What have you been buying and drinking this January + February 2025?

February is the best month of the year. Fact. Sure, it’s short, often stupidly humid and hot here in Sydney, but it’s my birthday month, so obviously, it’s pretty good.

This time of year also offers plenty of opportunities to drink the good stuff, and in the four weeks since our last check-in, there has been a shedload of decent wines purchased and opened.

But more importantly, what have you been buying and drinking this Jan/Feb?

If the last four weeks had a hero for me, it would be a bottle of Tyrrell’s Semillon. Yes, I’ve drunk the Hunter Semillon Kool-Aid, but it’s now been three nights when a Semillon has been either the highlight or a joint hero.

And the other winner? Latta. I’ve just filled my allocation of the new 2024 vintage wines, while every one of Owen Latta’s wines I’ve had since an exceptional 2022 Jurassic Chardonnay at Christmas time has been charismatic, at the least.

What about you? What wines have won for you recently? Let me know in the comments below!

Right! Now, after scrolling through the wine bottle-laden photo reel of the last four weeks, I realise it’s an embarrassment of riches, really, although not all the highly fancied wines have hit the spot…

Indeed, this R. D’Meure East Coast Chardonnay 2020 looked broader and more advanced than I expected and a step above the fully textured lo-fi style. It was yellow, honeyed, homely, but lacking detail. I’m calling heat or cork issues with this bottle, as the D’Meure Chardies are normally much more refined.

No such dramas with this Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon 2005, which was so blindingly good. 2005 is an iconic release with so many trophies that, at one stage, the bottle had three rows of gold stickers on it. Believe the hype! My bottle came from the winery’s Private Bin Club release, so there are no stickers, but it did mean that it went straight from the winery to professional temperature-controlled storage, where it has sat for what is now almost two decades. As you can see by the colour, the perfect provenance shows – a brilliant yellow-green, it’s obviously an aged wine, but still with this driving green fruit underneath. Toast and lanolin, sure, but still ultra-pure green fruit driving it. ’05 was a ripe year wine too, so this is not actually a hard or angular thing, and the contrasting fruit/bottle age/crisp acidity layers make it The Most Incredible Food Wine On The Planet. Profoundly good. World class good. No scores, but this would be up there as an early Wine Of The Year contender.

Also in the Semillon department, another bottle of Tyrrell’s HVD Semillon 2017, which is just a lovely Semillon of brightness and golden light, even if didn’t have the green-flecked contrasts of the ’05 Vat 1. There was a glass of 2018 HVD Sem too, and while it is a bit less open and easy, it’s also so good and ridiculously affordable (it beat out an oaky but simple Bubb & Pooley Chardonnay 2022 + an affable but hardly head-turning Sylvain Cathiard Bourgogne Aligote 2022).

Speaking of simple, this La Comercal Delmoro Blanco 2022 looked rather tinny and pineapply in a fashion that I’d see in a bottle of something far less hyped and shitloads cheaper. There was also a slightly flat bottle of Apogee Deluxe Vintage Rosé 2019, which was not a patch on the last bottle I had in December 2023. I think it spent too much time in my fridge fridge (rather than the wine fridge) and lived through too many crisper draw openings.

I couldn’t really fault the quality of this Eva Fricke Kiedrich Riesling 2022, but it just didn’t rise up beyond being a nice, slightly safe German white. No alarms, no surprises, but not enough depth either. It just didn’t move beyond simplicity.

Then again, it’s easy to write off a bottle based on one glass, and I’m glad I didn’t do that to the Rising One Acre Chardonnay 2021. At first, this Yarra white looked oak-clothed, too tight and too primary, but I just realised that I’d been drinking it too cold (this was opened in Noosa, where you want wines to be stupidly well-chilled in January). As it warmed up, the oak and phenolics calmed down and out came the Chardonnay sunshine (and reminded my why I liked it so much last year). Yeah, if you have some, wait a while before opening.

You know what is drinking magnificently? This humble Giant Steps Pinot Noir 2023. Also opened in Noosa and kept in the ice bucket before serving, it was a beautifully refreshing, red fruit pastille-laden Pinot pleasure trip (and so affordable). Two thumbs up. Fittingly nicely into the ‘better than the price suggests’ was a Jean-Paul Thevenet Morgon Vieilles Vignes 2022 as well. Beaujolais lobs up so much pleasure, especially these old vine, top vineyard, dark fruited releases. You could argue it’s not some ethereal Burgundy but it does have detail, energy and unheralded intensity. Yes, please.

What else looked good? Unquestionably, this Tapanappa Tiers Chardonnay 2017. The only sample in this assortment of wines, this is a museum release now available directly from Tapanappa ($165). It’s a high-quality Chardonnay, just entering its drinking window, even if it’s not my favourite vintage of Tiers. From the first whiff you can feel the classiness here, like a red carpet of oak and cultured fruit. The acidity is a bit sharp, as I first picked up at the vertical back in 2019, which translates into a grey coolness to this wine that makes it a little angular. Undoubted quality, though.

Speaking of classy wines with angles, this Cullen Diana Madeline 2019 looked a bit abrupt and firmly leafy on the first night, and I’m glad I had another go day 2 as the fine, dusty, ripe and black-fruited classic Margs Cabernet flavours came together wonderfully. This is also very fine stuff, that smells beautiful from the get-go, but I should have kept in the cellar until 2029 tbh for a better drinking experience.

This post is dragging on a bit, but a few more tidbits worth talking about. Two Lattas for a start, deserve the followup, with a bottle of Latta Dexterous Contact Gris 2022 that was so rudely good for something with no sulphur that spent a few months stuck in the non-temp controlled wine wardrobe (oh yes, we have a wine fridge, a normal fridge with lots of wine in it, a wine wardrobe, and then an offsite wine storage locker. My family love it). This orangey pink wine really nails the all-important skin contact texture, with a drying grip but this floral pinkness that makes it pretty but serious and long – even my family, who don’t always love orange wines, loved it. I didn’t see the same broad appeal in a Latta Headwaters Nebbiolo 2021, but I can admire the intention. It’s a bit tomato-leafy and drying, yet this Nebb has a proper lo-fi Barberesco sort of vibe to it, except mixed with the red dust of western Vic. Gruff, a bit too much bitter coffee in the flavour spectrum, yet it feels like proper Nebbiolo (if unapproachable)

Finally, one of the other purchases in recent weeks (which was emptied that night) was a lone bottle of Felton Road Cornish Point Pinot Noir 2023. I love Felton Road Pinot, and this seduced me as I was wandering around a Sunshine Coast bottle shop. It probably wasn’t as immediately affable as, say, the Giant Steps above but there is a Pinot x-factor vibe to it that is unmistakable. The purpleness of the fruit, the shades of herbaceousness and the spice all marks this as something a bit different (and a little magical). I would definitely wait for it to soften a little bit, really.

More please!