2010 Witches Falls Wild Ferment Fiano

Drink this rather than WF's 'ordinary' fiano. It is lovely and very interesting. I'ts grown close to Mt Tamborine, at Boyland. Just a beautiful, remarkable alterative grape grown very little in Australia. Coriole from South Australia's Mc Laren Vale make a fiano.

2010 Witches Falls Granite Belt Saignee

Syrah. Dry. and wonderful to drink as a rose. Light, but serious.

2010 Ballandean Estate Wines SSB

Semiollon Sauvignon Blanc  easy drinking.

2009 Imogen's Farm Chambourcin

This is a blushing purple in colour. It smells of black currents with some underplay of vanilla. It has a slight medicinal edge, and there are oranges on the palate.

Golden Grove Tempranillo

This is a winner in the 2010 Queensland Wine Show. It's dark cherry/crimson/black-red in colour. Toast and cigar in aroma. Smooth on the palate and warm in the mouth.  Has some length. Demands food.

2009 Boireann Nebbiolo

This wine is all gone. It reminded this drinker of pepper and spice and red currents in its aroma. With a light pepper  on the palate. There was heat in the throat and high on the roof of the mouth. Ruby red in colour.

2007 Witches Falls Pinot Noir

This smells of blackberry jam. It is a dark, purplish red, with blackcurrents on the palate. It's lightish, with some texture and depth - a mid mouthful - and finishes early. But it is a seriously good pinot.

2008 Hidden Creek Tempranillo

Smelling chocolaty, this wine made me think of brown velvet. It's warm in the mouth, but doesn't have a great deal of flavour. It's light and finishes relatively early, despite being described as medium-bodied on the label. But its a good cheeky red in colour. However, in the end, I'd rather be drinking a pinot or grenache. Nothing beats a KI tempanillo (from Southern Vales, South Australia).

2009 Boireann Granite Belt Merlot Petit Verdot

In colour: deep plum/cherry red. It does not have a big aroma or palate. It does seem underplayed. But then it is merlot and petit verdot. It features white pepper and jam, and it's warm and honey-like. Beautifully smooth and silky.

2009 Symphony Hill Tempranillo

This wine is blood in colour and smells of warm cigar and biscuits. It's smooth on the palate and beautifully light to medium-bodied. There's tomato and reslish on the palate which make you think of slashes of brown.

2007 Sirromet Granite Belt Merlot

Sirromet choose those beautiful, long, slim bottles. And the red has a handsome black and silver label. The merlot is a surprising ruby red with a hint of purple. There's chocolate with a hint of mint and pepper in the aroma. This Granite Belt (more to the north) merlot is like drinking a shiraz from southern Australia, but there is some depth in the long or the back palate. On the (further) plus side, it has only a very tiny sense of that dustiness typical of merlot.

2009 Sirromet Granite Belt Classic White, 2011 Unwooded Chardonnay, 2010 Verdelho

Tired of ordering local wines online, and seeing the lovely arneis and vermentino advertised at the Ballina Dan Murphy's, I took myslef off there only to gratifyingly find DM had a few Sirroment wines from the QLD Granite Belt and these are relatively cheap at $9.49. Sirromet smartly have their large S on the screw cap, on those lovely tall, slim bottles, which means you can identify them immediately in a bag of bottles at floor level, which is how I keep mine.

The unwooded chardonnay and verdelho are the better of the whites.

Even though unwooded, the chardonnay still has depth and some texture. It's all honey and apricot, reminding you what chardonnay should be, but still a relatively light gold in colour.

The Classic White is what should be a gorgeous combination of viognier and chardonnay (annonyingly, percentages are not specified). It's pine and apple, but a little too severe and medicinal to really be experienced as pleasure.

The verdelho is textured, oily with its mouthful, which is always comforting, except perhaps on a very hot day, when you'd like something lighter. Pale to mid-gold in colour, there's citrus and pine in the perfume and citrus on the initial palate, with something like green apple or unripe pear  or pine again on the extended palate. Sherbety but stern. It's tart and acidic, and has a medium to long  length and structured.

