It’s that time again. Time to inspire me to spend more money on drinks, even though the WineArk cabinet can’t be closed properly and the Amex is maxed out.
So, what wine, beer, etc, have you been buying and drinking this month?
I haven’t drunk much at all in August, coming off the back of two big trail races (and I don’t drink in the period around those body-destroying runs). Abstinence didn’t help me crack the top ten in either race, of course. Couple that with a few endless weeks wrapping up the Chinese Wine List of the Year judging, and I feel like I’ve not been drinking, writing words on this website, or sleeping (it’s a hard-knock life for us).
I would have happily emptied a few glasses of the trophy-winning Bream Creek Pinot Noir 2023, though. Last Friday, I spent a few strangely sober hours at the WCA Sydney Royal Wine Show Lunch, where I slightly regretted my life choices as delicious wine flowed like water (and I drank nothing but Warragamba high balls). That Pinot (which won Wine of Show) was on pour, and just a taste confirmed that it deserves all of its trophies – it’s powerful, in the Bream Creek mode, but perfumed and refined, gloriously varietal, and so satisfying. Well priced at $45 in retail land and worth every cent – a wine nagging at me to imbibe and forget this whole no-drinks-before-a-race palaver.
The temptation didn’t stop there, with a table full of enjoyable wines – like the mouthfilling Brokenwood Tallawanta Semillon 2019. Every bit the power-packed ’19 Hunter Semillon, it’s an anomaly wine because it comes from the red heavy clay soils that usually mark the best Hunter Shiraz country. That probably just translates into more palate weight. I liked it, and I would also drink plenty.
Another Hunter highlight from the trophy winners was a Silkman Silk Chardonnay 2023 in all its ’23 splendour (an excellent vintage for intense Hunter Valley Chard). Masterfully made, it shows a push-pull of fruit power and winemaking layers that add to a Chardy textural extravaganza.
I didn’t quite love the confected, friendly, but ultimately Huntington Estate Special Reserve Grenache 2023 after that fine trio of vinous dips. While the Heirloom Vineyards McLaren Vale Touriga 2023 looked delicious on first pass, there’s something a bit warm and flattering about it that doesn’t work quite as well with time in the glass.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help myself and bought some of the Gimmonet Special Club wines because they’re grand (we covered that here), plus some Rocche Costamagna Barolo 2019 (same reason, covered here).
What about you? What have you been buying and drinking this month?
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