Adelaide Hills Wines

The Tiers Vineyard still rates as one of the country’s finest single vineyard sites for Chardonnay. Planted back in 1979 the vines can be found in the lowest and warmest vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley in the Adelaide Hills. It’s redolent of stonefruit and minerals with hints of toasted nuts and spice. The palate offers persistent fruit with the most incredible balance of fruit and natural acid. This is a special occasion wine that warrants the hype and could give the best of Burgundy a run for its money.

There are some people who will happily tell you they fell into wine by accident. While most in the wine industry would recommend that you think long and hard about a life of hardship and living by the mercy of the weather and other adversity. The folk at Setanta ignored the warnings and went on to be awarded five stars in quality by wine critic James Halliday. This cool climate Shiraz is full of plum and pepper aromas with a core of spice before a palate that’s rich in licorice and dark fruit.

We don’t need to tell you that Chardonnay is back in fashion in a big way but we gong to remind you anyway. Every producer worth their salt are making wines of interest and detail and Deviation Road is just another one that you should add to your wish list. Made with top-notch Adelaide Hills fruit, the nose delivers peach and melon with a hint of roasted nuts. Elegance is the key to this cool climate charmer; it’s creamy, intense with a finish of refreshing natural acids. It would work brilliantly with most chicken dishes.

In a relatively short space of time, Shaw and Smith’s Chardonnay has become one of the most revered in the country and the 2010 release could well be their best to date. Here it is in classic half bottle format so that you can enjoy it with a loved one on a picnic, or just to treat yourself! Elegant and restrained this is Adelaide Hills Chardonnay at its finest with notes of peach and citrus and underlying notes of almond meal. The palate is beautifully constructed and weighted showing subtle layers of fruit and just the faintest trace of oak before it lingers with incredible persistence.

The Adelaide Hills has quickly garnered a reputation for Shiraz, and Cracka always manages to find the best examples. This was one we found down The Lane, not any old lane mind you, one of the most stylish lanes in the Adelaide Hills and they are producing top class wines. In this incarnation they have created a food friendly wine that is lifted in brambly berries and spice with a structured palate of concentrated fruit, soft tannins and wonderful persistence.

Vinteloper is one of the most exciting new brands to have hit in the industry in the last 2 years, yet it’s just one man who somehow juggles everything from picking fruit to marketing his wines. Thankfully the fruits of David Bowley’s labours have been recognised as this year he was nominated as one of the young guns of wine. The fruit for this Pinot was picked by all of Bowley’s mates in the Lenswood sub region of the Adelaide Hills. The result is a Pinot of purity and structure that will have you in raptures.

This is the kind of Riesling that could start revolutions, or at least get a few more people into the style. If there’s one man capable of pulling a crowd of cool cats it’s winemaker David Bowley, a man with an incredible knack of making wines with real appeal while using contemporary marketing nous to spread the word.This is classic Clare Riesling showing fruit purity and expression. It’s wonderfully perfumed and textured with a combination of citrus and grapefruit before taut and tailored acids push through the finish.

When was the last time you needed a corkscrew? It’s been a while we bet. Every wine these days is a quick twist away from opening and that’s a good thing when you’re at a picnic or camping and a corkscrew is not exactly forthcoming. This wine is actually named after one of the roads leading up to the Adelaide plains. This is proper old school Adelaide Hills Chardy showing melon and a buttery oak creaminess. Tight, natural acids will see this one live for a good while in the cellar.

We’d like to see more people drinking Merlot, and if anyone can convince the masses it’s Petaluma, who take the best fruit from Coonawarra to make an approachable style. Varietal and fragrant with plum, mulberry and spice this is all about generosity on the palate. It’s soft on entry and has a vivid fruit delivery of plum, spice and chocolate before tightly knit tannins flood the finish with persistence. Nicely versatile, this wine drinks well on it’s own or with gourmet sausages as well as hard cheeses.

The people behind the Arrivo label are a little nutty when it comes to Nebbiolo. So much so, it’s the only variety they make. That’s the problem with this Italian varietal, the people that love it, get a little obsessive in their pursuit of making the perfect replica. Even in this pink incarnation it stays true to its varietal roots and shows the true essence of the Nebbiolo grape. It’s perfumed with rose, a hint of raspberry and subtle spice. For a Rosé the palate actually shows some real grip and tannin, it’s drying but ultimately mouth-watering and pairs well with fish as well as spicy foods.

