2008 Ambar Hill Granite Belt Reserve Chardonnay

We had a 'truly local' wine at Loren Food and Wine Café at Tugun. Ambar Hill Reserve 2008 Granite Belt Chardonnay is made by Jim Barnes and hand-picked/barrel-fermented, but only in exceptional years. You can smell the stone fruit of Chardonnay from across the table. Its deepish, bright gold in colour, with a label of simple running-writing-based text. It's salty with some citrus on the palate. If you're in Tugun, definitely drink, and eat, at Loren.

2012 Jared Dixon New England Jilly Nebbiolo

Talking about terroir, Jared of the Clunes Cellars, far North Coast of NSW, made his Nebbiolo, Jilly, from the grapes from soils of New England, much like the Granite Belt of Queensland. It’s a pretty-in-pink clear ruby in colour but with depth (such a good colour). It smells like oak barrels, strawberries and pink-on-the-edge-of-purple velvet. A pretty-in-pink wine, tasting like strawberries too, but on the edge of tartness. In a beautiful heavy French champagne-like dark bottle with a cloth label. Around $30, Clunes Cellars. His Margaret River Chardonnay (he likes its terroir for Chardonnay) is forthcoming. The grapes were raised by vigneron Mark Kirkby of Topper's Mountain.