2010 Heritage Estate Granite Belt Verdelho

Its perfume is distinctly ripe pineapple while unripe pine is on the palate where the mouthfill is stern and full. Heritage Estate is formally titled, so the matching label  isn't a surprise with gold used in a big capital lettering of H. Otherwise the label is an off-white cream and it loses much in its communication and appeal. The vineyard is in Gilmore. And verdelho is a 'flagship ' of this and other QLD wineries. The label says barrel and tank ferments take place with a use of a variety of yeast strains and lees again. So you'd expect a stern wine filling the mouth. I bought this at the July 2011 Lismore 4WD, Caravan, Camping and Marine Show, becasue the wine is not carried in any bottleshop I know of in the Nothern Rivers.

2009 Deetswood Tenterfield Unwooded Chardonnay

Deetswood has a new label which is finely judged in its minimalism. Black, sliver and white. This chardonnay is from a cool climate and unwooded, so it can be unrecognisable as chardonnay, making you long for 'the real thing'. There is apricot in the perfume; it's very dry on the palate and relatively stern. But the more you drink, the more lengthy it becomes on the palate and the deeper it is in the mouth, making you remember a true chardonnay, of the wooded variety. I did drink the bottle almost in one go! $15.00.

2009 and 2010 Topper's Mountain New England Gewurztraminer

The 2009 wine has won gold and silver at the Australian Small Winemakers and  Alternative Varieties Show. The wine is made by the Kirby family. I bought this at the July 2011 Lismore 4WD, Caravan, Camping and Marine Show, because the wine is not carried in any bottleshop I know of in the Nothern Rivers. It is a clear lemon-green in colour. It has a grapy, fruity, sweet odour, and finishes slightly sweet. But it  has a dry early and middle palate. My drinking companion throught it would be good with food.

The 2010 is a pale-heading-toward-deeper lemon, with spice and sugar in the perfume, and an edge of musk. It's smooth and slippery on the palate and a little musky there too, and like a small, not-too-sweetish biscuit. Not your average wine said my drinking companion, but as overly perfumed. It's long in the palate, memorable, and almost-but-not-quite full-bodied. According to Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine, the traditional Alsace Gewurztraminer is full bodied, golden and very perfumed. But although New England is cold, it's perhaps not as cold as Europe, and I've found wine grapes from the Granite Belt, for example, although grown in a high altitude, are lighter than what you would expect. So this Gewurtz is probably a new-world take on its traditional relative.I ordered the 2010 online,for $30, once I found out the winery had won a new set of awards.  But then I saw a couple of reds at the Clunes Cellars. Owing, I am assuming, to his enterprise and passion, Jared, the winemaker at the Clunes Cellar, has organised a tasting with the Vigneron, Mark Kirby (Mike Hayes, of the Granite Belt's Symphony Hill, is the winemaker) on Saturday 10 November. See you there. Check out the time/s with the Clunes store.

2008 Joshua's Fault Chardonnay Canberra Region

There is pine in perfume, with maybe the slightest hint of passionfruit. It's very dry on the palate, like unripe pineapple, but with medium length and depth. It has the texture of chardonnay but, nevertheless, is fairly austere and stern. Therefore it's a serious chardonnay. It's 'hand picked' and 'immediately basket pressed', and French oaked. It has 'less stirring' 'post ferment'. Joshua's Fault is at Gundaroo. The vineyard is between two fault lines on sedimenatry clay loam - so says the label which is modern, in black and rusted red with an abstract, Indigenous-like painting of a fault line.  Grapes are estate grown and the wine is produced by Chris and Sophie Joshua. $25.00  available from Weetangarra IGA.

2008 Lake George Pinot Noir Rose

Nice label said my drinking companion. and it is of a  possibley 19 c or 18 image of Lake George, a strnage body of water in what seems the middle of nowhere. Text is in off-black responding to the grey-green of image. Pale, orangey-pink red. Dry on the palate, after rush of strawberries. Nice strawberry, cinnamon, marshallow aroma. good, dry rose. Possibly a bit too stern for summer, but remarkably good in a Canberra winter. Local IGA supermarkets smartly carry Canberra wine despite the lack of a barcode. $20.00.

2003 Doonkuna Cabernet Suavignon Merlot

A very elegant, smooth and soft  Cab Sav (80%) Merlot (20%). Cool climat vienyard in Canberra region, straddling the Great Dividing Range. Slow ripening in this climate. 'Open fermented', 'hand plunging' and matured in French oak for 20 months. Eden Road took over the winery in 2011. 20 mins. north of Canberra. Plantings commenced in the 1970s. Around $16 +.

