James Halliday’s articles
Wine review: Gundog Estate
Lest anyone think Gundog Estate’s proprietor-winemaker Matt Burton is simply teasing us with his release of the three wines profiled here, think again. The foundation of the estate is single varietal/regional wines utilising high quality grapes and...
2015 Volnay 1er Cru La Carelle sous Chapelle Domaine de Montille
Sheer bliss from the first whiff. Star-bright ruby-crimson hue, an orchard full of cherries of every description, one of those Burgundies that draws you back again and again, demurely exposing more each time until patience gets the better of you...
Pinot noir? Tassie’s coming on song
In the 1980s it was the general view that the six regions of the dress circle around Melbourne – Geelong, Gippsland, Macedon Ranges, Mornington Peninsula, Sunbury and the Yarra Valley – were the epicentre of the burgeoning flower of Australian...
Climate change’s big challenge to winemaking
Jancis Robinson's 1242-page masterwork Wine Grapes describes 1368 different grape varieties, so the 140 planted in Australia, covered in my Varietal Wines (Hardie Grant 2018) barely scratches the surface of the gene pool. Moreover, the pool...
1999 Domaine Chandon de Briailles Pernand-Vergelesses Premier Cru
A region known for the elegance of its wines, a highly rated producer, and the power of the great 1999 vintage all coalesce in this delicious Burgundy. It has a gentle savoury/foresty/earthy dress wrapped around a fine, lingering core of plum and...
1979 Guigal Cotes du Rhone
I have 12 vintages of Guigal Cotes du Rhone between 1976 and 2005 in my cellar, wines that are linked by a common history, most obviously the maker and region. Behind those are an article I wrote for my then newspaper, The National Times, in which...
2011 Lindemans Reserve Bin 1100 Hunter Valley Shiraz
The grapes for the wine came from Block 5 of the Ben Ean estate vineyard that encircles the (long disused) winery. The wine was matured in used French oak for 18 months, with no whole bunch or other tricks. The vintage was the first of an...
Champagne to buy now, enjoy later. Or now
To say times are tough in Champagne is a masterful understatement. I have long argued that its wines are underpriced when compared to those of Burgundy and Bordeaux. In his masterwork The Champagne Guide 2020-2021, Tyson Stelzer summarises the...
James Halliday’s 2020 Grenache Challenge
The challenge to “put your money where your mouth is” is easily achieved with grenache. In the 2020 national production figures for the top 10 red and white varieties published by Wine Australia, grenache ($1209) followed by pinot noir ($1083)...
1978 E. Guigal Gigondas
It may be an apocryphal story, but when I heard it many years ago, I felt a sense of deja vu. The story goes that a venerable member of the English wine trade was asked when did he last confuse a Rhône wine with one from Burgundy? His reply was...
