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The 2021 vintage of Definitus sold out so quickly that the team decided to release a little of their museum stocks of the 2018 alongside the 2023 Foggy Hill. Given only 430 dozen were made in the first place, you …

This is a re-release of this wine from the excellent 2018 vintage. This was the second release of this wine which comes from a special and defined part of the vineyard. It’s an immensely powerful no-holds-barred Pinot loaded with blue …

This multi-layered 2018 Pinot Noir is in excellent condition at 6 years of age as it radiates with cherry pit, and dark earth are topped by gamey, spicy aged tones. Vibrant and energetic with ample gravel /iron stone with a …

One whiff and this Tapanappa Foggy Hill showcases its pinosity. From a cooler, low cropping year, give it some time to show its best.

Let it breathe to witness red berries, briar, black tea, tilled earth, compost and cola gradually …

2023 Foggy Hill Pinot Noir is a low crop, very cool vintage expression of the Foggy Hill terroir.

The wine colour is light to medium intensity and has a delicate red to purple hue.

The aroma is very fresh and …

Youthful purple in the glass, vivid and bright. Evocative and lifted aromas of blueberry, dried herbs, sarsaparilla, nutmeg, violets and Asian spice. Fleshy, blue fruit driven, textured and mouth-filling. There’s a very pure drive of fragrant, opulent and bright fruit …

The fourth consecutive cool vintage, and the coolest of the last four too. I have a weather station in my back yard, and I like to look at the data, and in this way, I feel a sort of kinship …

Merlot (55%) and Cabernet Franc (45%) blend with fruit grown on the 37 million year old soils of the 45 year old Tapanappa Whalebone vineyard. Bottled under cork. 2019 was warm and dry and only recevied 72% of ‘normal’ growing …

Cabernet Sauvignon (85%), Shiraz (15%) fruit grown on the 37 million year old soils of the Tapanappa Whalebone vineyard. Bottled under cork. 2019 was warm and dry, and ‘meagre’ harvest of 2.5 tonnes per hectare due to poor fruit set …

Medium depth of ruby to brick-red hue, the bouquet scented with pot-pourri and sandalwood, a hint of tapenade or olive paste, while the palate is full bodied and quite firm, with lashings of grippy tannins that would appreciate hearty protein …

Good depth and hue of colour, holding its age well, the bouquet suggesting camphor, green leaves, a hint of eucalyptus, and crushed peppercorns, while the palate is very firm and grippy, needing a hearty piece of steak to combat the …

Of the past four wonderful vintages in Tiers Vineyard, 2023 was the coldest.

The colour of 2023 Tiers is pale lemon. The aroma displays characters reflective of this cool year with subtle, aromatic apple and pear with honey and lemon, …

Foggy Hill is Brian Croser’s latest (albeit one twenty years in the making) passion project, down on the Southern tip of the Fleurieu.

Cool, maritime influenced, the site for this stunningly consistent Pinot. 

Leads with a floral, rose-raspberry mix over Sage. …

Lovely figgy note gently wafting from the glass here. Add to that ripe stonefruit, pear – it’s like a summer salad in a glass. 
Bracing acidity running the full length of the wine. Citrus, stonefruit – a herbal/ floral note …

Melon, a harder edge of Stonefruit kernel, fig and spice. 

Initial entry is gentle and textural, leading to an expansive mid-palate through the finish. Burst of energetic tangy-lime acidity closes the wine out. 

It’s cool year credentials and moderate 12.5% …

Impressively fresh, perfectly ripe blackcurrant and dark berry aromas are supported by high quality oak. The long palate offers fine, silky tannins. Enjoyable drinking, but will reward cellaring.  

4.5 stars
…

The nose is complex and intriguing, more secondary than primary, showing hints of tobacco leaf. A very finely structured, lengthy, savoury palate sets the seal on the excellence of this wine. If you love the wines of Bordeaux, you’ll understand.  …

From a close-planted, lower-to-ground trellised plot in the Tiers Vineyard, Piccadilly, Adelaide Hills. An intense wine, concentrated and surprisingly rich given the season. Scents of salted cashew, ripe apple, ginger, clove, fennel and green mango, the palate an echo of …

This pure-fruited wine needs time to show its best. It tastes of pear, flint, peach and riverstones, with hay, lemon and cedarwood about the edges. It shows both power and control, but for the moment, it seems backward and a …

From the Tiers Vineyard planted in 1979. A third of the barrels used are new French oak. The cooler year renders a wine of tension and torsion, precision and finesse. It’s heavily perfumed, an invitation to drink lustily, with green …

Lovely figgy note gently wafting from the glass here. Add to that ripe stonefruit, pear – it’s like a summer salad in a glass.

