This a spectacular Aussie claret style; poised, focused and built for the long haul with its powerful blackberry, chocolate, blackcurrant, gravel aromas that are muscular and dense. Fantastic volume of fruit follows but all kept in check by layers of …
65/35% merlot/cabernet franc. Matured 18 months in French oak barriques (50% new). A warm year and a generous expression of fruit which sets the scene for some enjoyable drinking. Redcurrant, black cherry, fennel seed, red licorice, raspberry and pepper work …
86/14% cabernet sauvignon/shiraz. Matured 18 months in French oak barriques (50% new). The 2018 vintage was the second warmest on record after 2016. A ripe year has undoubtedly imparted more warmth and roundness to this wine, but it remains resolutely …
WINEMAKER'S SELECTION
The word sustainability buzzes around the internet incessantly and now rings in my ears, replacing that persistent Leonard Cohen anthem as my new ‘ear worm’. I am about to tread in a place that better …
| There’s a lot of spice here, and autumnal effects, and general savouriness/earthiness in there with the fruit. I thought at first that it was peddling a bit too hard, but strangely enough the wine seemed to tighten and become more |
Barrel fermented in French oak (33% new), left on lees until bottled in January 2022. A chardonnay masterclass from a master that brings complexity and concentration with an utterly irresistible liveliness. Beautifully worked flinty aromas, grapefruit, lime zest, stone fruits …
The use of 1.5m in the wine’s title refers to its French-inspired close-planted 1.5m row spacing in the vineyard. The wine is regularly defined by its racy acidity, making it a different personality to its Tiers sibling. If you love …
A quality chardonnay maker and a quality vintage adds up to something quite exciting. Pristine with layers of citrus, honeydew melon, stone fruit and plenty of tangy, fresh acidity to give it zing, this is definitely on the riper end …
Exotic, dense, sapid smelling. Iced white peach kernel. There’s a just-milled Egyptian Gold flour fruitiness about it. So, so dense. Plenty of fruit concentration evident on the palate too, although the flavours themselves are reserved and primal — like the …
| It’s been another rough week here at Graham HQ, which means another noticeable lack of bottles opened. The wine sample department doth spilleth over, now extending from cupboard to a stack of boxes in the kitchen. Anyway, this is the |
| Bright, light-medium ruby-purple colour, the aromas fragrant and raspberry, strawberry tinged, while the wine is light bodied and softly textured, the tannins positive, powdery and cleansing the finish. Good fruit purity and it has backbone. It should mature in a |
| Medium depth of colour, still bright and fresh with a tinge of purple at the rim. The bouquet is spicy, whole-bunchy and quite complex, forest-floor and root-vegetable nuances chiming in with the red fruits and finished with a twist of |
A distinctive attribute of fine wine is that it endures, reposes in cellars often long after the maker and collector have sipped their last, to re-emerge at family celebrations or in more …
Timing is the well-spring of opportunity.
My generation, the “Boomers” have enjoyed pretty good timing and I know I have, and I am grateful.
My career as a vigneron began with my training in the later 60’s …
The CSIRO has sort of announced the redundancy of at least three senior scientists, experts and researchers in grapevine genetics and physiology at the Adelaide CSIRO offices located at the Waite Research Institute.
A further number of technical support staff …
Since 1929, a levy derived support system for the Australian wine community’s research and promotional programs has generated very large benefits.
The core rationale for these levies is that they are used to address market failure, those activities that have …
| There’s a lot of spice here, and autumnal effects, and general savouriness/earthiness in there with the fruit. I thought at first that it was peddling a bit too hard, but strangely enough the wine seemed to tighten and become more |
| This bottle is screwcap sealed. Aside that, it’s pretty clear that Tapanappa have done very well out of the 2021 vintage, as have many others. Red fruits, spiced strawberry mainly, kind of autumnal, a little mint. It’s light to medium-bodied, |
Top tier. Top Tiers.
