Australian Gold

When I first started in the wine industry, Australian wine was at the beginning of a massive boom. Robert Parker bestowed huge scores on incredibly well priced wines and made overnight stars of many producers from down under. Once the boom was over, there were dark days for many of these great wines in the American market, but that didn’t stop the best wines of Australia to continue to find their way to the American shores. Today’s list is all about the wines that Australians themselves hold in high reverence and whose legacies span many decades.

No Aussie offer would be complete without the iconic Penfolds Grange. We have two vintages to offer, and much like any other time we offer Grange, it should sell quickly! Not to be outclassed is another masterful syrah, Jim Barry’s The Armagh, a vineyard planted nearly 20 years before its first vintage. The vines date to 1968, and the winery has nearly 40 vintages under bottle. When it comes to vine age, few can rival the age of the syrah vines that goes into Yalumba’s The Octavius. Dating to 1854 and with an average vine age of 112 years, the sophistication and complexity that is packed into this wine is simply stellar.

The wine that is closest to my heart in this offer is the non-syrah offer- Wynn’s John Riddoch cabernet sauvignon. I attended a blind tasting in 2001, and the run-away winner of the night was the 1998 John Riddoch cabernet (which also bested the 3 wines named above too, as well as a host of other famous wines). I was captivated by the wine so much that I began seeking out any vintage that I could. The age worthiness of this wine is stellar, and the 2021 vintage marks the 40^th release of this incredible cabernet.