Tasting : Hanging Rock Rich Reef Shiraz 2012

I've visited Hanging Rock at their cellar door once before out in the cool climes of the beautiful Macedon Ranges region and loved their sparkling so was pretty keen to try this Shiraz of theirs outside of the shadow cast by its more famed and top performing effervescent cousin.

It is in no way a "cool climate" wine with the fruit coming from their much warmer Heathcote vineyards and in turn providing a generous and honest Victorian Shiraz with still enough interest for the easily distracted oenophiles out there. 

The wine shows us a nose of ripe dark plum, stewed dark cherry, licks of vanilla oak characters and faint white pepper and I may be clutching here but as I dig deeper I do pick up some faint christmas cake. 

Yummy and fairly bold in the mouth, characters of plum again but this time with mulberry too and some more savoury characters with touches of black pepper. Drying and somewhat chewy tannins help round it out but aren't in anyway overbearing. Top stuff, especially so for around the $20 mark.

You can find Hanging Rock wines in many good bottle shops in Melbourne and for more hit their website here:
http://www.hangingrock.com.au/

Tasting : Finca de los Arandinos, Malacapa, Rioja (Tempranillo) 2012

A quality Rioja without the crazy price tag. Rioja in Spain is best known for its red wines particularly Tempranillo. This temp shows us quite a bit of spice of the sweet brown variety on the nose....red currant red cherry,some  faint nutmeg and some stalk too (but not in a "green" unpleasant way). 

Very fresh medium body style palate with red fruit again, dried leaves and spice characters too and definite fennel seed on nose as it further develops in the glass. Very approachable with a good deal of depth to boot. I've seen this knocking around a few discernible Melbourne wine dealers and its imported by Working Wine.

(RRP $19/$20) 

Cheap & Cheerful : El Nino Pinot Noir 2012

This great value Yarra Valley Pinot is showing us red cherries, stewed rhubarb, hints of beetroot and faint earl grey on the nose.

In the mouth its predictably light with characters of rhubarb and cherry again with some light spicy tonalities too. This isn't too simple at all and retains some good interest enough for wine nerds and quaffers alike. So rare to find a good Pinot under the $20 mark ,so you'd be pretty stoked with this one. 

RRP $15 website:  massoniwines.com