All Wine

Meet Ox Hardy Shiraz; an elegant spicy and ripe black plummy wine with beautiful structure, which is made with grapes grown in Blewitt Springs in McLaren Vale, south of Adelaide, where sea breezes cool down the vines. Following harvest, the fruit was destemmed and crushed into fermenters with inoculated yeasts and gentle extraction of colour, tannin and flavour. The wine was drained off and the skins bag-pressed before being transferred to French Oak second fill barriques and three new hogsheads. It aged for 18 months in oak before being bottled with minimal filtration.

Ox Hardy is the brainchild of founder Andrew Hardy, whose nickname is Ox and whose great great grandfather was Thomas Hardy; the father of the South Australian wine industry.

Rouge is the hot new wine in Alsace. And this sensational French wine is certified organic with plush soft, silky flavours of ripe, warm plums. Winemaker Marcel Deiss has cult like status with wine collectors and drinkers alike and here is a wine that demonstrates both his devotion and attention to detail and this great French wine region's diversity. 

Savoury, structured and classically beautiful Bordeaux which drinks beautifully with complex black olive, dried herb and fragrant dark fruit flavours now; made from 48% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% Cabernet Franc. 

Chateau Magnol has 31 hectares of grapes in the Haut-M?doc, west of the city of Bordeaux and has gravel as well as sandy soils in its vineyards. It has gained the classification of Cru Bourgeois, which this commandingly impressive wine more than lives up to. 

A firm full bodied blend of Nebbiolo grapes with all the elegance, red fruit and silkiness of a great Barolo; it's a blend of mostly cru vineyards offering a complex red now and for ageing. 

Made by one of Piedmonte's great wineries. A wine with superb elegance, depth, complexity and aromatic length. Drink now or cellar.

A great Syrah with black plum, blackberry and ripe red cherry notes from French winemaker Jean-Baptiste Souillard. 

This spicy full bodied red is new in store and offers great drinking now as well as ageing potential for up to a decade, potentially beyond. 

A great Syrah from the northern Rhone appellation of Cornas, famous for its staunch full bodied dry flavoured reds and long ageability of wines made from here. This powerful red from Ferraton Pere & Fils has dark black fruit flavours, strong spicy aromas and a hint of black pepper, tar and earthiness all adding great complexity to an outstanding and youthful wine. 

Drinks well now, if decanted, and begs to be cellared for up to and potentially beyond 10 years. 

Everything that great Syrah can be is present and accounted for in this plummy, spicy, chocolatey dark red wine from Cote Rotie, the northernmost appellation for Syrah in France's Rhone Valley. 

Full bodied, dry, spicy and rich right now, this impressive red will age well, evolving into a silky, even more seductive red over at least 10 years. 

Reviewed by: Joe Czerwinski

Drink Date: 2023 - 2035
A 60-40 blend of Grenache and Mourvèdre aged in a combination of demi-muids and new barriques, the 2019 Chateauneuf du Pape Renaissance shows plenty of smoky, toasty nuances laid over the top of roasted cherries. Full-bodied, rich and velvety in texture, it finishes long, with overtones of mocha lingering on the finish. It's oaky now, but it should improve with short-term cellaring. Tasted twice (once blind), with consistent notes.

I confess to being slightly disappointed in the offerings from this fine domaine this year. The Grangeon family owns vineyards in some superb sandy sites, including the lieux-dits of Cristia and la Font du Loup, but the 2019s and 2020s (to a lesser extent) are too easy in style, and some cuvees are overly marked by wood. Still, there is no denying their commercial appeal. The 2020 white, however, showed well on both occasions I tasted it. Baptiste Grangeon is picking those grapes a bit early "to keep the freshness," then compensating by using a bit more new oak and bâtonnage.

"I was a big fan of 2019 and less of 2020 in the beginning," Grangeon said as we tasted through the range. "But with time, I like '20 more and more." Alcohol levels here were close to 16% in 2019 but more like 15% in 2020. "You can't get in '19 what we got in '16—that was a perfectly balanced vintage. Chateauneuf is supposed to be a fine and elegant wine," Grangeon added in closing.

Looking at the older wines, the 2011 (there was only a single cuvee produced) should be consumed without further delay, and the 2001 came across as tired and of only academic interest at this point (no review given). As a rough rule of thumb, I would suggest drinking these wines within their first decade.

Published: May 06, 2022