Australia

95 Points - Nick Bulleid MW (Gourmet Traveller) 'The 2018 GDF Uberblanc is fascinating. The nose is full, with ripe stone fruits and a hint of savoury. It’s unusually full bodied for riesling, with savoury phenolics building weight. The flavours expand through the mouth and linger well on the finish. (Peter) Bourne agreed: “Very spicy aromas – cumin, aniseed, wild honey and apple tart. Rich, almost chewy, palate with a real tang to the finish. Great stuff.”' 

James Halliday "Texture and structure are the key elements of this wine, part from acidity, part from fermentation with the inclusion of some solids. Citrus, apple and pear are all contributors to a wine that speaks of its Tasmanian origins."

94++ Points - Stuart McCloskey “Clearly, young is stating the obvious but I love sampling embryonic wines which provide pleasure today and in the future. The Soumah team picks this particular Chardonnay as early as they can to ensure a fresh line of citrus fruit and crisp natural acidity, which and if read alone would offer a degree of understatement. The joy of this young wine comes from its silky structure and palate feel which are achieved through barrel fermentation (specifically maturing gracefully for eight months prior to bottling). The nose offers a little poached pear and apple with a light sprinkling of sweet spice. The palate is crisp, clean, full of energy and lovely precision. Stony / minerals rather than dry. There’s a chewy grip which is admirable. Impressive with a few years of improvement ahead of it. Certainly, worth buying.”

97-98 Points - Stuart McCloskey “The bouquet is penetrating, precise, and certainly descends from a cool, maritime climate. Scents of lemon, mineral, sea spray and jasmine graciously unfurl from the glass. With time, the aromatics intensify and quite considerably (see my footnote regarding temperature and decanting). The palate is incredibly complex, regal and struts its stuff with such confidence, all the while highlighting its self-control. Tightly coiled but balanced perfectly with a satiny stream of citrus and minerals. The saline note on the long finish is lovely. There’s beautiful weight to the wine and it cradles your palate with an admirable suspense. A very, very fine Chardonnay which would benefit from five or so years in the bottle and will fan-out gloriously over a decade or more. Served with Zalto Bordeaux glassware. Do not serve from the fridge. 11-13 degrees being the best temperature. Decant for a wee while as this wine needs a little aeration”.

96+ Points - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front "What is left to say about Timo Mayer, aside, he keeps on making outstanding, fascinating, wonderful wines. There’s the howling at moon, baying at the wind, shirt tearing and pant splitting stuff, of course, and his incredible, unique site, but we know all that. This, of all the ‘Mayer’ wines, is only half whole bunch, the rest destemmed, where typically Mayer wines are 100% whole bunch. One thing you could reason, is that Timo’s wines are usually even better in worse years, but 2017, as great a season as it was for Yarra Valley, makes a hash of that rule.

Whiffs of smoke, gravelly-earthy note, dark cherry, mushroomy funk, undergrowth; where the wild things are. Love this fog of scent. Fine boned in the palate, draped in silky-sweet cherry and herbal flavours, rolls on a sheet of glossy acidity, finishes fine, perky, tight and squeaky. It’s a superb pinot noir, detailed, complex, layered and yet compact. Watch this unfurl."

This vineyard was planted in 1995 on an old apricot orchard which we removed from our Roennfeldt Road property at Marananga near Greenock. The vines crop at 1.2 to 1.5 tonnes per acres from the short rows, and 1.5 to 2.0 tonnes per acre on the long rows. The grapes are picked and kept separate to produce a single estate wine. This rich, dark red wine has complex aromas of spice and fruit, plums, berries and a splash of dark chocolate with a lingering velvety finish.

97++ Points - Stuart McCloskey “Sourced from the famed Corryton Park vineyard, high in the cool-climate Eden Valley in the Barossa Ranges. A decade on, the wine is deep and brooding with leather, liquorice, tobacco, cough-candy and warm earth unfolds from my glass – the bouquet is riveting. The palate is medium-bodied, fresh with a sweet opening of blackberry, raspberry and anise. There’s a lot of scaffolding in place which has held this wine in good order nonetheless, the palate is developing beautifully with many shades and dimensions on show. The tannins are dusty and the finish is honestly endless, but does eventually fade to dried blood orange. A lovely Cabernet experience… Decanted for 3 hours and served using Zalto glassware.”

100 Points - Robert Parker "My notes essentially read the same every year, even though the bottlings are non-vintage and I taste the most recent releases. Consistency and greatness are the norm at this Rutherglen winery. The average age is 7-10 years for the regular cuvees, about 70 years for the grand cuvees, and the ancient rare cuvees date back to soleras from 1890. The Muscadelle (Tokay) reveals caramel, toffee, fig, prune, raisiny notes, an incredible, unctuous texture, and amazing zesty acidity which keeps it from being cloying. It is redundant to keep repeating the same tasting notes, so readers will have to take my word for it ... this is one of the world’s most remarkable dessert wines, and is worth every effort to latch on to a half bottle or so."