These might be Australia’s best value wines
They’re beautifully made, with impeccable pedigree – and a bottle costs less than three pints at the pub
Value is a nebulous concept at the best of times. When it comes to wine it’s harder to pin down than a sparrow’s sigh in a hurricane. I’ve always struggled finding an answer when people ask for good value recommendations.
I recently tasted a wine that will remain with me until my faculties tire of the workload and depart. It’s a limpet in my brain, a mark on the cerebral carpet that nothing will shift. That wine – the 1999 La Tache from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti – goes for $15,000 on the secondary market. I’m equipped with the logical flexibility I need to convince myself it could be a fair price for a memory that will still flicker as they screw down the coffin lid, but most people with even a loose grip on sanity are not. So it’s good to be grounded by a trio of releases from a winemaking legend that even a teetotal tightwad would buy by the trailer load.
Andrew “Ox” Hardy has had the storied winemaker career you’d expect from someone whose surname appears in every chapter of Australia’s winemaking history. Most of that career was spent working closely with Brian Croser at Petaluma, while a stint at Knappstein in the Clare Valley saw him spearhead the regional move to screwcaps that changed Australian wine forever.
Through that career he made a little wine from his family’s Upper Tintara vineyard in McLaren Vale, a site long considered one of the most significant vineyards in the country. What was a small side hustle has now become the third act of Hardy’s winemaking story, the project that links the 19th-century origins of his family’s winemaking history with the wines to be made by generations of Hardys to come.
They’re beautifully made, with impeccable pedigree – and a bottle costs less than three pints at the pub. These may just be the best value wines in the market right now.
OX HARDY CHARDONNAY 2023, ADELAIDE HILLS
$30
Sourced from two sites in the Adelaide Hills and shaped by Hardy’s long association with the region. Green melon and white peach, green almond and beeswax. Gently fleshy, a chardonnay unafraid of flavour but with none of the blowsy excess of days gone by. Impeccable balance, genuine class. 90 points
OX HARDY GRENACHE 2022, MCLAREN VALE
$30
Bush vine grenache from two sites of full maturity, one in Blewitt Springs, the other in McLaren Flat. Lively, juicy and energetic, a wine making a virtue of the variety’s berry-led exuberance. Wild raspberry and subtle spice, some red licorice and dried thyme. A supple, slippery momentum defined by taut acidity and granular tannin. 92 points
OX HARDY UPPER TINTARA SHIRAZ 2023, MCLAREN VALE
$30
I defy anyone to find shiraz from such a significant vineyard that’s close to this in quality and price. Plum and ripe cherry, baking spices and some earthy grit. Flesh without fat, curvy but never cumbersome. Generosity without extravagance. This is a contemporary shiraz of the finest provenance. 95 points