The Australian winemaking industry is grateful to Leontine O'Shea, instrumental in the establishment of Mount Pleasant wines, she sent her son Maurice to France for an education in viticulture right at the outbreak of World War I, gifting him his first Hunter Valley vineyard in 1921. Mount Pleasant are now custodians of some grand old sites, a canon of small, elite blocks of vine that yield a precious range of icon wines, which represent peerless value and readily disappear before release of the following vintage... The legacy of grand old hunter valley vineyards»

Born and bred, 6th generation winemaker Damien Tscharke grew up amongst the vines at Seppeltsfield, while attending Marananga Primary and Nuriootpa High. Gnadenfrei is the oldest vineyard within the Tscharke family estate portfolio, established over seventy years ago by Damien Tscharke's grandfather, the terroir and clime yield an exceptional quality of Shiraz. A seamlessly structured style, driven by fruit and kept vital by rich, cherry filled acidity. Show stopper this week... Superior value in old village barossa shiraz»

Xavier Bizot can make wine anywhere he pleases, he is a Bollinger and grew up amongst the Vignobles Superieurs of Champagne. Bizot has chosen to make wine alongside Brian Croser's family, from grapes harvested off three magnificent sites, on two paradoxically varied terrains. Planted to the salubrious Terra rosa soils atop an invaluable archeological dig at Wrattonbully, rich with the undisturbed fossils of ancient Cenozoic sea animals, Crayeres Vineyard was established right across the road from Tapanappa's illustrious Whalebone. The weather here is astonishingly similar to Bordeaux and makes an awesome Cabernet Franc. Xavier Bizot and Lucy Croser are.. The twin tales of terre a terre»

The Heathcote Wineworks were one of the first commercial wineries in central Victoria. Prominently placed along Heathcote's main boulevard, established by Thomas Craven in 1854 to cater for the huge influx of gold miners seeking their fortune. Thomas Craven was a purveyor of spirits and wine, he traded in gold, providing a lifeline to local prospectors. An entrepreneurial type, he also operated a coach service from stables behind the cellar door, despatching supplies and delivering mail around the central Victorian goldfields. The legacy endures within a measured range of small batch Shiraz, crafted to traditional techniques and fashioned for timeless.. The alluring case for craven's place»

The mean gravelly soils and invigorating climes of Mount Barker of the Australian southwest, were identified during the 1960s by the world's leading viticulturalists, as a place uncannily similar to the great terroirs and clime of Bordeaux. The pioneering vines of Forest Hill were the first ever planted here, sired from rootstock of ancient Houghton clones, inaugurally vintaged by the illustrious Jack Mann in 1972. The Cabernet and Riesling of Forest Hill were promptly distinguished by multiple trophy victories and praised by gentleman James Halliday as the most remarkable wines to come out of the Australian west. Forest Hill have remained a source of the most profoundly structured, intensely focused,.. Softly spoken wonders from the west»

Crafted from small parcels of single vineyard, Gippsland fruit, treated to the traditional old world regimens of whole bunch and wild yeast ferments. These are a range of new world Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to match the classic Cru La Bourgogne, the cool ripening climes provide the perfect chill to encourage velvet tannins. Home Block Chardonnay, a big burgundian style with weighty palate and outstanding length, driven by powerful orchard fruit complexity, supported by textural and seductive, creamy oak richness. Exclusively Myrtle Point grown Pinot Noir, its bright sassafras, cherry fruit complexity is supported by charming pastoral elegance, a touch of barnyard, French oak sophistication and the.. All that's good from gippsland »

Halls Gap Vineyard was planted 1969, along the steep eastern slopes and parched rocky crags of Grampians Ranges, at the very beginning of a renaissance in Victorian viticulture. Since early establishment in the 1860s by the noble Houses of Seppelt and Bests, the region had earned the most elite peerage, a provenance of extraordinary red wines, bursting with bramble opulence and lined with limousin tannins. The Halls Gap property had long been respected as a venerable supplier to the nation's most illustrious brands. Seppelt and Penfolds called on harvests from Halls Gap for their finest vintages. Until 1996, when it was acquired by the late, great Trevor Mast, who was very pleased to bottle Hall Gap's.. Land of the fallen giants»

The sensational vintages of St John's Road were generations in the making, the fruit of grand old vineyards and the progeny of families which have tilled Barossa soil since early settlement. The landed gentry along St John's Road represent a heritage of the most distinguished names in Australian viticulture, Lehmann and Lienert, Zander, Kalleske and Schutz. With each vintage, they earmark small parcels of the most exceptional Barossa fruit, to be treated to a course of traditional open ferments and term of age in the finest French oak. Bearing such pious Lutheran monikers as Prayer Garden and Resurrection Vineyard, these sacred sites are planted to some of the oldest clones in the world. St John's Road,.. Brought to you by barossa born & bred»