its goldy-gold colour, has a bold, textured palate of ginger and vanilla with a memory of the traditional peach/apricot which zipped out of the opened bottle as its perfume, and the stone fruit being underscored by cinnamon. Daniel Graham, like Jared Dixon of Jilly wines, are part of a cork-and-wax revolution, returning bottles of wine to their traditional packaging. This Sigurd Chardi’s label mimics the Adelaide Hills in high summer with a yellow sky, as if in early sunset, as a backdrop to white/pink hills, on a stout, dark and heavy bottle.

2015 Andrew Pearce Masterpiece Victorian Rose

The 2015 Andrew Pearce Masterpiece Victorian Rose smells more vegetal than floral. It is pink-tinged tomato in colour. On the palate, it also has a touch of Turkish delight. But being acidic, tart as well as dry, it is not absolutely luscious.

2013 Vine Keeper Hunter Valley Verdelho

I've always thought of Verdelho as autumnal – an in-between season – perhaps because of the onomatopoeia in the words, but perhaps also because Verdelho is usually thought of as thick and rich, like a buttery, wooded Chardonnay. But a Verdelho with an angelic lightness – a soft coconut on the palate – comes from the Hunter Valley (the 'home' of Verdelho, along with Queensland's Granite Belt): Vine Keeper 2013. The label has enough distinction to make it noticeable: the top rough-edged, but the whole in predominantly pea-soup green and white, with grey touches, and a grape vine stretching out into the air. With vine and rose images on the back, the label notes this is a long-term vegetal coupling. If the roses thrive, so will the vines.

2015 south Australian Jerico Fiano

One definition of impossible for me is going past a Fiano I have not tired (equally a Chenin Blanc). This distinctive Fiano has a perfume of banana, perhaps musky and milky, custard-like and elderflower-ish. This gold Fiano's robust palate is creamy, textured and long. It might be good with truffle, pumpkin or chicken risotto.