Australian Wine

We’ve been searching high and low to find a good quality Australian Pinot Noir and here it is – not just a good one but an outstanding wine from the great Giant Steps Winery.

It’s made from a 34 hectare vineyard planted in 1999 on a north east facing site on calcareous and Triassic sandstone, entirely devoted to Pinot Noir. This wine is made with hand picked grapes which were immediately refrigerated and shipped across the Bass Strait and trucked up to the winery in Yarra Valley the following morning. It was cold soaked for three to four days and fermented with indigenous yeasts with a portion of whole bunches. The finished wine was matured in French oak, 25% new and 75% older oak, for eight months. 

This is an outstanding Australian Pinot Noir 

Accolades:
92/100 ? James Suckling

?This has very attractive red berries, as well as a darker-berry and plum thread. The palate has a very attractive, fleshy mid-section that delivers smooth dark-cherry and plum flavors. A blend of 57% malbec, 37% petit verdot and 6% merlot. From biodynamically grown grapes. Drink now. Screw cap.? ? James Suckling

Tasting Note: 57% Malbec, 37% Petit Verdot and 6% Merlot from the Mangan vineyard. Medium red with ruby tinges. Plum, Cherries with lifted floral notes on the nose. Medium bodied with dark cherries, blueberries and savoury notes on the finish. Cellar with confidence for at least 10 years.

Certification: Organic, Biodynamic

Alcohol: 12.0%

Varietal: Malbec blend

Region: Margaret River, Western Australia

This micro-batch, super-premium Riesling is the fruit of years of patience. We selected individual rows where the terra rossa and loam barely cover the deep limestone below.

To guarantee the freshness of these precious grapes, we carefully picked batches to precisely fill our membrane press in the chill of night and destemmed the bunches without crushing them.

This benchmark dry Riesling has matured under optimum conditions displays the complexities that fine Australian Riesling develops over time.

Jim Barry.

Jim Barry's Lodge Hill RIesling is one of the most value dry whites in store. It's super tasty little number with all the fresh flavours of dry cool climate white wine, including lime zest, green apple skins and a long, citrusy finish. 

This wine comes from the Barry family's Lodge Hill Vineyard, which was planted 480 metres above sea level in Clare Valley in 1977. The altitude provides cool nights and preserves fresh characters, such as the acidity in this wine, enhancing its freshness and adding length to every succulent sip. 

It drinks well now and will age well for up to a decade.

This smooth, soft, velvety Primitivo is proof that there's more to life than Shiraz in Australia's wine headquarters. 

Massena Primitivo is made with hand picked grapes grown in the Barossa Valley's South Moppa area, a sub region of the valley. It was made with partially destemmed grapes and about 30% whole bunches in the fermentation with pump overs early in the winemaking process to extract colour and body followed by punch downs to gently extra flavour as the ferment came to a close. 

Flavours here are all about bright red fresh berry fruit, such as raspberries, strawberries and notes of spice adding complexity.

Hand harvesting, indigenous ferments, whole bunch fermentation and long aging on lees are among the winemaking philosophy for this new range. 

* Massena wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered. 

The Colour Palette is a Shiraz made with grapes grown in McLaren Vale, south of Barossa. It has juicy flavours of dark plums and spice, a full body and smooth approachable finish. 

Massena is a new brand here at Regional and comes from the Barossa Valley where it was formed at the start of the century by Jaysen Colins and Dan Standish, who source grapes from a range of vineyards in the valley.

Hand harvesting, indigenous ferments, whole bunch fermentation and long aging on lees are among the winemaking philosophy for this new range. 

* Massena wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered. 

This is (possibly) the greatest scientific breakthrough by a Kiwi since the guy on the hundred dollar bill split the atom. 

At 2.5% ABV, this full-flavoured session India Pale Ale serves up massive hoppy notes and malty charachter at a lower octane - for a smooth rider with flavour cranked all the way up so you get the hoppy goodness of a craft pale ale.

This beer is legal tender for good times - Perfect if you're the designated driver?

