Australia's best red wine
I am sometimes asked what wines I like (eg. Some personal anecdotes). Well, I can tell you what is unequivocally my favourite red wine. It is the Wynns Coonawarra Estate Coonawarra Cabernet sauvignon.
As the name suggests, it originates in the Coonawarra region of south-eastern South Australia, and it is 100% Cabernet. The 2017 vintage is shown in this picture. You can see why it is sometimes called Black Label.
My wife and I had this particular bottle a couple of weeks ago, and it was absolutely superb (as I expected).
I am so glad that I can buy each new vintage when it is released, and that I can afford it. The current release is the 2022, and it costs less than $AUD40 ($USD25). Get yourself a bottle, and put it away for at least 5 years.
You can read a relatively recent retrospective tasting here: Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet – 60 vintages tasted (“Wynns makes one of the world’s best, and best value, cabernets”).
Note also that the region is currently celebrating 130 years of Coonawarra wine.
Australia's best white wine
I can now tell you what is unequivocally my favourite white wine. It is the Tahbilk Marsanne. (Note: it used to be called Chateau Tahbilk, back in the old days.)
It originates in the Nagambie Lakes region of central Victoria, and it is 100% Marsanne (from the largest holding in the world). The 2018 vintage is shown in this picture. One of the things I like about the wine is that it lasts forever, and therefore the winery has a first release of the wines at vintage, but also has a Museum Release, at 7 years or so of age. The latter will keep for at least another decade.
My wife and I had this particular bottle a few weeks ago, and it was absolutely superb (as I expected).
I am so glad that I can buy each new vintage when it is released, and also when the museum release appears, and that I can afford both of them. The current release is the 2023, and it costs less than $AUD25 ($USD15). The current Museum Release is the 2018, and it costs less than $AUD30 ($USD20).
You can read a retrospective tasting here: Tahbilk — retrosective tasting higlights unique wine style. We actually visited the winery a couple of weeks ago, and had the usual small tasting.