Bracing acidity running the full length of the wine. Citrus, stonefruit – a herbal/ floral note …

This expressive and lively 2021 Mount Barker Shiraz is delightfully savoury with its reservedd layers of new leather and dark earth over a core of mulberry and blackberry, punctuated by fine French oak. Good precision and tension and, while a …

An Australian Syrah that actually lives up to the name, with a heart of bright spice, bursting in aromatic red and black berries and boasting a lightness of touch. How is this possible in a wine that is 14.9% alcohol? …

A warm and dry vintage for the region in 2019, which helped ensure that the Whalebone Vineyard, planted 45 years ago, had a very small yield. The wine is a blend of 85% Cabernet and 15% Shiraz. The Shiraz comes …

Everything about this wine suggests it is one for the long haul. Both the Merlot and Cabernet Franc come from the Whalebone Vineyard. The blend is 55% Merlot and 45% Cab Franc with blending only just before a seventeen month …

Complex and stylish, the gorgeously expressed bouquet shows dark berry, charcuterie, porcini
and toasted nut aromas, leading to a concentrated palate offering plush texture backed by layers
of fine, grainy tannins. Multi-layered and firmly structured, this is sensually satisfying with …

2017 Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir shows the best qualities of the Adelaide Hills cool climate Pinot Noir.

The aroma is of fresh cherries, spicy and ripe because of the warm year with a sweet middle and good tight tannins to …

This is a stunning Australian nod to the wines of St Emilion on Bordeaux’s right bank, a compelling blend of two red grape varieties that often take a back seat but shine here with waves of flavours gently cascading onto …

Tapanappa Adelaide Hills B&V Vineyard Syrah 2021, $60.

Confusingly, this new, limited-edition model from the Croser stable is from Mount Barker SA, not the more common Mt Barker WA. Regardless it’s amazingly fragrant and exceptionally easy to drink despite its …

Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard (Wrattonbully) Merlot Cabernet Franc, 2019, $90.

This is about as fashionable as merlot gets, however, just because you have money, doesn’t mean you have taste, in which case buy this to cover it up. Scrumptious red wine …

Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Tiers Vineyard (Alt. 450m) Chardonnay 2023, $110.

About as much going on as a chardonnay can provide and all of it good. Somewhat lighter than exxy chardonnays are renowned, and better for it. Alas, few will discover …

Absolutely brilliant. A captivating and detailed wine with veneers of interest peeling back with ease, give this Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Merlot Cabernet Franc some time and you’ll be rewarded. Three days of tasting certainly highlighted that.

From the last hot …

The synergy and fusion captivate with this Tapanappa Whalebone Cabernet Shiraz. Joy and pleasure seep through every pore. A wine that evolved fabulously over three days of tasting, it’s one to tuck away, that’s for sure.

From the last hot …

A great Aussie classic blend meets a Goldilocks kind of vintage – not too hot, not too cold – and the result is one mighty delicious wine. Bounces in ripe fruit highlighting the beauty of both grapes in black plum, …

Question: do you plan to drink this Wrattonbully red soon? If yes, then some advice. It needs air – a lot of swishing of air in the glass or, better still, a decant – and then watch it open. While …

This 2019 Cabernet Shiraz is quite a different beast from the Merlot Cabernet Franc from the same vintage showing more poise and finesse with red currant, cedar and earthy tones prominent. Again a strong heart of tannins is the key …

This broody and densely packed 2019 Merlot Cabernet Franc is exceptional and offers up muscular aromas of meat stock, blackberry and graphite with a strong backbone of new French oak. That density continues on the palate with a firm tannic …

Blend of merlot and cabernet franc. Some wines just put you at ease, from the outset. The volume of fruit here matched to the sure swagger of tannin speaks in no uncertain terms of the quality on offer. This is …

The effect of Shiraz on this blend is significant. It’s a wine threaded with herbal, tobacco-like graphite and mint notes, and structurally it feels very cabernet too, in that the tannin has a strictness to it. But then the mid-palate …

Blackcurrant, redcurrant, hazelnut and chocolate (praline), a fair amount of mint, sage and bay leaf adds perfume, along with some spice and cedar oak. It also has a dusty amaro-like quality, which I like. Medium to full-bodied, dusty and peppery, …

Lots of liquorice, mint, black fruit, camphor, cedar. Medium to full-bodied, lots of black fruit and mint, tobacco laced, with grainy tannin grip, shows some warming alcohol, but pulls cool and long on the finish, albeit a little grainy and …

Deep red ruby with a finely woven and complex nose of violets, orange zest, macerated strawberry and dried cherry tomato, black fruits, fig leaf, mint tea, savoury undergrowth, tobacco, cedar and crushed gravel minerality.

