GRAPEVINE: A splash of Grenache as summer approaches
While Australia doesn’t have any native varieties like the famed ‘old world’ countries of Europe, we do now have a couple of hundred years growing...
GRAPEVINE: From Italy With love
We follow on from our last article looking at white Italian grape varieties that you may not have come across, but offer plenty of...
Nothing cheesy about this grape variety
Pecorino. No not the cheese, although the reference to sheep is apt (Pecora means sheep), we are talking about the grape variety, which finds...
Grapevine: Feel suave, DRINK SOAVE
Veneto, in the north-east of Italy, is the home of some of your favourite wines whether you know it or not. The benchmark examples of...
Grapevine: Craft beer storm leaves pleasantly sour taste
Whether you’re a beer drinker or not, you would have noticed the unprecedented growth in craft breweries over the past five to 10 years. In...
Grapevine: Looking for the next trend is a Pinot Grey Area
If you ask anyone in the wine industry what the next big trend will be, they will almost always have an opinion, and they...
Grapevine: Learn the ins and outs of Prosecco
We are a few years in to the emergence of Prosecco becoming many wine drinkers’ go-to spring and summer sparkling. It’s relatively affordable compared to...
Grapevine: Vegan-friendly wines
Vegan-friendly wines may come as a surprise to some people, after all wine is just fermented grape juice right? Sure, the odd spider or bee...
Grapevine: Rose on the rise as seasons change
As warmer weather approaches, rosé will increasingly be the wine of choice for its versatility with food and equal appeal to white and red...
Grapevine: Don’t trip over the acid, it’s crucial to wine structure
Acid is a wine term that often makes people shriek and run away. Unfortunately, to say you don’t like acidic wines in the most literal...
Grapevine: A site on the world map for premium Cabernet
Barossa Valley. Coonawarra. Margaret River. These are all household names in Australian wine, you will likely have an image in your head of the...
The deliciousness is in the detail
Understanding the terms used on wine labels can be pretty challenging, particularly when they are in a foreign language. Is that the grape variety? The...
Sankt Laurent will leave the glass and seduce with intensity
The rise and rise of styles of wine like rose or varieties like Pinot Noir has coincided with many wine drinkers tiring of big,...
Friends of Punch comes to play
The current drought situation in Northern Victoria and New South Wales has brought back memories of the last years of the first decade of...
Rose by any other name
Provence is almost the centre of the wine universe right now. As the wine style of Rose continues to grow and displace both whites...
Pineapple in the wine and other flavour mysteries
Where do the flavours in your glass of wine come from? Whether serious or not, there are always questions like “when do they put...
Going the full Montepulciano
To say that the second most planted grape variety in the second largest wine producing country is an “alternative” variety seems a little odd,...
Let’s be Franciacorta about sparkling
Any conversation about high quality sparkling wine eventually brings up Champagne at some point. Is this wine as good as Champagne? Does it illicit the...
Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc flood tide begins to ebb
The tide of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc continues to drift out and as the producers who came in to take advantage of the easy money...
The other Pinot
Pinot Gris and Grigio (the same grape) have arguably been the biggest beneficiaries of the decline of Sauvignon Blanc’s popularity over the past decade...
What do the points mean?
A question I am receiving more and more is “what do the points mean?”, the question refers to a number, usually between 90 and...
Shiraz vs Syrah – What’s the difference?
At the physiological level, Shiraz and Syrah are no different. They are the exact same grape, simply given a different name. Think of Pinot Grigio...
Geelong, a regional conundrum – Pt.1
Earlier this year, we entered into a brief online discussion with a popular wine review website and some of its subscribers. The subject was the...
Sherry, the real stuff
Ahh, Sherry, one of the world’s great wines. It may no longer be so fashionable in Oz, but it is making a comeback in many...