White 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 ...

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...

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...

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc

1985, “We are the World” was playing everywhere you went, the wreck of the Titanic was found, Microsoft released the first version of Windows, Canterbury rolled the Saints 7 to 6, and the mighty Bombers thrashed the Hawks 170 to 92 to win a consecutive premiership. Across the ditch, in an Auckland harbour, the French got a bit sneaky and sank the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior, and over in Ma...

C’Mon get Savvy

We don’t get out for dinner often; with kids, work and general “stuff” to be done around the house, but we recently made that happen. We were supposed to travel over the Valentines, but the roads were cut, so out we went, and of course being Valentines, there were more people around than a Drug Intervention at the Titans Rugby League Club, and not having booked because we weren’t supposed to be he...

West Cape Howe

A few weeks ago, just as I was packing our camper trailer to head off for the long weekend, I received a call from Gavin Berry, Winemaker/Owner of West Cape Howe Wines in Western Australia’s Great Southern region. He was in town and wanted to swing past to show his new vintages of his fantastic wines. It was stinking hot in the shed, I was covered in sweat, had just realised I had mistakenly rewir...

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