Sourced from Bannockburn estate vineyards spanning plantings from 1976 to 2016, this Chardonnay draws on diverse sites including Olive Tree Hill, Winery Block, Stuart Block, Grigsby and Kelly Lane, with clonal material P58, Bernard 76, 95 and 96. Handpicked fruit was whole bunch pressed, wild fermented in French hogsheads and puncheons (25% new oak), with 70% malolactic fermentation and 10 months’ lees maturation without stirring. The 2025 vintage—Bannockburn’s earliest harvest on record—was defined by a warm, dry season and a compressed harvest, delivering wines of generosity, clarity and precision. The palate shows ripe stone fruit, grapefruit and pear, carried by bright acidity to a long, composed finish of tension and purity.

The fruit for Meadowbank's Chardonnay comes from the property’s oldest vines, which are P58 clones now well into their 30s. Peter Dredge describes the vineyard as a "beautiful little spot" with loose sand and sandstone overlaying dark brown coffee rock rich in iron oxides. The fruit was picked over two passes — top and bottom of the block at slightly different ripeness levels — ensuring sufficient acidity to balance the ripe-leaning nature of the clone. The fruit was pressed as bunches to French barriques (10% new) for natural fermentation, with MLF arrested partway through, before nine months' maturation on lees.

In the classic Meadowbank mould, it's focused and chiselled with a rocky palate layered with citrus, white flowers and crunchy stone fruits. Signature cool-climate acidity pulls everything together, leading to a tapered, pulpy finish teeming with slaty drive.

100% Pinot Noir. This is the wine that started it all for Ricky, and the 2025 release again shows just how finely the Tamar Valley can be tuned through thoughtful blending. Drawn from three distinct parts of the valley, the blend combines fruit from Ricky’s own vineyards with a small number of trusted growers, with Woodlawn in Swan Bay again providing an important foundation. Additional sites across Hillwood, Rowella, White Hills and Relbia bring shape and detail to the final wine, each contributing something different to this classical TMV expression.

A warm spring and healthy fruit set delivered solid, balanced yields, while a dry, relatively warm summer brought an early start before cooler conditions demanded patience in the final ripening decisions. The ferment included 10% whole bunches across the blend, and the wine matured for 11 months in oak, building spice, structure and quiet complexity around the bright red-fruited purity and freshness that define this cuvée.

This is the inaugural release of the Sol Solice Grenache—and what a start! This wine will represent the finest Spinifex Grenache of a given vintage. In 2022 the fruit was sourced from two vineyards: the Rostein Vineyard in the Eden Valley (64%); and a vineyard in Light Pass in the heart of the Barossa Valley. Both vineyards are managed organically by Pete and Magali. The three hectares of Grenache in the Rostein Vineyard were planted in 2018, and according to Pete, at 490 metres above sea level, it’s the highest altitude Grenache block in South Australia. The Light Pass site is a dry-grown vineyard with 60-year-old vines.

Vinification was similar with both blocks. Fruit was hand-picked, fully destemmed and naturally fermented in stainless steel and old wood. Fermentation lasted eight days with minimal pump-overs. After pressing, the wine matured in seasoned puncheons and demi-muids for 10 months before it was bottled without fining or filtration. 

A sign of things to come, this first release is pure magic. It’s knee-deep in scents of berries, florals, earth and spice, while the palate is intensely flavoured, with ample texture, refreshing tannin and brightness all striking a flawless balance. Finishing with a beautifully long, tapered and perfumed close, this refined and layered Grenache over-delivers in every department. Southern Rhône, eat your heart out.

Place of Changing Winds has produced only one Pinot Noir from 2023. As Rob explains it, the cool, late season meant the style and personality of the Beyond the Forest and High Density parcels fell a whisker short of receiving their own label, so he and Rémi simply created the best blend from the best ferments produced across the three-hectare POCW vineyard (and declassified whatever didn’t make the cut). This strict selection results in a wonderfully perfumed, complex, finely structured Pinot—one of the most seductive this vineyard has produced. There is a core of sweet fruit that belies the cool, late season and speaks more to the low yields, but there is also plenty of Asian spice on the nose and palate, crystalline red fruit, high-toned florals (violet and rose) and a driven finish with plenty of fine structure for aging.

It is a gorgeous drink now if you give it plenty of air in a decanter, but it will certainly cellar well. Bottled in January 2025, whole bunches made up almost a third of the blend (bringing a lot of perfume and spice), and the wine spent 21 months maturing in a range of Stockinger casks (228, 500, 600 and 1,000 litres) and some Wineglobe glass fermenters, with only around 5% new oak.

The Farvie Syrah is drawn from dry-grown, vertically trellised vines from the Powderbark B2 and Wilson Pool 801 ‘garden project’ vineyard sites. Only a sub-section of the soil in both blocks is earmarked for Farvie, with the vines fostered to nourish and balance the fruit, enabling dry farming. The use of shade cloth on the side of the vines that receives the afternoon sun, and rigorous shoot positioning and bunch selection, further refine the unique expression that is so critical to this fruit's personality. Here, Rob Mann used 67% whole bunches, and the wine aged in fine-grained, large format barrels for 11 months.

Mann fosters the Farvie plot’s innate savoury, ironstone and ferrous character, pushing it to take a lead role in the wine. Importantly, no new oak is used in the Farvie Syrah. “I’m more interested in perfume, florals and personality than I am in the wine having heavy density and richness,” he explains. “By using no new oak, you have to think a bit harder about how to build complexity, structure and perfume in Syrah,” he goes on. “We build that complexity through viticulture, bunches and time on lees.” 13.8% alcohol.

Fans of Voyager Estate’s The Modern Cabernet Sauvignon will be in familiar territory here: this is chief winemaker Tim Shand’s post-Modern, so to speak. The blend comprises Cabernet Sauvignon (54%), Merlot (37%), Petit Verdot (4%), Malbec (3%) and Cabernet Franc (2%). The backbone of this wine comes from three of Voyager’s most impressive Cabernet blocks, all of which lie on gravelly soils and are farmed organically. Two clones make up the mix: the Houghton clone gives fruit on the darker end of the spectrum, while 125 is prized for its lighter fruit profile, perfume and delicate structure. Merlot brings a plush mid-palate, while the remaining varieties bolster structure, perfume and depth. It’s a delicious combination.

The parcels were picked between 29th March and 12th April and fermented separately in a combination of open fermenters and concrete vats with gentle daily pumpovers. The wine matured predominantly in French barriques (10% new) for nine months, with select components aging in concrete to enhance purity and freshness.