2008 Barton Estate Riley's Riesling

Not particularly astounding if you've drunk Clare Valley Reisling. Neverhteless drinkable. Serious if not stern. Staid if not elegant. (Will cellar for ten years says the label.) For $18.00 a bottle, I'd possibly want more finesse than this.

2010 Topper's Mountain Wild Ferment Viognier

The label has a padlock in shades if dusted bronze to red bronze  The wine is semi pale gold in colour.There's pine and apricot in the aroma. The palate is spicy, like a cinnamon-nutmeg apricot. The winery claims alternative varieties and the terroir is high altitude and terra rossa profunda. It's a good wine and gets my tick as it does from my co-drinkers at the time. Mark Kirkby is the viongeron  and Mike Harris the winemaker. As a wine-making region it was born in the 1850s - so says the label, but it is currently re-emerging. The 'vineyard is just north of Tingha (near Armidale) on the spine of the Great Dividing Range in northern NSW', at 'the western edge of the New England Tablelands at an altitude of 900m above sea level. The vines have their roots deeply immersed in the beautiful, deep, red volcanic soils high above the valleys of the MacIntyre & Gwydir Rivers'. The name "Topper's Mountain" appears to have come 'from brothers E & W Topper who were employees of George Wyndham in the 1850s. At this time George owned "New Valley Station" which included the present day "Topper's Mountain"'. Note that the winery 's website does not currently list this wine.

2010 Thomas New England Estate Rose

You sense sweetness in the perfume and intially on the palate, both of which cannot, unfortunately, be forgotten despite the dry last finish. It's also that lolly-water colour. Placed up against roses such as Charles Melton and De Bortoli, it doesn't make it.  The label is, equally unfortunately, coloured-coded as a bright pink, and is overly and inappropriately luxurious with gold trim and a black stallion's head. New England has 'a rich history of viticulture, with vineyards dating back to 1869': so says the label. But the winemaking needs more finesse. One such fine element could be noting the grape variety used. About $16.00.

2011 Witches Falls Granite Belt Co-inoculated Unwooded Chardonnay

Very pale  lemon in colour, with maybe a sense of a green tinge.  Turkish delight, guava, passion and pine  or pear and nougat. n the perfume.  Tart  and dry with citrus on the end palate. some body and length but also thin-ish. Does not have the delights of a wooded, buttery chardonnay, which now I think I like very much and should stick to. It's quite stern and serious.  A wine that probably needs food.  - cheese, spinach, asparagus.

2010 Witches Falls Wild Ferment Viognier

The grapes are grown at Boyland, west of Tamborine  Mountain. Steve Cerutti is the winemaker who uses
'indigenous yeast,  some juice solids and barrell fermentation'. The label says it can be cellared (though nothing hangs around long enough in our house). It's golden in colour, like a traditional chardonnay, smelling of citrus, honeydew and honey. It's sweetish on the font palate, with some honey residue on the back and then a kind of figgish bitterness. Viognier is good for someone who is adventurouswho doesn't want a traditional chardonnay but still wants that same bodyand thickish fullness. Viognier will impress such a drinker.  It's zippy, still full of flavour but less weighty and less full-bodied than chardonnay. I think young women should get into it. This is one of Withces Falls best whites, if not the best.

2011 Witches Falls Granite Belt Co-inoculated Sauvignon blanc

The label tells us that the Australian Wine Research Institute  studied fermentation  'co-inoculated" with more than  one strain of yeast'. These showed that sav blanc  had 'a signicantly modified  chemical aroma profile and a potentially enhanced aroma  profile, relative to single  yeast ferments and belended wines'. Witches Falls co-inculated their 2011 sav blanc. It is a very beautiful, elegant subtle pale gold in colour that almost has pink in it. It's very perfumed, like a classic sav blanc, with pine, sharp passion-fruit, musk and even pistachio. It has considerable length with a middle to back palate, astringent and fruity. In flavour it has some celery, peach, apricot and even some mustard. It's a classic summery wine, beautifully balanced and structured. It would go well with cheese and fruit as appetisers.

2009 Witches Falls Granite Belt Wild Ferment Grenache

Grown by Davydd  and Cheryl Westlake at Ballandean. The labels of this winery are very informative and well-judged in design. In colour it's ruby-red with a mustard, golden ring. It has cherry and vanilla a nd some pepper in the pefume. Not a long palate, but it tastes of cherry strudle. It has a little warmth and some tannin.