The Hills are alive with the taste of cool climate Shiraz, thanks to boutique operators like Deviation Road. We are talking about the Adelaide Hills, which has started to gain a well-earned reputation for its elegant Shiraz that is distinctively spicy and aromatically alluring. It shows aromas of white pepper and sweet berry fruit leading to a vibrant palate that is soft, juicy and long. Finesse is the key to this stunning red that drinks brilliantly with most red meat dishes.

The Yakka picked up Gold at this years Sydney wine show and is matured on 40% new French oak and 60% old for 12 months. It shows Plum, red berries, coffee, eucalyptus, and that typical spicy white pepper character that you find in Macclesfield fruit. (It’s no surprise to find out that Shaw and Smith use a vast amount of this Shiraz fruit to make their lauded Shiraz.) It has a rich palate of black fruits and layered tannins with a spicy, long finish.

Petaluma equals quality. As one of the original Adelaide Hills wineries they continue to push the envelope in terms of style and quality thanks to the confident hand of winemaker Andrew Hardy. Finesse and freshness are the buzzwords with this wine showing the typical honey and apricot lusciousness you search for in Viognier. The mouthfeel is round and full but never cloying delivering fruit, minerals and cleansing acids. Drink now or cellar or pair it with simply grilled white fish for a taste sensation.

Petaluma Chardonnay was championed by the winemaking vision of Brian Croser, who saw the potential of the Adelaide Hills as a region for premium Chardonnay. The wine is crafted using seven distinguished vineyard sites in the region to present Chardonnay perfection. Today Andrew Hardy is at the helm with the same fruit at his disposal so expect a Chardonnay that’s refined with nectarine and white peach and complex barrel characters. It’s textured and long with a excellent natural acids. A wine to enjoy with rich seafood or poultry.

The Pike and Joyce family’s joined forces to bring to life 25ha of prime vineyards in the Adelaide Hills. The Hills is famed for it’s whites but we think the reds of the region are particularly impressive, especially Pinot Noir which has found a niche in the cool climes of the Hills. It’s got a fruit lift of strawberries, black forrest fruits, some rhubarb and a hint of French oak, The fruit flavours of cherry and strawberry combine with a little dark chocolate before fine tannin and acids gel harmoniously to create a wine that is so easy to drink. You can be decadent with this one and match it with five-spiced rubbed pork belly.

Make sure you memorise the name of this producer, because you’ll be seeing a lot more of David Bowley’s wines in the future. You could say he’s a virtual winemaker, he sources fruit from McLaren Vale, makes the wine and then sells it himself. Often seen rushing to appointments on his customised Vinteloper skateboard, there’s no end to the ways Bowley gets the message out there. This shows his sleight of hand with McLaren Vale Shiraz bringing a tapestry of black fruits, chocolate and spice to the nose before a fully integrated palate of soft fruit, tannins and acids.

Bathe is no ordinary wine company. It’s a collective of like minded individuals on a mission to make wines that do not celebrate a particular winery or vineyards but have a desire to make the best wines from the most suitable regions for their chosen varieties. You could say it’s a philosophy more than a commercial exercise. This Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc shows the luscious vibrancy of passionfruit and lime and is a refreshing, clean wine with intense flavours and an ebullient acid finish.

When you taste this Pinot Gris from the Adelaide Hills you may pass on the Sauvignon Blanc of the region in favour of this cheeky aromatic white. Peach and pear dominate the nose as well as a touch of wet stone minerality. Medium bodied but expressing the fruit found on the nose before a creamy texture adds persistent length. Well-measured acidity means the wine does not appear too oily. It will keep for a couple of years but it’s drinking well now.

Some may well argue the point, but we think that this is one of the finest Chardonnays in Australia. Admittedly this is a warmer vintage for the wine, but no questioning the glory on show here. So what makes it so good you ask? Refinement. Following the trend of so many smart Australian Chardy producers, they've turned the oak down, picked the fruit earlier, and used wild fermentation cleverly all in the name of making a more complex, less overt and less OTT style of wine that plays more on good Chardonnay fruit than on winemaking trickery. Worthy stuff.

Sauvignon Blanc and the Adelaide Hills go together like oysters and lemon or fish and chips, you could say it’s a natural affinity of grape style and region. We could call it Australia’s answer to Marlborough, yet the wines are not so in your face. It’s herbaceous and lifted with citrus before a complex palate of passionfruit and lime that’s complexed by fresh herbs. Fresh and vibrant he wine is bursting with refreshing acids and a long finish.