This Tapanappa Tiers Chardonnay 2021 is just a super Chardonnay. Something that does justice to the Tiers name, from a great (cool vintage), and in classical form. It’s a winning wine, that has but one flaw …
| This is quite possibly the most flagrantly fragrant red wine in Australia, you can smell it all night, or, at only 12.5 percent drink it too and still drive home. |
9.4/10…
| You don’t often see the winemaker mentioned on the front label, but with Brian in charge, why wouldn’t you? It’s astonishing two wines from the same vineyard could be so different, yet still so lovely. This is superior, bountiful pinot |
This comes from a vintage in the Piccadilly Valley that Tapanappa winemaker Brian Croser describes as “near-perfect”. It’s a supreme ambassador of the variety and region, wafting at first with freshly cut grapefruit, a little orchard blossom then flowing straight into …
Palish garnet with a hint of brick.
Correct. Mid intensity. Developing. Red fruit, oak, herbal and spicy.
Dry, mid-low acidity, mid bodied, warm alcohol. Decent grainy tannins. Fruits follows through from the nose. Mid length.
Silver…
Subtle woodsmoke, Mirabelle jelly, wet loam and ripe lemon on the nose make for a dramatic and complex opening. The palate is immediately concentrated, a perfect calibration of creaminess and citric verve, all delivered with a super-fluid, smooth mouthfeel and …
Vignerons the world over, live with the caprice of nature, the weather God in particular.
The optimal result of a bountiful crop of outstanding quality grapes is a small sliver on the roulette wheel of weather dictated outcomes through a …
You remember when I pumped up the little brother wine to this new Tapanappa Tiers 1.5m Chardonnay 2021? This is a significant step up. Different though.
Drawn from the close-planted block across the path from the original Tiers 1979 plantings …
Medium to deep ruby colour with purple tinges. The bouquet is oaky and pungent, with some camphor and mint-eucalypt forest overtones, the palate a bit rasping and astringent when first poured, with the flavours turning to polished leather, red fruits …
A rarity, I guess. There is just this single release from Tapanappa’s Whalebone Vineyard in 2020 as there was just 8 tonnes of grapes harvested due to crap flowering. Who’d want to be a grapegrower, eh? It’s a whole vineyard …
Deep crimson in colour followed by a compact and concentrated unashamedly claret stye with structure, fruit focus and longevity keys to its success. Robust blackberry, blackcurrant fruits to start well supported by spicy oak, then building with mulberry and graphite …
It’s 3 pm on the first of April, April Fool’s Day, but nobody anywhere in the world is in prankish mode.
In the Piccadilly Valley in the centre …
A sheeer delight from the get-go, with grilled peach and toasted hazelnuts. There’s a creaminess, almost a milky panacotta like offering, with perhaps a little herb – sage – steeped.
The palate is crisp, taut – a certain minerally quality …
The chardonnay vines on the Tiers Vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley are all now well over 30 years old though some are much older that that, having been planted in the late 1970s.
This is stunning. Intense with flavour, chalky …
Pale colour. Intense fresh grapefruit, lime, tonic water aromas with vanilla nougat notes. Fresh and creamy textured with grapefruit, lime, bitter lemon, stone fruit flavours, fine loose knit chalky, hint of al dente textures, lovely mid palate viscosity and bell-clear …
There is self-assured confidence to this vintage of Tiers. It’s not all bells and whistles right now, with greater restraint than the 1.5M, more Puligny than Meursault. But what it is already showing is outstanding complexity with melon, citrus, florals …
Bright, light to mid-yellow colour leads into a complex and alluring bouquet of smoky barrel ferment and tropical fruits, traces of pineapple and melon conserve, the palate refined and lingering, taut and persistent, finishing with a slight grip. It neatly …
Pale colour. Beautiful grapefruit, apricot, cashew nut, roasted almond with underlying vanilla oak notes. Generous and supple with lovely apricot, white peach, grapefruit, grilled nut flavours, fine slinky textures, creamy mid-palate complexity, linear fresh acidity and integrated vanilla, hint crème …
A big step up here from the Piccadilly label, with fruit off a portion of the Tiers vineyard replanted in 2003 with Burgundian clones at higher density than the original plots. Very pale in colour and embryonic, this is still …
Pale lemon-yellow hue. Lemon curd, struck-flint and smoky-oak undertones. The palate fills with intense lemon blossoms and stone fruits, whilst savoury, smoky and stony minerality fill all the nooks and crannies of the mouth. Still incredibly tightly wound, it drives …
Could be a good choice for people who are vertically challenged?
