🌎A WHOLE NEW WORLD🌎

What’s up winos,

How you doing? Roasting I bet. What is it with this country? Has it never heard of a happy medium?

Looking to the future when hopefully the temperature will have dropped to a more survivable level, I’m getting pumped about our Mick Craven tasting at the start of October. In its honour, this week I’m gonna be telling you all about my fave bottles from the other hemisphere.

From Australia, got a nice top up this week of Giant Steps. For those who don’t remember, they paid us a little visit earlier this year and we all had a raucous good time. Based in the Yarra Valley, Giant Steps are focused on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (kingly varieties, if you ask me) and keen on making wines that are a true expression of the individual sites they come from. They’ve spent twenty years building the reputation of Australian cool-climate Pinot and Chardy, so the least you can do is thank them by picking up a few bottles and seeing what they’re all about. Their Yarra Valley Chardonnay is tangy, rounded and savoury, everything I like in a Chardy, while their LDR (Light Dry Red, duh) is a chillable, smashable, excellent excellent bottle. In the upper echelons of their range, Fatal Shore is single vineyard Pinot, on the deeper and darker end of the spectrum. Worth cellaring this one if you’ve got the time (or indeed, if you’ve got the cellar), but will also absolutely slap if you open it now.

On the more ~out there~ side of things, Momento Mori is kicking goals with every cuvée they send our way. There’s something for everyone here, from a vibrant white to a tropical skinsy to a floral skinsy to a red n white n rosé mashup to a chillable red. Try and find a category not represented here, I dare u.

Over in South Africa, the newest vintages of Force Celeste Chenin Blanc and Semillon have dropped. These are the perfect natty whites, so much so that we’ll be slinging them by the glass as, you guessed it, Natty White, chez dan’s this week. They’re ideal for when you want to drink natural wine but your mates or your mum or your annoying boyfriend thinks they hate natural wine, coz they’re produced with minimal intervention but actually drink pretty classically. Good price too, I reckon.

As we’re (hopefully) heading into red wine weather any day now, snap up a bottle of Thorne and Daughters red blend, the perfect shoulder season wine – enough body to keep ya warm if you don’t want to turn the central heating on yet, but fresh enough to drink in the garden if the evening is warm enough. This is a wine that can do it all. All you have to do is add 2 cart.

One final hectic option for those of u who want to crank things up a notch – Cortez from Testalonga went down great guns at the bar last week, and it’s not hard to see why – this is mindblowing Chenin Blanc. If you think Chenin can’t blow your mind, well. Prepare to have your life changed.

Enough from me, I’m still over here building shelves to put all this bloody wine onto. A woman’s work is never done.

C u!

Megan

xoxo