Forget scores, my favourite way to classify a wine is how many glasses I could drink. Faulty junk? Tip it down the sink. An overly sweet, but fascinating, fortified? A …
There are few more satisfying things in a wine show than finding out the wine you judged blind and liked enough to give a trophy is a shit-hot wine. It's …
Australian Shiraz is a much more diverse world than it gets credit for. Globally, there is still this shortsighted assumption that Barossa Shiraz is what our entire continent makes, as if …
Matt Burton from Gundog Estate does love to tinker. Whether that's new wines, new takes on old wines, or the constantly evolving Indomitus lineup, there is always something new happening at …
There are a handful of Australian wine regions that are famous, but not famous enough. Hilltops is such a place. With a long history of viticulture, a kaleidoscope of grape …
$25. That's how much this Chapel Hill The MV Shiraz 2023 is going for in retail land right now. It's far too good for so few dollars. Slick, purple, with …
I call this the anti-Almost Club. Monday's monthly dive into the 'Almost Club' wines can seem negative, so today it's about wines that actually did make it, with an emphasis on …
Not all wines can be great. Plenty are just ‘ok drinks’, and some are just bad… Here are 30 wines that almost made the silver medal grade in March 2025. From …
Standish, Powell & Sons, Sami-Odi, Eisenstone. One of these names doesn't receive anywhere near the same recognition (or prices) as the other three despite making wines that easily jostle with …
The critic's struggle is real. Tasting wine from wineries you like is thankless. Heap praise and you're just confirming the positivity bias. Be more circumspect, and you're missing some of the …
Despite making 260 (mostly Hunter Valley) wines a year, a former dux of the Len Evans Tutorial, and only recently crowned as the 2025 Halliday Winemaker of the Year, Liz …
It's frustrating that d'Arenberg's Dead Arm Shiraz is a mercurial has become. This is a storied McLaren Vale Shiraz from a storied producer. But hey, variability only makes it more …
