Blind Spot Dolcetto, Adelaide Hills, Australia 2020 (£11.50, The Wine Society) I’ve been a big fan of the Blind Spot range of Australian wines since it emerged a decade ago. The project is a collaboration between one of Australia’s best winemakers, Mac Forbes, and one of the UK’s best wine retailers, the Wine Society. Forbes made his name with a range of exceptionally elegant wines from various small plots in the Yarra Valley. For the Blind Spot range, the Wine Society turned to Forbes to act on its behalf as what the Burgundians call a négociant: sourcing interesting wine from producers all over Australia which the Society would then bottle under the Blind Spot label and sell at reasonable prices. The latest vintage of the Dolcetto is a delicious tribute to their methods: a plum-tangy take on the Piemonte grape grown in the Adelaide Hills.
Aldi The Voyage Australian Durif, Victoria, Australia 2020 (£8.99, Aldi) The rest of the quartet of new Blind Spot releases takes things a step further with Forbes sourcing grapes and making the wines himself. Together, they make for a revealing snapshot of current trends. There’s a wonderfully fragrant Syrah (£12.95) from the fashionable Grampians region of western Victoria in the modern Australian idiom; a red so light it’s almost a rosé in its crisp acidity and sappy strawberry, made from Pinot Meunier (£12.95); and a genteel white take on northern Italy’s soave, made from Garganega (£11.50). The latter pair are examples of Australia’s growing confidence with lesser-known varieties, a development you can also trace in a recent addition at Aldi, in the shape of the inky and succulent red made from the unheralded durif.
Tolpuddle Vineyard, Tasmania Chardonnay, Australia 2019 (£48, Woodshire Wines, theatreofwine.com; philglas-swiggot.com) For all the cornucopia of varieties and styles now on offer in Australia, the grape variety I keep coming back to is chardonnay. The very particular, Southern Ocean-cooled climate of Tasmania is the source of many of the best examples, whether it’s being used to make the southern hemisphere’s best champagne-style wines or multilayered dry whites. Of the former, the steel-and-silk feel of the House of Arras Blanc de Blancs NV (£25, harveynichols.com) makes it a treat. For still wines, a recent highlight is the electric Tolpuddle from a vineyard originally planted in 1988 by two of the far-sighted stars of Australia’s emergence as a fine-wine country, Tony Jordan and Garry Crittenden, and now owned and run by two other distinguished winemakers from the same generation: Martin Shaw and Michael Hill-Smith.
Follow David Williams on Twitter @Daveydaibach
