Richmond Grove Barossa Riesling 1998 - excellent, very little colour development, quite oily on the nose with plenty of fresh, zesty lime fruit and a touch of honey on toast. Good acid cut and will go for quite some time yet. Sealed with a screwcap. 89
Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz 1994 - plush and incredibly fruity with complimentary secondary characters, albeit not quite as complex as the last bottle opened, but still an excellent red. Should go for some years. 91
Seppelt Show Reserve Rutherglen Muscat N/V 375ml - quite an old bottling and although classy, moorish and incredibly long, needs a refresh to put it back up to its usual higher rating. 90
Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose N/V - my first bottle and very disappointing for the price (100 smackeroos) - lovely salmon pink colour, lovely aggressive, fine streams of bead, but ohso simple and, frankly, quite boring. Musk, rose petal and strawberry on the nose and palate; slightly confected and virtually no semblance of yeast autolysis character. 85 is being fairly kind, IMHO. Why do people rave about this? Does it improve with bottle-age? Bottle variation?
Penfolds Reserve Bin 05A Chardonnay 2005 - Adelaide Hills - screwcap - 80 bucks (AUS) retail and worth every cent. Finally something to really crow about from a "special bin" Penfolds chardonnay! This Outstanding wine is taut and very long, spectacularly endowed with top shelf winemaking influence (meal, smoky bacon, gunflint etc) delivering unbelievably good Burgundian-like complexity, rolls royce oak treatment (but not OTT) and bucketloads of classy, tight Chardonnay fruit to burn. The wine developed beautifully in the glass over several hours without any signs of degradation. It should last and improve for some years to come. 93 points. Screwcap closure.
Morris Old Premium Tokay N/V - (as usual) an exceptional example of Rutherglan fortified blending - ancient honeyed material and lavishly endowed with aromas and flavours of toffee, christmas cake, old tea box, mollasses wrapped in a swathe of rancio and dusty oak. If you have not tried this, you must! Life is too short not to. 95
Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Long Gold Capsule 1996 - I brought this out from the cellar for the David Bueker Talkshoe series (I have not tried this before) Wow! What a cracker of a wine! Gorgeous light green/yellow gold colour, wonderful aromatics but surprisingly open for business. Plush with noticeable acidity but nothing like the enamel stripping variety I was expecting. 93