2011 Witches Falls Granite Belt Co-incolulated Verdelho

Australian wine research Institute studied fermentation  '"co-inoculated" with more than  one strain of yeast'. These showed that sav blanc  had 'a signicantly modified  chemical aroma profile and a potentially enhanced aroma  profile, relative to single  yeast ferments and belended wines'. Witches Falls co-inculated their 2011 Verdelho. It's a wine that needs, even demands  food such as basil pesto pasta. It's mid-green-gold in colour. it has a fullish palate. it tastes of apple and cucumber.

2009 Zappa Martin's Shiraz

The aroma is of milk and vanilla. It is thickish in the mouth, with pepper and berry. It has some middle depth but not much length. A soft but sturdy wine.

2009 Golden Grove Mourvedre

$28. The wine is comfortingly, familiarly, deliciously reminiscent of vanilla, cinammon, berries and chocolate. Also with ansieed and liorice.  In colour it's purple crimson with a red rim. It's smooth as, with just a little fluff. On the palate it has some velvety length, just enough distance and smooth softness for me, with some depth. . A gorgeous thing. 'Will age for up to ten years'. You can't often catch a mourvedre in Australia, so this is a strange-bird-trail wine in the Granite Belt.

2009 Boireann GRanite Belt Mourvedre

limited quantities of premimu red wines.

Golden Grove grow grapes.

2009 Witches Fals Wild Ferment Viognier

Boyland Steve Cerutti
Indigenous yeast

2008 Summit Alto Spanish Collection Tempranillo

mountain image black, blue, gold, white.

very heay elongated bottle
back label has a serrated edge
altitlue is over 900 metre.
1100 vines.
cold climate  hand pciked.  basket pressed.  Paola  CAleza  Rh  = winemakerCabezas-Rhymer

2007 Witches Falls Granite Belt Pinot Noir

grapes from Bowden's winyeard near Ballandean.  'A portion of the fruit came fom ... 20 year old vines'. Will develop.

2009 Golden Grove Granite Belt Unwooded Chardonnay

2010 Witches Falls Fiano

The grapes come from the Gold Coast hinterland where Witches Falls is located (Mt Tamborine), in Boyland from the vineyard of Steve Cerutti. Fiano is a southern Italian grape, from the Campagna region. The 2010 Fiano  is very pale lemon in colour with a greenish tinge. It smells and tastes of almond (bitter perhaps) and green apple (unripe perhaps). There isn't a great variation between the aroma and palate. But it is distinctive in the mouth. Dry and attention-grabbing. It's probably best with food, like fish, of light flavour such as whiting or garfish, which it could overwhelm. For the label disagrees. It says the wine is sturdy and is in need of a richer fish. Which, now I think about it, is true: so perhaps trout is better. What's most exciting is that this is still an alternative; in fact Max Allen considers it a minor alternative white. And my favourite SA winery, Coriole, for producing a great chenin blanc, is the only other Australian fiano I have tried.

2005 Witches FAlls Granite Belt Riesling

Under the old label featuring a realistic sketch of with on boorm and in breeen, bone, gold and black.  to peak withint 5-8 years.

2007 Symphony Hill REserve Petit Verdot

The Granite Belt seems to specialise in petit verdot, as it does temp, verdelho, and other rarer/ varieties produced in Austaral

Beautiful ceellr door which produce featues a chello? as does the bale. In purple black and rhey and white bale.

Mike Hayes is the winemaker.

2010 Golden Grove Granite Belt Vermentino

Golden Grove has a textured section on their label around the GG representing the winery's name. Black, stripes of bone and white, and a dull gold for the initials. It's ok, a bit too elaborate for my minimalist taste, but could be described as elegant in an understated School-of-Fontainebleau way. Vermetino is still quite rare in Australia, so it's good for me to see it here, relatively locally, for vermentino is a gorgeous grape. It's another first for GG. Vermentino is a Sardinian and GG is run by the Italian Costanza family, particularly influenced by a 'young gun'. The vermentino is in limited release of 150 bottles which, as I write, must be reducing rapidly.  This v is a limed-white lemon-gold in colour (so it has the intriguing hint of lime), very pale, and clear. It has an orange blossom perfume, maybe persimmon, and pine. Sweet, sharp and strong.  There is orange on the gingerish palate. It's thickish in its mouthful, buttery, dry and tangy, with a long finish. It's a beautiful drink because it has some body and lushness.