In the mouth it’s juicy, but …

Deep ruby with a beautiful nose of potpourri, a touch of lemon rind, raspberry licorice, brambly berries, cassis, bayleaf, thyme, Sicilian olive, roasted beef, pencil shavings, cedar and a sanguine mineral quality. 
In the mouth it’s dry, elegant, finely structured …

Enticing citrus, orchard fruit and grilled cashew notes flow and swirl around the simmering acidity and fine creamy texture and propel towards the enchanting, long finish.…

Inviting, with quince, candied lemon and fresh pineapple juice leading to a palate of apple, white peach, vanilla and coconut.…

This is a 55% merlot and 45% cabernet franc blend made in a similar way to the cabernet shiraz. The colour is low intensity with bright crimson purple hues. The aroma shows superb black fruits, and dark plum with a

Elegant, refined and stylish. The fruit comes from down at Wrattonbully and is taken up the winery in Piccadilly. Both varieties are kept separate during the fermentation and maturation stages before blending after 17 months in barriques. Bright crimson hues

2021 Tapanappa B&V Syrah has a medium density purple-crimson colour, the colour of a fresh young wine.

The aroma is of ripe satsuma plums and blackberry with the slightly tarry, anise of Syrah grown in a distinguished site. The bouquet …

The 2019 Tapanappa Merlot Cabernet Franc has deep purple-crimson colour intensity and hue.

The aroma has plum and blackberry ripeness with the slightly minty dried spice of the Whalebone terroir.

The texture is immediately evident in the mouth, and the …

The 2019 Tapanappa Cabernet Shiraz has a translucent, medium intensity colour and the purple-crimson hue of ripe young Cabernet Sauvignon.

The aroma is fresh and complex with spicey mulberry notes from the Cabernet and subtle earthy anise tones from the …

2017 Foggy Hill Pinot Noir is an “exquisite expression of this unique very cool maritime terroir”.

The colour has a lovely intense purple hue. The aromatics are delicate and floral with spice but the profound underlying terroir expression is …

South Australia’s wine story includes many well-worn tales of adventures into the unknown, maddening enterprise and celebrated family sagas. But then there are the more secret histories, which live on today in wines that reflect their colourful stories. Here, we …

After 55 vintages in Australia, you might surmise I have seen it all. Hot years, cold years, wet years, drought years, big crops, small crops, no crop. In 1983, the “Ash Wednesday” fire year, the fire was followed by a …

Brian Croser’s flagship pinot noir comes from just 10 rows of Dijon clones – 777 and 115 – planted in the Foggy Hill Vineyard on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The name might sound a bit like a spell from Harry Potter, …

There’s a cooling aspect to this, with its jasmine and seaspray notes, but its core is nutty and peachy, and while it feels measured it also has a presence. This is a fine chardonnay. Stonefruit, pear and salted nut characters …

Planted in 1979, the Tiers Vineyard is purportedly the first to have been planted in the Piccadilly Valley since the 19th century. It’s a revered site with a history of producing hugely successful Chardonnay wines made by powerhouse Australian wine …

The 2008 Whalebone Vineyard is the product of a warm, ripe vintage.

The ripe blackberry and anise of the Shiraz dominates the aroma although the underlying cassis and herbal spice of the Cabernet Sauvignon add complexity and finesse.

As usual, …

Of the past three wonderful vintages in Tiers Vineyard, 2022 was the coolest.

The colour is pale lemon green. The aroma is of perfectly ripe Chardonnay fruit, ripe nectarine with a hint of flint smoke, yeast cashew and oak spice. …

Brian Croser sends a first-hand report from Tapanappa in the Piccadilly Valley on a small but promising harvest. Above, Croser scrutinizes the Chardonnay grapes in the Tiers Vineyard.

