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Based at their Home of the Brave winery in the Barossa, First Drop describe their wine-making philosophy as a sensibility for tradition with a passion for innovation. The Cream is blended at the optimum time from the best barrels from First Drops most prized vineyards to create the ultimate expression of Barossa Shiraz from the vintage.

Gary Farr is still one of Victoria's true Chardonnay maestro's and his Chardonnay By Farr is another example. Taken from the original By Farr vineyard, this is a clearly a wine of true clarity and finesse. Flavours of melon and hints of spice with wonderful oak integration mean this wine is simply delicious upon release, but handle some careful medium-term cellaring.

Prélude Grands Crus Cuvée is composed of half Chardonnay and half Pinot Noir, selected exclusively from Grands Crus vineyards. Produced using only first press wines and aged for more than five years in the Taittinger cellar, the Prélude cuvée is a rare blend that offers finesse and structure, unique for its remarkable youth and great wealth of flavours.

A Champagne drinkers' Champagne. Freshness and vivacity with a delicate bead and complex fruit flavours. A perfectly integrated acidity suggests that it will age very well. Great as an aperitif, but with enough body to handle almost all food pairings.

David and Jenny Jones are making wine with tremendous depth of fruit flavour, reflecting the relatively low-yielding but very well- maintained vineyards in The Pyrenees. Their flagship Dalwhinnie Eagle Shiraz is a perfect example of this. Pristine and fresh with more of everything providing plenty of stuffing, redcurrant, blackberry and sage characters.

The blend here is 85% Tempranillo, 6% Garnacha and 9% Graciano. This wonderfully complex wine has aromas of blackberries, raspberries and notes of smoke, minerals and herbs. The tannins are firm, slightly austere and yet ripe, balancing expressive fruit concentration on the palate and leading to a long refined finish.

This wine is generous and rounded at first with juicy, deep berry compote fruits then yielding to a tightly woven frame of firm yet generous tannins. There are alluring, coconutty oak and fine dark chocolate characters, with a deep, soft centre of ripe berry fruits. Elegant acids and light, long tannins carry the palate to deliver a lingering finish.

A lively wine with a raisin bread-like note mixed in with the ripe red fruits. Still fresh and vibrant with a clean floral finish. Drink now.

This new vintage is fresh and crisp, taut and racy. A fine youthful wine that promises to age gracefully for five to six years. 70% Pinot noir - 30% Chardonnay. One third of the wine is matured in oak casks prior to bottling, after four years on lees, it is disgorged, it sees dosage of 8-10 g/l before another 6 months in bottle prior to release.

The 2010 Chateau d'Issan is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, showing 'classic Margaux' in its perfume, finesse and apparent elegance. Soils are gravel and clay, which contributes to the high-tones of perfume from the wine, and though an estate that is neccesarily clawing its way back to a higher profile, is doing so with deeds in bottle over showmanship. On its side, the vineyard is dense with older vines that naturally offer lower yields, allowing for a higher quality of fruit for the winemaking team, in turn producing a wine of stellar quality from 2010.