But there is now a 2011, which 'will improve for 3 to 4 years'. $26.00.

2010 Zappa Dumaresq Valley Amelia's Chardonnay

Martin and Amelia Zappa emigrated to Australia 55 years ago.

2009 Zappa Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

The label comes from a scuptpure by CArole Duffy Alpha 1998

2010 Witches Falls Granite Belt Wild Ferment Chardonnay

Witches Falls has a beautiful black-and-white label, with an abstract script representing a witch and her broom. The grapes come from Ballandean in the Granite Belt, grown by  Davydd and Cheryl Westlake.
Their hand-pixked, and the wine is kept in French oak with no intentinal melo-factic femerntatin.  Lees sterring took place until bottling. So says the label. A pale, lemon gold in colour, with citrus in the perfume, it has biscuit, cream and vanilla on the palate. Its medium buttery, since it has some oak. Witches Falls' Wild ferment range is terrific. My friends enjoyed it.

2008 Zappa Merlot

From Dumaresq Valley. The artwork on the label 'features interlocking blocks' and is related to the winery generations. But it also resembles the landscape of Tenterfield. Textured, in bone and white.  Very eleganat and udnerstated and abstract label. The wine smells of plum and strawberry jam. it's a deep, richly purple red in colour and is a seriously structured wine that has a good tannic middle. No harshness at the end.

2009 Golden Grove Accommodation Creek Granite Belt Mediterranean Red

The label features GG as a signature like cufflinks on a striped business shirt. The wine has won silver at Qld wine show and the Australian alternative varieties show. It's made from tempranillo, durif and barbera which should be a terrific combination. The label says 'soft yet lengthy finish'  but we disagree with that. My drinking companion said it's a quaffing wine. For us it had no length. It was thin and odd-tasting; too warm and too toasty. There was honey in the aroma which mde me think of warm brown. There's a little pepper on the mid-palate, but not enough. However, it is a beautiful ruby red in colour.

2010 Symphony Hill Granite Belt Reserve Verdelho

The label features red, silver, black and white in a restrained but striking design of squares that also features the stringed instrument that's on the wall of the cellar door. It also features a quote from Galileo Galilei that wine is 'light held together by moisture' which is something like digital technology: light and electronic pulses. Theres pear on the nose and palate. It's kind of steely and sophisticated, not really austere, but, rather, elegant. It's also a pale, clear pear in colour.

2008 Boireann Granite Belt La Cima Nebbiolo

Borieann says on its label that it 'produces limited quantities of premium red wine'. Their vineyard is relatively small, but only grows red, and they're on the Aria Brisbane restuaruant wine list. Nebbiolo is originally an Italian grape (Piedmont), and it's also produced by other wineries in the Granite Belt region  (suce as Golden Grove) and on the region's Strange Bird trail, since Nebbiolo is not a very common wine in Australia, though produced in South Australia, one of Australia's, and the world's, great wine-producing areas.

2009 Wright Robertson Glencoe, New England, The Watershed Chardonnay

Around $19.00 at The Cellars. It has a certified organic label. Green bottle. It's gold leaf in colour. There's and oily textures to the wine in the glass. And pine in the aroma with maybe some stewed apricot. Peach and melon on the palate which is very dry and tart. It has a fullish mouthful but with much of the sensation on the tongue.

2010 Wright Robertson Glencoe, New England,The Watershed Riesling

This is 'made in the cold'. The website says 'this is the first dry Riesling ... produced as a premium wine' but from'fruit from Topper’s Mountain vineyard' .' $22

Wright Robertson Glencoe, New England, Minus Twelve

The most annoying thing about this wine is that it has no year and no naming of the grape variety/ies used. Next, it is a sweetish wine. The website says it's a verdelho. $16.

2010 Wright Robertson Glencoe Snow Gums Pinot Gris Gewurztraminer

This is a New England wine. Gewurztraminer is making an appearance in a number of wines and is not to be confused with something necessarily sweet. This is an excellent combination made by the New England winemaker Scott Wright for a pinot gris with that lovely slight pink tinge. The website says the winery was 'excited to have produced this ... blend'. In colour it is pale salmon, pink-tinged white gold, or a copper-shot gold suffusing it - the best colour a pinto gris can be. There is orange in its perfume. In the mouth it's like drinking salmon silk and red oranges with some mustard. $22