So flinty and tight, but has generosity of flavour with white peach, brioche, cashew and cedar, and a cool fennel perfume. Fine-boned, chalky texture, cool grapefruit acidity mixing it …
Brian Croser is very happy with the 2021 Adelaide Hills vintage, and so he should be as all the wines show an excellent mix of classic Chardonnay generosity of fruit combined with juicy acidity. This regional Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay is …
Ripe peach with a throw of toasted oak in the frame. Toast latterly morphs to a spice, grilled hazelnut, a peppery top note.A little creamy texture whips across the palate, oak spice backing that up with an expansive move through …
Pale colour. Attractive white peach, apricot, nectarine, grapefruit aromas with tonic water notes. Creamy textured and buoyant with abundant stonefruit, grapefruit flavours, fine slinky/ al dente textures, underlying nougat, hint aniseed notes and fresh long acidity. A very expressive chardonnay …
Besides the obvious wine quality, what I always like about the new vintage release of the latest Tapanappa wines is the commentary from Brian Croser. Come for the Chardonnay, stay for the weather reports (just check out the proper detail …
Light straw-yellow hue. White peach, broken slate and smoked-nuts on the nose. The palate opens with intense white peach fruits, they flow with power from start to finish, all the while layers of smoky bacon fat and oyster-brine add complexity …
If you’re into statistics, and detailed weather information, then Brian Croser is the man for you. Being English, and specifically Northern English, anyone who knows me well will know that weather observation is a wonderful source of interest for me.…
Veteran of 52 vintages and the varying weather they have exhibited, Brian Croser, of Tapanappa in South Australia, wonders whether they’re in for a cooler period.
For the avoidance of doubt and of a fusillade of online scorn and abuse, …
The chardonnay vines on the Tiers Vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley are all now well over 30 years old though some were planted in the late 1970s.
This is an intense glide of beautiful chardonnay flavour. It had me hooked …
Medium yellow colour, with a very rich, multi-faceted bouquet of buttered toast, roast hazelnut and candle wax. The wine is intense and mouthfilling, soft and rounded, with a slight impression of sweetness balanced by harmonious acid and tannin on the …
2021 Chardonnay Pre-Release
A most tender nose unites an overtone of jasmine with gentle notes of hazelnut and a citric note of creaminess. The palate shows concentration immediately and quite some punch – that is accompanied by equally pronounced freshness. The mid-palate has …
A lovely sense of smokiness precedes the hazelnut notions on the nose. A touch of ripe yellow plum adds an irresistible sense of juiciness. The palate then unites exquisite, soaring freshness with absolute linearity and concentration. A toasty sense of …
Subtle woodsmoke, Mirabelle jelly, wet loam and ripe lemon on the nose make for a dramatic and complex opening. The palate is immediately concentrated, a perfect calibration of creaminess and citric verve, all delivered with a super-fluid, smooth mouthfeel and …
As a pioneer of Australian cool-climate viticulture, Brian Croser was the first to plant Chardonnay in the Adelaide Hills – now his latest vintage is out.
