The Almost Club July 2025 edition: 20 wines that almost made it this month

Not all wines can be great. Plenty are just ‘ok drinks’, and some are just bad…

Here are 11 wines that almost made the silver medal, Australian Wine and Drinks Review ‘pass’ grade in July 2025.

From friendly, sub-$20 quaffs to not-so-cheap disappointments and a shedload of ‘ok’ wines in between, this collection has it all. Importantly, this isn’t a shit list, but a reminder that life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows (and some wines don’t need to be gold medal winners to be drinkable).

Let’s dive into a few of the almosts:

Angullong Fossil Hill Pinot Noir 2024

The Angullong wines continue to get better and better, though not without the occasional wine that struggles to achieve perfect ripeness. This Pinot is minty and surprisingly lean for its alcohol content. Sappy, a bit sweet and sour, with glacé raspberry and yet tart bits too. There’s some really nice Pinosity here, though tempered with that lumpiness. Almost.

Best drinking: nowish. 16.8/20, 89/100. 14%, $30.

Apricus Hill Chardonnay 2024

Nailing the balance between fruit expression and refreshment is the perpetual Chardonnay challenge. A bit more palate weight is back in vogue for Australian Chardonnay now too, which makes the balance thing even trickier, especially as you can’t just pick grapes early and build the flavour up in the winery. This Apricus Hill tries to put a foot in both camps – it’s ripe, mouthfilling and stonefruity, but with lots of lemon and sour tang. It’s a fatty, leesy, cheesy sort of fuller style that has plenty of impact, yet also with a sweet and sour finish that jars a little. It’s not bad, and it has rock-solid concentration; it’s just not a fully cohesive drink (yet).

Best drinking: from next year. 16.8/20, 89/100. 13.3% $40.

Marnong Estate Sangiovese 2024

Such great clarity in this Sunbury Sangiovese – it’s 110% Sangiovese, which is a welcome thing. Blackberry, mulberry, a lick of leather, the lot. I just want more power. Indeed, everything in this wine is in the right place; it even has the cat-tongue sandpaper varietal tannins. But the intensity is missing (which is also unsurprising for a red that weighs in at a lowly 12.5% alcohol).

Best drinking: nowish. 16.8/20, 89/100. 12.5% $35.

Pike & Joyce Descente Sauvignon Blanc 2024

Lenswood (Adelaide Hills) Sauvignon Blanc that smells and tastes like Sauvignon Blanc. That’s the good part. Lots of green fruit, passionfruit, but also lettuce and cucumber, which is the harder part. It’s crisp, but that green edge drags a bit after a while – I found myself looking for a bit more love. Plenty of tangy, refreshing Sauv character, though.

Best drinking: now. 16.8/20, 89/100. 12.5%, $28.

Small Gully Mr Black’s Little Black Book Shiraz 2020

The best Small Gully wines are next-level lavish – hugely dense western Barossan wines that feel like bottled hedonism. The excess comes at a cost, though, with plenty of wines in the range that are just OTT. This red is a singularly ripe wine from Small Gully that never graduates beyond Cherry Ripe. Very smooth and powerful, but it just needs a bit more than the single high speed. But hey, shedloads of mega lush wine for $25.

Best drinking: now. 16.8/20, 89/100. 16.1%, $25.

Small Gully Oscar’s Estate Vineyard Shiraz Viognier 2020

If ever there was a wine that doesn’t need Viognier, it is a Small Gully red. WHY! This smells older than 2020, with oceans of molasses, formic and chocolately oak. Ultra ripe, smooth, Idiosyncratic but not poor quality. Drinkable? I can’t. But I fully admire the weight and lusciousness. Interestingly, I challenge you to pick the Viognier in all that big oak and alcoholic chocolate. Such an idiosyncratic wine.

Best drinking: now. Don’t wait. 16.8/20, 89/100. 15.4%, $30.

Soumah Brachetto 2024

Juicy Yarra Brachetto that does exactly what it means to. It looks like red cordial and smells of raspberry lollies and lychee with a candied, medium sweet palate of juicy raspberry cordial flavour. It leans a little too far into sugary sweetness as the main character, but this will win lots of fans (especially at the cellar door).

Best drinking: now. 16.8/20, 89/100. 10%, $32.

Soumah Single Vineyard Late Harvest Viognier 2024

Viognier often promises to make delicious dessert wine, but rarely delivers, likely due to its low acidity. Anyway, this Soumah comes from the Yering Vineyard in the Yarra Valley. Low acid and lots of flavour. Creamy and sugar sweet with candied apricot, but the palate cuts off before it gets voluptuous and falls away. A quintessential ‘almost wine’.

Best drinking: now. 16.8/20, 89/100. 11%, $38 (for 500ml)

De Bortoli Muscat Aperitif NV

De Bortoli, ever the innovators, are having a red hot go at reinventing Rutherglen Muscat with this new wine. No doubt they’ve seen how port producers have made ‘some’ inroads, making chilled white port aperitifs a thing, so why not, right? This tastes like exactly what it is – young Rutherlgen Muscat. It’s coppery orange like a saignée rosé, a golden, young and juicy nouveau Muscat style with the alcohol warmth but none of the more classic Muscat depth. I think this is a really fun wine that could be great in cocktails, although fine Muscat it is not – once you get beyond the viscous orange and mandarin syrup fruit, it isn’t complex or profound. It’s plenty drinkable, but I wonder if it would be even better without the spirit and if it could be pitched as an aromatic white.

