We hope this missive will drive away any hint of winter blues – and also the gloom of lockdown for those in Victoria. One of the surprise trends of the pandemic has been a rush on Grüner Veltliner. (Makes more sense than loo paper, I suppose.) We’re delighed to report a bumper shipment from Austria, with Grüner and more from the likes of Bründlmayer, Domäne Wachau, Groiss, Stadt Krems and Stift Göttweig. The first 2020 wines from Austria point towards a cool, classic vintage with zippy, pure wines. Meanwhile we also…

“Romain Taupenot has overseen this domaine ratchet up through the gears in recent vintages,” wrote Neal Martin of Vinous Media on tasting the Taupenot-Merme 2018s. “He is a very conscientious winemaker, constantly questioning his wines, always a virtue in my book.” One thing that Romain isn't questioning is the quality of ‘18. He describes it as a pretty much perfect vintage. The early rains set it up neatly for a sunny spring and summer, with gloriously warm weather continuing through to an early harvest. “With…

“I’m looking for joy.” Those were the words uttered by Patrick Walsh as the CellarHand team got their heads stuck into a hardcore blind tasting of Grenache, including various off-portfolio benchmarks from around the world. Putting the spotlight on one of Australia’s most exciting varieties du jour, the tasting unsurprisingly included many engrossing examples. But everyone will recall that moment when the joy floodgates broke open. Wine 1, bracket 3 – who could forget? “Pretty. Red berries, flowers, and dried herbs. Settled, dusty, almost Italianate…

It was André Ostertag himself who sounded the warning. “Prepare to be surprised by this new wave blossoming at the domaine with contagious energy!” he wrote in late November 2018, when announcing that his son Arthur was taking the day-to-day reins at the estate. With the new 2019 Les Jardins wines, you can feel the crashing freshness of that new wave rolling in. This is the fifth vintage since Arthur has been more heavily involved at the estate, and everything on this current offer has…

“As debut wines go, this takes the cake. It’s a stunner.” That was The Wine Front’s Campbell Mattinson commenting on Pip Farr’s curtain-raising Gippsland Pinot Noir. Eight vintages later, Pip seems to have turned her dual-Pinot label into something of a cult classic. And she’s still taking the cake every time. The Farr family has long been happy to let their wines do the talking, and Pip seems to have taken this to new levels with a level of reticence that only highlights the eloquence…

  Welcome to the CellarHand newsletter for May 2021. A bit of a short-and-sweet edition this month, it nevertheless includes three urgent and mouthwatering releases. The most complete of these comes from the Smith Cullam clan of Frankland Estate, whose suite of single-vineyard wines is out now. From 2020, that means Isolation Ridge and Poison Hill Riesling, while the Syrah success story continues with Isolation Ridge and SmithCullam 2019s. Rounding out the review is the benchmark Cab Franc blend, Olmo's Reward, from 2018. From Victoria,…

The career-best form continues for Frankland Estate. The Smith Cullam clan - led these days by Hunter and Lizzie Smith, plus Lizzie's winemaker husband Brian Kent - followed up their Trevor Mast Trophy-winning 2017 Syrah with a benchmark-setting pair of '18s: Isolation Ridge and SmithCullam (the latter a large-format barrel selection of the former). 2019 was the best of these past vintages for Syrah, and here comes another raising of the bar. The Riesling release, meanwhile, comes after the 2019 Isolation Ridge took out last…

Arguably the most innovative grape project in Australian is back. The Chalmers family’s Dott. series is itself a metamorphosis of the #bucketwine trials. Dott. began with a set of three wines from varieties making their “commercial” – if such tiny-batch craftmanship qualifies as such – debut from the 2017 vintage. The grapes were Malvasia Istriana, Pavana and Schioppettino. The second coming comprises those three wines in their 2018 incarnation, as well as the first release of Ribolla Gialla. from the 2020 harvest. To recap, this…

Every Burn Cottage release is a landmark. This estate strutted onto the Central Otago stage with such style and swagger in the late noughties that it immediately made a mark. It was also so respectful of nature and place that it was championed by its peers. It was more start-up than upstart, with characterful hard-rocking American Marquis Sauvage as visionary owner, a guru-like vineyard architect in Ted Lemon, and biodynamic viticulture as its cutting-edge tech. By vintage 2018, it has well and truly come of…

We hope you enjoyed a very happy Easter and have returned fresh and not without an appetite for further wine exploration.  The major new-arrival hype is around Germany, whose stellar 2019s have landed. Short on crop, long on quality, many of the wines didn't survive to see the sun rise on this newsletter. What remains is well worth jumping on before said sun sets on Germany ‘19 altogether. Biodynamic brothers-in-arms Wittmann and A. Christmann have a small amount of estate Riesling remaining. Their peers in…

Langhorne Creek is one of Australia's oldest wine regions, and also one of the best-kept secrets in our viticultural treasure trove. Its magic has long been known among astute producers who've turned to it for succulent, fresh fruit presence. Its cool maritime climate is predominantly shaped by the onshore southerly winds blowing directly from the Southern Ocean across Lake Alexandrina. Summers tend to be long, dry and warm with reliable afternoon breezes retaining natural acidity in the ripening grapes. The Heartland story began in the…

I love the way Stephan Reinhardt of Wine Advocate evokes Eva Clüsserath’s style. It captures the essence of the wines and, like the liquid itself, sets the mouth watering. Who could resist diving into this: “The wines show remarkable elegance and purity and are neither weighty nor too powerful but smooth, open-hearted and true reflections of the particular terroir.” On the heels of a cool, wet March, summery temperatures in April led to early budbreak along the Mosel. Eva’s vines reacted with vigorous growth, which…

Here we go, the second release of this cross-continental Riesling collaboration between two tireless, fearless pioneers. These estates have been pushing boundaries and flying the Riesling flag for decades. They don’t stop. The first release allayed any concerns that this was just a marketing novelty. Nick Stock declared the inaugural release a “Blazingly good Riesling collaboration!” and placed Wolta Wolta in the Top 100 Australian Wines of the Year. “This is a mind flip,” he wrote, "showing perfectly placed reduction and such completely ripe fruit.…

March already, hey? Well, here’s wishing an awesome autumn to you all! New Zealand leads the way this month, with the 2018 Burn Cottage Moonlight Race Pinot Noir out now. It’s the first estate-grown version of this wine that’s been a winner since making its debut in 2014. The new release is layered, complete and balanced, with superb density and finesse. Then there’s biodynamic duo Jason and Anna Flowerday of TWR with Sauvignon Blanc and Gewürztraminer joining Toru on the 2020 vintage. Coincidentally, Anna used to work with Rob…

Guillaume Michel has been living it for so long that it seems it was aeons before it became a cliché: “Great wine is made in the vineyard.” Let’s go back 50 years. That's when Domaine Louis Michel et Fils ceased using oak barrels. The point was that nothing should speak over the sound of Chardonnay speaking with a chablisien accent. Or rather singing in the dialect of each specific terroir. Across 25 hectares of vineyard, Guillaume has seven people working full-time in the vineyard. “If…