Few people can claim pioneer status in the 21st century but Brian Croser …
Pale ruby, some brick red, interesting nose, some dried grass, hay, spearmint, dried herbs, but also sweet red berry and vanilla, then fresh orange. Palate also mixed sweet chocolate and vanilla oak and ripe berry fruit with some orange and …
Hand-picked fruit, chilled in trays, whole-berry pressed, fermented in French oak barriques (one-third new). Matured in barrel on full lees. From a year of frost and fire comes, according to Brian Croser, a ‘miracle’. The 2020 offers a celebration not …
This young chardonnay vineyard, just 13 years old, is starting to fully express itself. It’s a little racy in a chablis kind of way, sporting brisk acidity and keen, juicy fruit. Opens with aromas of lemon blossom, all lemony clean …
Pale lemon-green; smoky-toasty oak, apricot, orange blossom, white peach; pristine, bracing acidity, mid-weight, richly fruited, layered and textured, spicy, long. More-ish. Savoury. …
Quite delicate, but complex nose, hint of smoke, chalk, toast, and stone fruit. Palate has some creaminess, vanilla oak, toast, smoke, some warmth, along with peach and pear fruit, then some apple freshness. Good. Layered, youthful. Lively and chalky.…
Listen to Brian’s live podcast “Cork Talk” with Tim Atkins MW on Brian’s thoughts about Australian fine wine and the future of fine wine world:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XSErrxRTCziVWJziLbmjw?si=57ErAnmzQRmdN3oUGtzt-A…
This parcel has performed so impressively in 2020, with trademark white-peach aromas and a subtle lemon-cream edge. The oak is so well integrated here. There’s impressive seamlessness on the palate with citrus-nuanced stone fruit carrying so long and fresh. Thrilling …
This offers the same blend of lemon and white peach seen in the old-vine Tiers Chardonnay from this vintage, with greater oak influence reading in the wine for now. The intensity is impressive, with acidity driving a vivid, powerful palate. …
On September 30 I retire by decree, as a director of Wine Australia after an eventful seven years including three quite different iterations of the board and two chairpersons, not counting an interim chairperson.
I am the only soldier left …
We can never know About tomorrow Still we have to choose Which way to go
You and I are standing At the crossroads Darling, there is one thing You should know
When I joined a wine publishing house 21 years …
2017 was one of the latest vintages on record despite being warm at 1585C days versus the average of 1487C days. The Merlot was harvested on the 9th of April and the Cabernet Franc on the 18th of …
2017 was one of the latest vintages on record despite being warm at 1585C days versus the average of 1487C days. The Cabernet Sauvignon was harvested on the 18th of April and the Shiraz on the 19th of …
A cool start to the Autumn, slowed an even budburst in the Piccadilly Valley in early September.
A cold November interfered with the flowering and fruit set process diminishing an already small crop. Then followed two very hot …
A cool start to the Autumn, slowed an even budburst in the Tiers Vineyard in early September. Then on September the 17th an early morning frost destroyed 90% of the just emerged primary shoots. The frost was early …
A cool start to the Autumn, slowed an even budburst in the Tiers Vineyard in early September. Then on September the 17th an early morning frost destroyed 90% of the just emerged primary shoots. The frost was early …
Tiers Vineyard replanted in 2003 to clones 76 and 95 at 1.5m row spacing. Close planting produces earlier ripening and fuller flavours, yielding a generous style in this warm year. Pristine white peach fruit glimpses at mandarin exotics, underscored by …
450m elevation; planted 1979, the first vineyard in the modern Adelaide Hills. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of its planting, this fabled site experienced a much warmer vintage than average in 2019. Classic fig and white peach notes have edged toward …
Characterful and energetic, this is probably the most distinctive pinot that Brian Croser has drawn from his Foggy Hill Vineyard yet. The best clones in the best part of the site unite in a savoury style, filled with beetroot, Moroccan …
Signature Wrattonbully, from menthol-tinted aromatics and cassis-defined palate to fine-grained, powdery, chalk-dusted tannins. A cool season heightens tang, freshness, endurance and beauty. Everything works together confidently for a future as long as the cork holds out. …
A cooler season works its magic, lifting the violet perfume of cabernet, the black pepper of shiraz, the bright tang of acidity and the fine-ground energy of enduring, chalk-bound tannins. Regional menthol assumes its rightful place. Medium-bodied effortlessness is refreshing. …
15% of the fruit was placed at the bottom of the fermenting tubs, progressively crushed. Each block was pressed separately, and clonally, then settled and matured on full lees in one-third new barriques for 10 months. A darker note of …
Light yellow colour. The nose is reductive, smoky matchstick, a kiss of oak too, in balance. Small flowers, quite lovely fruit-driven aromas. The palate is soft and round and refined, tapering a bit towards the back. The acid is a trifle firm, …
If you cast your mind back to the very beginning of Covid last year you might think the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse got a head start when fires ravaged many vineyards in the Eastern States. But their work was …
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15 SPRING GULLY ROAD
PICCADILLY SA 5151
PHONE (08)7324 5301
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