What did you drink for Xmas 2023? My sparkling/white wine highlights (and misses)

Welcome to 2024. It’s going to be great. Or, at least, let’s aim to make it great by drinking a shedload of really delicious wines.

So, what have you been drinking?

Many ‘good’ wines ended up in my glass this festive period, which outweighed the ‘great’. Given how many bottles were opened, I’m not surprised, but also a reflection that what counts as great is a rare beast.

What about you? Open anything sublime?

The drinking celebrations started here not with something sublime but more a recent Graham tradition.

The obligatory Bollinger Special Cuvée NV magnum.

Sadly, this was a meh bottle, all yellow broadness and a bit flat. Drinkable, no doubt, but with atypical mid-palate chub and a diffuse finish. Man, Champagne variability sucks – this could be cork as it’s not storage (unless it got cooked before I received it from Bollinger’s local reps), but this sort of oxidation is just an annoyance for something I know is so reliable.

I had no expectations for a J. Vignier Les Longues Verges Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs NV, however, because I can’t remember what it tasted like on release (and it has been in the cellar for a good two years, I think). It was clean, nicely detailed, good quality grower Champagne, if missing something more. Extra Brut, and you could see every sinew, adding to the clean and lively feel. Nice, if uninspiring.

There was another bottle of Lanson Noble Brut Vintage 2004 this week too, which looked every bit the twenty-year-old Champagne. A grand madam with a wrinkle or two. Lots of autolysis richness, lots of aged toast, lots of everything. I had a less cold glass that looked a bit rotund and another glass that was positively frosty and much finer. Oceans of gloriously mouthfulling complexity is the joy here, all brioche and nutty dusty aged interest. Still, drink up (and leave it in the ice) based on this bottle.

I also liked the Daosa Blanc de Blancs 2019, even if it remains more of an Adelaide Hills table wine than traditional bottle-fermented sparkling. A real mouthful of sparkling here, too, with all these layers of lemon curd, lemon pie, and lees and yeast.

However, it was outclassed by the Apogee Deluxe Vintage Rosé 2019, which was superb. This is evocative, creamy, pink fruited, full-tilt Australian sparkling with grand marque complexity. Ripe, too, in a main meal Champagne vibe – it’s full-flavoured, not delicate. You can feel the keen mind of Andrew Pirie and his lifelong quest for superb Tasmanian fizz, crystalised in this beguiling pink. It’s so masterful, so clever, so assured. Oh yeah, this was the sparkling wine of Christmas – I’ll definitely buy more.

From pink to red, and two disgorgements (2022 & 2023) of Primo Joseph Sparkling Red to dive into (and back-to-back on Christmas and Boxing Day). I liked the extra freshness of the ’23, but that’s likely my preference for just-disgorged pristine styles. Regardless, I bloody love this wine. For those who haven’t read me banging on about this unique sparkling red before (and bang on, I do), this is an experience. You get all the acres of mid-palate McLaren Vale red wine width and frothy sweetness, but with licoricey, rancio highlights to bring in a bit of X-factor. Layers, baby. Do yourself a favour and try this wonderful fizzy red, even so you can ignore me next time.

What else? Neil Pike’s Limefinger Solace Polish Hill River Riesling 2023 was as perfectly correct as expected. I like Neil’s wines so much, as they’re the absolute personification of what great Clare Valley Riesling should taste like. The ’23 is right on form, too.

It felt like I could repeat last year’s tasting note for the Tim Smith Eden Valley Riesling 2023 as well. This is quite a powerful (rather than delicate) style, with occasionally brutish lime juice power. Proper Riesling with length to burn.

The Limefinger won me over this vintage (but they’re both gold medal quality wines).

There was a pithy Alkina Kin Semillon 2023 up next, which was an interesting texture ride into the world of Barossa Semillon, even if it felt a bit angular for more than a glass.

Also on the Semillon line, there was a middling bottle of Tyrrell’s Stevens Semillon 2011, which was nowhere near as delicious as the last bottle. I’m not worried; it’s a consistent performer in this house, but the wet straw and chewy/advanced mid-palate fullness were less noble.

On the same train, another bottle of the Thomas Wines Cellar Reserve Braemore Semillon 2017 was a reminder note of why I liked it so much here. A glorious white wine, that I just enjoy drinking as well as revel in the just-right cascade of flavours. Is the less-open 2018 going to better it in the end? I dunno, but I’m up for the challenge.

You want an even bigger contrast? Just the other week, we talked about the recent Chablis disappointments, and it played out like a script on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. An unnervingly fresh Daniel-Etienne Defaix Chablis 1er Cru Vaillon 2010 looked like it was a two-year-old, with that ultra-reductive backwardness that Defaix’s late-bottled (it spends up to a decade in stainless tanks on fine lees before bottling) wines show on ‘roids. It was like a Chablis wet dream, all wet stones, oyster shells, milk bottles and clinical edges. So fresh, so clean, so ‘are you sure this isn’t a 2021?’. Um, wow, where can I buy more?

The Daniel-Etienne Defaix Chablis Vieilles Vignes 2020 was a ride back on the stonefruit train. Broad-brushed, generous, new-worldish, it looked older than the 2010 and just pleasant. It’s a weird world when Tassie Chardonnay can out-Chablis Chablis, but here we are.

Or indeed, why even bother with Chablis when the best in Albarino can provide more pleasure?

The Pentecostés Albariño 2021 was a Christmas head-turner. It’s pure and finely detailed, yet with this perfectly poised waxy almond meal reduction vs. pear juice generosity, that was delightful and clever. For a wine that is the same price as the Defaix above, it was much more pleasurable.

For the counterpoint, I thought a bottle of Feudo Montoni Grillo Timpa 2021 would be more memorable than it was, but hey, it’s a very good Grillo (but ultimately pretty straightforward).

There is absolutely nothing straightforward about the final wines in today’s Xmas wine selection.

Apologies for the shit picture, but the Dog Point Chardonnay 2020 was yet another blindingly good release of a benchmark Marlborough Chardonnay. Yes, it has a lot of winemaking edifice in here – it’s not a wine to woo non-Chardonnay drinkers with – but oh, the evocative butterscotch, vanilla bean golden flavour volume is so good and so involving that I can rise above blurry iPhone photos every day of the week. Go on, stick it in a blind lineup against Coche and then come away laughing – for $89 on a local wine list, it’s a steal.

Also turning the volume and reductive knobs up high was the just-released new Attwoods Glenlyon Estate Chardonnay 2022. Troy has delivered such a mouthful of a wine here – it’s butterscotchy, grippy, and leesy, and so proudly wild and uncompromising, all tightened up with fresh Macedon acidity. It just needs a few more months in bottle to calm down.

Right, that’s about enough highlights for now – tomorrow, I’ll do reds, sweet wines and fortifieds too.