Wine
Mike Press Wines
I’m often asked what the best value wine is, and it often has me stumped. It’s the idea of value that gets me, for example I hardly ever go past $15 for an everyday wine. These are wines that may have an RRP of $24-$29, wines that are 95 points but have a real world price point of $15 -$20. I go to around $30-$50 for something that I want to put away, I can find great value in different labels at ...
Longview and gartleman
So end of school holidays means back to work! This week the samples were the offerings from Longview and gartleman. I was super excited about the gartleman after seeing their semillon perform so well with only just a few years of age on them. This 2016 is super young, light low flavours of soft green fruits, probably not as good as previous vintages right now, but for $20 it’s worth putting ...
Giant Steps Yarra Valley Range
I seem to be on a bit of Yarra roll at the moment, there must be something in the water down there as the wineries just keep knocking out great wine after great wine. Giant Steps is one of those wineries that’s always reliable, and always knocking out award winning wines. Whether it be in any of the three brands, Giant Steps, Innocent Bystander or Mea Culpa. And that’s in no small part to hard wor...
Rosé
Rosé – depending on your point of view that word will either delight you or send shivers down your spine. But gone are the days that rosé was all about sweetness. That old style mass-produced super sugary sweet excuse for a wine is largely gone. Sure there are still terrible versions of rosé out there, but there are also terrible version of everything else out there too……..like George Clooney doin...
Penfold’s “Max” range
Some of the oldest wines that I have enjoyed the most, out of our collection at least, have been the Bin ranges from Penfolds. The wines have shown that they have an exceptional ability to carry bottle age and the wine develops exceptionally in the bottle, the problem now though is that the most of the reds in the Bin range start at a RRP of $40, a far cry from the sub $20 and $30’s of just over a...
West Cape Howe 2015 releases
I’m pretty lucky with the group that sit around the tasting table with me, the range of life experiences, skills and trades are so different, it gives us all different points of view on life let alone what we are tasting on the day. We have different things we look for in a wine/beer/spirit and have different price points that we won’t go past. I find myself running things past them when I want m...
In Dreams
Jimmy Durante once warbled about seeing people in them, the Sammy Hagar led Van Halen belted out about what they were made of. Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, The Moody Blues, Coldplay even Taylor Swift have sang about them. Dreams, we all have them, some of us sit back and think about them, fantasise about following them. Others get up, work bloody hard and make those dreams happen. Winemaker Nina ...
Levantine Hill
If you are a fan of those huge big and bold Barossa reds, then you should stop reading now. On the other hand if you have got to that stage where you are chasing wines that are more about elegance, finesse and restrained power then have I got a winery for you. Levantine Hill winery in Yarra Valley’s Coldstream has been knocking out wines for only a handful of years now, but already they have built...