d'Arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz
Old, extremely low-yielding McLaren Vale vines are responsible for d'Arenberg's Dead Arm Shiraz - a wine of enormous power, intensity and real complexity - an absolute must for any serious wine cellar and d'Arenberg lover. One of the flagships for McLaren Vale for many years, this wine continues to shine with a balanced between tradition and Chester Osborne driven innovation.
Felton Road Bannockburn Pinot Noir
Felton Road really is a fine winemaker. This is its regular bottling and what a wine, with lush, dark cherry and mysterious foresty aromas. It's very ripe and rich and the palate has intensity and drive, with fresh acidity keeping it all singing.
Jasper Hill Georgia's Paddock Shiraz
Jasper Hill and Ron Laughton are true pioneer's and icons in the central Victorian wine region of Heathcote. Georgia's Paddock is the larger of 'Jasper's' vineyards, with 12 hectares planted to Shiraz to produce a wine rich in character and complexity. Always known for it's extreme ageability, Georgia's Paddock Shiraz will comfortably lie down for over a decade to deliver a Heathcote Shiraz simply bursting with concentration.
Felton Road Cornish Point Pinot Noir
Central Otago benchmark, Felton Road, produce some of the new world's greatest Pinot Noir's. The Cornish Point Pinot is a perfect example with its complexity matched with fruit power and what seems like eternal length. While magnificently bright and dominated by rich fruit flavours early, the Cornish Point will develop earth and forest floor flavours and aromas along with a seamless integration of tannin and acid to provide a aged Pinot experience like none other.
Torbreck Descendant Shiraz Viognier
The Torbreck Descendant has a powerful nose of blackberry and tar complemented by floral lavender and a violet lift. Full-bodied and concentrated with ripe silky tannins and plenty of extract this wine has a great future ahead.
Olek Bondonio Roncagliette, Barbaresco
John Duval Eligo Shiraz
John Duval, famously known as the craftsman of the mighty Penfolds Grange, continues to further forge his reputation as a maker of great Shiraz. 'Eligo' from the latin: 'To pick out, select or choose or choose the best' is the flagship wine of the John Duval stable with its main aim to produce a Shiraz with structure and an elegant expression of its terrior. Multi layered with lashes of dark berry fruit, the wine is intense yet still quite restrained. An excellent Barossan Shiraz!
Elderton Command Shiraz
Elderton's Command Shiraz is one old school Barossa Shiraz. Named because of the special treatment the quality fruit 'commanded', this is a Shiraz of foreboding concentration. The fruit for this 'Excellent' Langton's classified Australian icon comes from the century old Elderton vineyard located on the banks of the Para River and is matured in a mixture of French and American oak. This allows the wine to retain its driven power while also giving the wine a level of complexity and balance unique to this region and producer. Elderton's Command can be enjoyed by lovers of ripe and rich fruit early, yet will reward the truly patient with a wine of true beauty when left alone to mature for a decade.
Bannockburn Pinot Noir
Bannockburn is spicy with well intergraded savoury oak and great acidity backbone. The varietal flavours such as, raspberries, strawberries and red cherries fruits lingers with a faint hint of forest floor on the palate with well supporting tannins. A greatly composed wine, this is undoubtedly pushing the setting of this country's benchmark for Pinot Noir to another level.
Vietti Barolo Castiglione
Beautiful glowing ruby. Fine earthy nose. Succulent palate with a powerful tannic structure. Really long and a little vibrant. Firm, long red-fruit finish Hearty stew, wild game, roasted red meats and cheeses. The grapes are selected from small vineyards spread in the Barolo region. The vines are between 8 and 41 years old, planted in a clay-limestone soil. Plants are trained with guyot method, with an average density of roughly 4500 units per hectare. All the different crus are vinified and aged separately with slightly different processes to underline the singular characteristics of each parcel and terroir. Fermentation occurs in stainless steel with daily cap submersion for extraction of flavor and color. The history of the Vietti winery traces its roots back to the 19th Century. Only at the beginning of the 20th century, however, did the Vietti name become a winery offering its own wines in bottle. From 1919 Patriarch Mario Vietti began making the first Vietti wines, selling most of the production in Italy. His most significant achievement was to transform the family farm, engaged in many fields, into a grape-growing and wine-producing business. Then, in 1952, Alfredo Currado (Luciana Viettis husband) continued to produce high quality wines from their own vineyards and purchased grapes. The Vietti winery grew to become one of the top-level producers in Piemonte and was one of the first wineries to export its products to the USA market. Alfredo was one of the first to select and vinify grapes from single vineyards (such as Brunate, Rocche and Villero). This was a radical concept at the time, but today virtually every vintner making Barolo and Barbaresco wines offers single vineyard or cru-designated wines. Alfredo is also called the father of Arneis as in 1967 he invested a lot of time to rediscover and understand this nearly-lost variety. Today Arneis is the most famous white wine from Roero area, north of Barolo. Setting such a fine example with Arneis, even fellow vintners as far away those on the west coast of the United States now are cultivating and producing Arneis!