Full bodied and super flavoursome with structure to see it age for decades. Here's a Shiraz for the long haul, which is named in honour of pioneer Clare Valley winemaker Jim Barry. In 1964, Jim purchased 70 acres of prime land from Duncan McRae Wood and planted his first vineyard with Shiraz - a momentous purchase and great decision for the company's legacy. 

Winery notes:

This wine will have you second guessing as it skips between red fruits and lifted spice notes on the one hand to more brooding, dark, ashen, earthy aromas on the other. A sign of the vintage no doubt. The seasonal conditions are even more evident on the palate where flavour, tannin and acid are in perfect balance. There is an impressive amount of concentration in this wine but at the same time it feels somewhat more restrained compared to other more in your face, rustic Dead Arm vintages. Particularly when we look at the tannin profile which is a relatively fine example for this wine. The benefit of all of this of course is that it is immediately drinkable upon release

Grange is Australia's most collectible wine on the auction market and is listed as a Heritage Icon of South Australia. It was first created in the 1950s by the late Max Schubert, winemaker at Penfolds, whose aim was to create a Shiraz to end all Shirazes. His wine was controversial when first tasted with others at the winery but has since grown to become a liquid expression of South Australia's hot climate, its most planted grape variety and winemaking with all the bells and whistles. It's always youthful when first bottled and can age for decades, in the correct cellaring conditions. 

"Strongly marked, as always, by its 100% American oak elevage, the 2017 Grange backs up cedar and vanilla notes with ample blackberry and cassis fruit. Full bodied, ripe and decadently creamy, it's loaded with substance, concentration and rich, but, in the context of Grange, a relatively light and elegant finish. Only the seventh ever Grange to be exclusively Shiraz, it originates from Barossa Valley (86%) and McLaren Vale (14%); Shiraz from other growing regions in South Australia failed to make the grade this year."

Rating 96/100 Joe Czerwinski

Drinking date from 2023 to 2040

A blend of grapes more typically found in the Southern Rhone but this wine hails from the Yarra Valley in Victoria. 

The grapes come from the Sexton and Tarraford Vineyards,  and each variety and parcel is fermented separately in small open vats with varying degrees of whole bunch and whole berry fermentation, before being matured in large and small oak for 18 months.

The result is a sumptuous easy drinking wine with plenty of aromatic and flavour interest; sweet cherry and red fruit flavours combining with savoury spice in perfect harmony.

 

Aglianico is one of the most commanding red grapes and powerful red wines traditionally found in the south of Italy - and here's an interestingly delicious version made in Australia. This wine was fermented and aged in 800 litre Tuscan hand made amphora for 11 months. The aromas and flavours here span the gamut of blueberries and spice in a full bodied wine with staunch tannins held in great balance with this wine's fresh acidity which cuts through the backbone of the wine, adding tension and length. 

Production was 1333 bottles.

Here's a red fruited, perfumed Grenache from Australia with a light touch and a refreshing backbone of acidity adding depth and length to this wine. It is made from certified organic vineyard planted in 1946, dry grown in red loamy clay with ironstone over deep limestone. It has spicy aromas, concentrated flavours of red and a note of wild thyme and white pepper. 

The grapes in this wine were all hand picked, given 65 per cent whole bunch fermentation with some carbonic maceration and all fermented with wild yeasts. It was aged in French barriques then bottled unfined and unfiltered. It has a modest alcohol content of 12.2 % ABV.

We have small volumes of Ochota Barrels wines in store at Regional. Get in quick.

Imagine a velvet smooth red with a full body and a light touch with a silky palate. Here it is in Ochota Barrels Syrah. Flavours of black olive and fresh earth meet ripe red plums in this wine, made from grapes grown on the Onkaparinga Hills vineyard, planted on schist and clay in 1996. 

Certified organic and dry grown grapes were given whole bunch wild yeast fermentation with 80% short gentle macerations and hand plunging along with 20% extended carbonic maceration. The wine was pressed straight to seasoned French oak for 94 days. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

We have small volumes of Ochota Barrels wines in store at Regional. Get in quick.

Here's Grenache with weight and power as well as silky tannins and smoothness. Grapes from the Barossa Valley go into this super tasty Grenache with dark fruit flavours supporting perfumed red fruit aromas of cranberries, baking spice and a smooth lingering finish.