Top 100 Wines: Other Reds
There are thousands of wines to choose from but where do you start? Right here is where - with national wine writer Tony Love’s Top 100 Wines for 2015.
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There are thousands of wines to choose from but where do you start? Right here is where - with national wine writer Tony Love’s Top 100 Wines for 2015.
Serafino 2014 Bellissimo Montepulciano
McLaren Vale
Food: Slow braised beef cheeks with gremolata
$20
****1/2
Originating mostly from Italy’s central and south-eastern regions, this particluar “new Australian” is one of the best value SA-grown Italian reds, the colour vibrant, backed by full-on smells of dark berries, sarsaparilla and a mix of dark spices spilling into the mouth with ease and genuine medium weight flowing calmly without too heavy a cloak of tannins that many other versions have. Very drinkable with piles of flavour to the finish.
Barossa Valley Estate 2012 Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre
Barossa Valley
Food: Salami on pizza
$24
****
From a long established winery now under new ownership but obviously tapping into some wonderful resources in a strong vintage, the individual components of this blend have settled beautifully into each other, the mix of fragrant and more solid fruit flavours integrated with its herb and spice notes all adding into a layering of rustic and earthy elements but never straying from a soft, easy drinking style. Look out also for shiraz and cabernet from the same label.
Coriole 2013 Sangiovese
McLaren Vale
Food: Veal involtini
$25
****1/2
The Lloyds pioneered the sangiovese variety here in 1985 and this wine embodies all the gathered know-how, encapsulating the savoury side of the variety’s nature quite clearly, its breath thick with wooded herbs, black tea and crumbled earth, still showing sour cherry flavours and backed in the finish with solid structural acidity and tannin integrity without cramping its easy drinking lines as well.
Gemtree Luna Roja 2014 Tempranillo
McLaren Vale
Food: Slow chargrilled herbed lamb legs
$25
****
One of two newly released tempranillos from a pioneer of the variety in Australia, this is designed for more serious application, after 10 months in French oak settling into a delicious, fleshy wine that tells all about tempranillo’s savoury nature, its trademark tannins pliable and supportive to allow the palate to flow languidly. Its 2015 sibling “Luna Temprana” is in a “joven” style, fresher with more bright-eyed cherry flavours and designed to drink younger.
Three Dark Horses 2013 Grenache
McLaren Vale
Food: Duck breasts, jus, root vegetables
$25
****1/2
A fabulous McLaren Vale grenache that is everything you could wish for in the region and varietal mix. Seventy year old, dry-grown bush vines bring gloriously balanced crimson to black fruit offset by often seen notes of rare meats, but it’s the beautiful jube and squashed plum flavours, ripe, juicy, generous and sweet shining all the way to the finish that really sing, touched up lightly with a gentle minerality. Excellent.
Yelland & Papps 2013 Vin de Soif
Barossa Valley
Food: Turkish style kebabs
$25
****
A 60% Grenache dominant blend that bypasses the usual shiraz in favour of more mataro (32%) and the remainder carignan, another of the famed southern Rhone varieties — the overall design celebrating the Barossa’s varietal heritage in a delightfully fresh and uncomplicated way with abundant red fruits, plenty of juice to slurp up and just the faintest of light oak and kitchen herb edges for an extra suggestion of complexity. Fun drinking, light and easy.
Sevenhill 2013 Merlot
Clare Valley
Food: Pork ribs, Chinese spicing
$28
****1/2
Many might argue the place of merlot among other reds, but this is now its status as a solo red — you’ll find it more commonly in many blends with cabernet. Here the intensity of its fragrance is what grabs attention, rich, violet, mint and mulled ripe plum slushy like aromas all roll into the mouth before easing back to let the sweet juiciness come forward and satisfy with its soft clouds of tannin texturals to finish. Plain and simple — yum.
Majella 2013 Merlot
Coonawarra
Food: Quails, sticky Vietnamese sauces
$30
****1/2
This Coonawarra winery covers the regional varieties with class, and the merlot shines in this vintage with its intense crimson-blue-black berry spectrum of aromas that accentuate the fruit flavours to follow. The energy and excitement on the palate are dramatic, structured cleverly to be easy on the drinking side yet with a decent layering of tannins to support a long and lingering finish now as well as promising many more years maturing further.
Turkey Flat 2014 Mataro
Barossa Valley
Food: Beef hotpot
$32
****1/2
Mataro is a unique regional star from this part of the world, with seriously old vines producing extraordinary fruit once grown for our celebrated fortifieds, and now a major player in GSM blends and increasingly seen as a solo artist. This is a superb example with fragrant cherry and plum compote senses, Asian spices, sweet beef broth notes all packed into a soft, fine tannin feel that delivers rustic and robust drinking with drinkable flair.
Yangarra 2013 Old Vine Grenache
McLaren Vale
Food: Pork chops, roast spice apple, parsnip
$32
****1/2
Yangarra’s latest grenache and blends releases are a marvel, this from 60+ year old vines on Blewitt Springs sandy soils nurtured into the winery with all the current techniques that let the grapes and location express themselves without impedance. Gloriously plump and juicy with distinctive cold meat like highlights — not unusual for the variety — with subtle exotic spices. Soft, silky and classy. And do try any of the other Yangarra reds — they’re all delicious.
Top 100 Wines
There are thousands of wines to choose from but where do you start? Right here is where - with national wine writer Tony Love’s Top 100 Wines for 2015.