Wines

Red wine has a reputation for being complicated, and most of that reputation is undeserved. The vocabulary around it can feel intimidating, the number of varieties is genuinely large, and the difference between a good bottle and a disappointing one...

Champagne is a sparkling wine made exclusively in the Champagne region of northeast France. To be called Champagne, the wine must come from that region, be made using the Traditional Method (where the bubbles are created by a second fermentation...

Two wines. One question. If you are standing in a bottle shop trying to decide between a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Pinot Noir, this guide will make the decision easy. These are arguably the two most celebrated red wine varieties...

Sparkling wine falls into several distinct types, each defined by where it comes from and how the bubbles are made. The main types are Champagne, Crémant, Cava, Prosecco, Franciacorta, Australian sparkling wine, Australian sparkling red, and Pétillant Naturel. The production...

The right glass of red wine alongside the right meal does something almost unfair to both. The food tastes better. The wine tastes better. Everything clicks. The wrong pairing does the opposite: the wine goes flat, the food tastes metallic,...

Hunter Valley Semillon is one of Australia's most distinctive and underappreciated white wine styles. Harvested early at a low alcohol level of 10 to 11 percent, fermented in stainless steel with no oak, and bottled young, it spends its first...

Clare Valley is South Australia's premier Riesling region and one of Australia's greatest addresses for dry white wine. Located about 130 kilometres north of Adelaide at elevations of 400 to 500 metres, the region produces Riesling with a distinctive character:...

Sauvignon Blanc is the white wine that needs almost no convincing. It is fresh, bright, aromatic, and versatile enough to suit an easy weeknight pour just as comfortably as a long lunch with good food. In Australia, the category has...

Chardonnay is a dry white wine. It contains very little residual sugar and is not technically sweet. What many people interpret as sweetness is actually the wine's rich texture, stone fruit flavours, and vanilla notes from oak aging rather than...