We all know what comes in small packages, but can they be …

If Tiers 1.5m Chardonnay hails from the “new” block of French Bernard clones planted in 2003, fruit for this Tiers Chardonnay is off the “old” block, the original block established in 1979. A cool vintage and low yields bring good …

The Adelaide Hills 2023 vintage was the coolest of the four consecutive cool vintages since 2020. To quote winemaker, Brian Croser, the ’23 Chardonnays are far from “overt.” I find that re-assuring, the vintage speaks and it’s beautifully fine with …

Bright green-gold hues introduce an immediately engaging and open young Chardonnay. Captures the Adelaide Hills archetypal Chardonnay beautifully in delicious citrus and stone fruits – bright and energetic – aided by juicy, filigree fine acidity that drives the wine long. …

Naturally, there is a close relationship between this wine and the preceding one. The 1.5m comes from younger vines, but both were made from hand-picked grapes that were chilled to 2°C, and air-bag pressed before fermentation in French barriques, one …

The nose reflects a cool site and vintage, offering suggestions of grapefruit, fig and white nectarine supported by lees complexity and a whiff of oak toastiness. The long, creamy, acid-fresh palate is a delight.…

This wine offers aromas and flavours that strongly reflect white nectarine. Lees contact imparts an attractive nuttiness, and acidity drives the palate at this early stage.…

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Foggy Hill vineyard, winemaker Brian Croser – accompanied by wife Ann – embarked on a series of tasting and dinners to celebrate this milestone.

Whilst the Definitus wasn’t …

It smells almost steely to me, which I like, and in with that there’s a pleasing green herb, mint and rosy perfume, cherry and strawberry, some cedar/pencil oak too. It’s medium-bodied with excellent structure, the quality of the tannin here …

Only 2011 was cooler than 2023 (of recent vintages) in the Piccadilly Valley, as expressed in HDD at 1093°, versus the long term average of 1135°. This is from a block planted in 1979,  the clone unknown.

Pear, grapefruit and lemon …

From a section of the Tiers vineyard close planted in 2003 using the Bernard clones 76 and 95. This is same same, but different to the old vine Tiers, a little fleshier, but it’s the texture that’s the main point …

Pale gold with cyan reflections and a tight, but beautifully nuanced nose of orange and apple blossom, white peach, pear, apple, lemon, finger-lime, sugarmelon, dried galangal, cashew and honey nougat, fennel, a touch of spearmint, ocean salinity and a hint …

Pale gold with cyan and silver reflections and a nose of honeysuckle, pear, fleshy lemon and lime, white pineapple and peach, white pepper, chervil, coriander seed, ripe fig, candied almond, custard, butter, spearmint and anise. Saint Aubin vibes! In the …

Pale gold with cyan and silver reflections and a nose of orange blossom, floral apples, splice, grilled nectarine, ripe fig, pineapple sage, white pepper, oats/grains and a whisper of spearmint.

In the mouth it’s tart, dry and tense with driving …

Medium-light straw with green highlights. Rich and floral. Full of freshly sliced stone fruit and apple, white blossoms, fig, white chocolate, a little peanut oil, a nuance of oyster shell brine, grapefruit citrus and white stones. Inherent fruit richness which …

Pale lemon with green highlights. Fruit focused, but remaining delicate and intense. Pear, apple, sherbet, warm cinnamon spice, grapefruit and preserved lemon citrus, clove oil and torn brioche. Delicate texture, with precision and focus. Pomme fruit and grapefruit echoes after …

Pale lemon hue. Floral and fragrant. Pomme fruit and blossom, easy roast roast nut delicacy, soft honey, bread crust, ground salt and grapefruit pith.  Such flow and evenness with incredibly complex layers of fruit and winemaking that swirl and writhe …

A layered and energetic Chardonnay from Tapanappa, this Piccadilly Valley comes from a cool and late vintage – the coolest of four successive cooler years from 2020.

Seeing a third new French oak, a creme brulee and caramel creaminess talks …

And you thought the Tiers 1.5m was something special? Woah! This is a treat and then some. The Tiers from Tapanappa has quite rightly built itself a reputation over the years and this further cements its standing as one of …

Lighty toasted cashewnut aroma, hints of vanilla and almond-meal, the palate refined and tense, concentrated and yet seamlessly textured and composed. The wine is very smooth and rounded, with plenty of acidity but you barely feel it. Lovely depth of …