The only rule is there are no rules when it comes to what to drink in winter, and this line-up of reds, whites and even a rosé may be low-cost at $20 or less a bottle, but they offer rich rewards.
Winemaker Dom Torzi has a strong Italian heritage and he loves making affordable wines that over-deliver and are generally brilliant to drink. This one shows wild perfume of musk sticks, mulberry and cinnamon with an almost pinot noir-like softness and juiciness. It’s a dream in a glass, but Torzi will tell you to add a plate of charcuterie to really make it memorable.
While the season may dictate drinking warming reds, white wines with texture and depth are definitely to be included alongside our wintry menus. This wine offers generosity in weight, but with a freshness in quince and ripe lemon scents and flavours. Savagnin is an unusual grape variety in that it goes well with cheesy comfort foods like lasagne or moussaka.
Farm Hand wines are perhaps the best range of organic wines you’ll find under $15 and decidedly true to the grape varieties explored in each bottle. This smells and tastes like fancier wine, redolent of cassis and lavender with malty-cedary overtones. It’s medium-bodied, tightened with spic tannins and delivers a near seamless drink. A marvel for the bucks. Find yourself something charry off a grill to match.
Rosé might be made for blazing hot days, but drink it now with gusto as a foil for the richer dishes of the cooler months. This gutsier rosé is sour-sweet in the best possible way, with rosehip-tea aromas chiming in. There’s nice grip and pucker to the texture, which is great for cutting through fattier foods, or simply for refreshing your palate.
One of the best-value wines produced in Australia, this is a pinot noir that punches far above its weight. It feels elegant like wines double or triple its price, with satiny texture, exceptional length and a trail of pretty spice left in in the wake of each sip. It’s just shy of medium weight, so it packs a little extra flavour in, too. This is for scaling up your dinner parties and impressing your fancier mates.
This wine sits firmly in the summery wines club, destined for plates of natural oysters and legs dangling in the swimming pool, but hang the rules and drink this as a predinner apéritif or to remind you of the good times in the warm months. A rapier thrust of cool lime juice greets the palate and ticklish minerally hints dance on the tongue. Drink this now or cellar it for a decade for something more mellow.
Blending grape varieties adds layers to a wine and creates unique personality in flavours and aromas. Here we have mostly semillon and sauvignon blanc with splashes of lesser-known varieties arneis and petit manseng, delivering a delicious white wine of lightly chewy texture, exotic herbal aromas and mouth-watering, puckering citrusy tang. It’s going to turbocharge your roast chicken or roasted head of cauliflower.
Verdelho is much maligned for its inherent simplicity and it’s often produced poorly and too sweet. This is a brilliant wine, revelling in its tropical fruity scents and flavours, but offering a touch of class in its relative restraint – it feels tight and squeaky on the palate. Super-easy to drink, it’s best served with steamed or baked fish.
This delivers a delicious hit of sloshy, spice-laden dark-red berries in that fittingly warm and juicy way that good Barossa reds do. It’s a hearty wine that shows some heft and grunt, but manages to retain freshness, pretty perfume and a light dose of tannins to ensure the wine draws long through the mouth to its satisfying conclusion. I see very long and slow-cooked stews in its future.
A gorgeous, soft, dark-fruit and maltyspice- draped shiraz that sits effortlessly in the glass and goes down wonderfully smoothly with each gulp. It’s got that rich perfume and dense wall of flavour you’d expect from big reds, but feels way more vibrant. The wine comes from some of South Australia’s most lovingly tended biodynamic (certified) grapevines, too.
The Calabria Private Bin range has some of the most value-packed wines in Australia and they’re priced incredibly for how much detail goes into their production. This is the medium-weight red wine produced from the vivacious Italian variety Montepulciano. This wine is destined for your red-sauce pasta nights or takeaway pizza, hitting all the pleasure zones with its slurpy feel, spice-dusted dark-berry flavours and general feel-good vibes.