Best drinking: now. 16.5/20, 88/100. 16%, $28.

Fowles Stone Dwellers Sangiovese 2023

Light and easy raspberried Sangiovese from the most often forgotten wine region in Victoria, the Strathbogie Ranges. The volume is turned down a bit here, too – there is not much beyond that initial flush of cherry/raspberry fruit. A plenty affable wine, even if it doesn’t have the fruit weight to really convince.

Best drinking: nowish. 16.5/20, 88/100. 13.1%, $35.

Meerea Park XYZ Shiraz 2023

A round and generous modern Hunter Valley Shiraz, and not much beyond that. Smooth, slightly gummy red berries, fizzy acidity, red fruit. Easy and plenty smooth, but blink and you’ll miss the whole shebang.

Best drinking: now. 16.5/20, 88/100. 13.5%, $30.

Small Gully Wines Panakeia Shiraz 2015

Another Small Gully red, but this wine is older and up at the top of the quality tree. Some colour advancement, but it’s still a young wine. Lots of luscious caramel and brick dust oak, although not much else. A lusciously oaky wine, still, with fudge and red dust, then a warm finish. Barossa Shiraz meets bourbon, that’s the feel here, and without the fresh fruit of the younger wines, which means it’s just drying out. Lots of impact though, befitting a top-tier wine (and gives this some appeal) even if it’s all just lacking some vitality.

Best drinking: now. 16.5/20, 88/100. 16.2%, $80.

Taylors Jaraman Chardonnay 2024

Another Chardonnay pitching for the ‘give me rich Chardonnay dammit’ market, although it’s just a little broad for mine. Clare Valley & Adelaide Hills grapes here, and it tastes of pineapple juice, pineapple cream and a bit of caramel. That broad mouthfeel has a place, especially with full golden edges, but still a pretty obvious tropical thing.

Best drinking: now. 16.5/20, 88/100. 13.5%, $26.

Pierre Chanier Pinot Noir 2024

An Aldi-exclusive. It’s basic French Pinot for very, very few dollars. Just varietal red raspberry fruit, a little of leaf and mulch, not a lot of fruit flavour, but it does fulfil the quotient of a French Pinot, and for $10 you won’t get much better anywhere in Australia.

Best drinking: now. 16/20, 87/100. 12.5%, $10.

Soumah Blanc de Blancs NV

This is a curiously shrill, lemony Yarra Valley sparkling. Lemony and green, with hard green apple and soda water, with not much else. Fresh but also a little harsh.

Best drinking: now. 16/20, 87/100. 11%, $35.

Yalumba Y Series Lighter Cuvée NV

The latest IWSR figures suggest that non-alcoholic wine will grow at 5% per annum until 2028. That’s big bikkies in a shrinking market. But low/reduced alcohol wine is projected to overtake it (it was growing at 21% in the five years to 2023). Yalumba isn’t going to miss that boat, with this sparkling wine weighing in at 7% alcohol and 50 calories per 100ml. It sits halfway between apple juice and moscato in flavour profile, with a light, fruit-forward, simply green and red apple juice fruit and not a lot more. Technically, this is anything but fine wine, and probably more premix profile than wine, but also an important stake in the road – it’s not my wine, but and not going to win trophies, but not terrible.

Best drinking: now. 15.5/20, 86/100. 7%, $15.

Lil’Bess Pinot Noir 2024

An Aldi-exclusive chillable blend of Pinot and Grenache made by Fourth Wave Wine. Sour, thin, flavourless red cordial with no actual generosity. Feels like odds and ends juice, and very cheap tasting. Nope.

Best drinking: now. 15/20, 85/100. 12%, $11.99.

Woods Crampton Buttery Chardonnay 2024

It’s a wine made for a style, which is not a bad thing, but it’s also a drink that’s somewhat cynical. The marketer in me loves the wine and customer matchup, and the winemaker in me appreciates the skills at getting things ‘buttery’. But the wine critic in me couldn’t finish a glass. It’s Limestone Coast Chardonnay with four months of lees stirring, 75% of the blend went through malo and seven months in 25% new French oak. It’s all creamed caramel lactic butterscotch, and richness that cloys. Yet it’s all a ruse, because underneath the wine is a tart and ungenerous thing with little fruit flavour and shrill acidity. Not for me.

Best drinking: now. 15/20, 85/100. 13%, $12.

Yalumba Y Series Lighter Shiraz 2023

8% alcohol in big font, tapping into the mid-strength mode. The reduction in alcohol directly corresponds to increase in sweetness – it’s a medium sweet berried red with loads of very sweet plum and red fruit with just a little furry bitterness to remind you it’s wine, not fruit juice. The sparkling works, but I’d rather drink flavourless lager than this.

Best drinking: now. 15/20, 85/100. 8%, $15.

(Note: yes, there are only 19 reviews here. I’ve pulled one review as the winery believes it was a bad bottle which is entirely fair).

THE VERDICT

• Best drinking:
• Score (out of 20):
• Score (out of 100):
• Alcohol %:
• RRP (in $AUD):
• Winery website:
• Would I buy it?: