Tahbilk 2009 Riesling

 Recurring themes recur because, by and large, there's something about them, and there's definitely something about Tahbilk's ability to consistently produce well made wines that make for interesting drinking and deliver them freight free to the Little House of Concrete in that $10-$15 price range.

This one's no exception to an exceptional rule of thumb.

Sure, it's not quite up there with the quality Clare and Eden Valley drops I've come to know and love, but we're talking something that arrived as part of a $75 multiple vintage six pack rather than a Grosset $31 Springvale or $42 Polish Hill.

When it comes to an everyday drinking style with a bit of bottle age (Halliday rated it 89, noting a strong fruit platform for medium term development) for a notional $12.50 you could do a lot worse.

Tahbilk 2009 Riesling (4* $n/a) Ticks all the right boxes from the pale straw colour, fresh aromatic citrus notes on the nose through the varietal characters across the palate. Well made, easy drinking style that had me veering between 4 and 4.5 on the rating scale. Eventually rounded down since it's not currently available. Whack it back in the Web Specials section of the Tahbilk web site and Hughesy may well be interested. Very good everyday drinking. Excellent value for money.

Pfeiffer 2010 Pinot Noir

The conventional wisdom would appear to suggest Pinot Noir is strictly a cool climate proposition.

 If you accept (not that I necessarily do, but the suggestion has been floated in my presence) that the best areas for Pinot are Burgundy, Oregon, New Zealand and Tasmania, all of which would be cooler climes than, say the Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley and the Adelaide Hills, areas that would, in turn be considerably cooler than Rutherglen.

So you'd reckon Pinot wouldn't work in northeast Victoria but, for some strange and unaccountable reason, when it passes across Hughesy's palate it seems to work in ways that limited exposure to wines from other more highly rated areas don't.

That's almost certainly my palate rather than the wines themselves, but this one, yet again worked nicely with last night's pasta with a cream, proscuitto and mushroom sauce.

Pfeiffer 2010 Pinot Noir (4* $23.50) Crimson in the glass, fragrant through the nose with earthy berries, cherries and earthy notes I assume equate to forest floor across the palate and a lengthy finish. Soft rounded style that's very easy to drink and could be included if we were heading into reorder territory. As I don't think we will be, rounded down rather than up. Very good.

Rockford 2011 Alicante Bouchet

I've noted a couple of not quite favourable references to the old Rockford Alicante Bouchet recently, and on every sighting I've scratched my head and remarked that the person making the criticism obviously doesn't live in our neck of the woods.

Hell, if I lived somewhere close to a half way decent independent wine merchant in an area where there restaurants had interesting wine lists with extensive by the glass options I might get a little sniffy about wines like this.

But, for good or ill, I live two hundred kilometres away from a Dan Murphy's in a town where all the liquor outlets are tied to a major chain (ad I can understand the reasons why they would be, the locals tend to buy on price). Pub and restaurant wine lists tend to feature the usual big name corporate suspects and Kiwi savvy blanc.

So if you want something interesting to drink you have to buy it in, don't you?

And when you've started to find things that suit your purposes you're going to stick with them, aren't you?

So the reasoning behind the annual Alicante Bouchet reorder in these parts probably don't apply to the people who posted those recent comments. Low alcohol, lunchtime, fridge friendly, and if you've got more than two people on site when it's opened there's always the option of opening something else.

Suits me.

Rockford 2011 Alicante Bouchet (4.5* $18) Bright translucent red in the glass, attractive fruity bouquet and the usual low alcohol refreshing palate, a degree of sweetness lurking there but it's well in the background. Your mileage may vary but this one almost invariably works in a North Queensland summer environment. That opinion, by the way, has been almost universally mirrored by those I've inveigled into sampling a glass. Excellent under the right conditions.

Pfeiffer 2010 Ensemble Rose

Summer in the Little House of Concrete brings the annual restocking of fridge-friendly regulars, which basically ends up coming down to Riesling and Rose.

Left to myself I'd probably be happy to stick with the staples, and one of them is the Pfeiffer Gamay, which I would happily consume by the unbroken case, but the annual question about the composition ofthe box invariably brings a request for some Ensemble Rose.

In circumstances where I didn't have boxes on the office floor, I could have gone for two cases, one straight Gamay and a mixture from the rest of the range, maybe even going as far as half a dozen Ensembles in the interests of domestic harmony, but I thought there'd be phone calls and offers I couldn't refuse.

So I went for anine-three mix in a single case didn't I?

And those phone calls and offers I couldn't refuse?

Thin on the ground. Maybe when they get back into the swing of things after New Year.

Pfeiffer 2010 Ensemble Rose (4* $16 C2 $14.40) Shiraz dominant (that's if you call 44% dominant) blend with a fair chunk of Merlot, 13% Gewurztraminer, a bit of Cabernet Franc and a dash of Tempranillo. One to avoid if you're looking for varietal character, but as a chilled summer drop this makes for refreshing berry laden drinking, with the requisite berry and watermelon characters through the nose and across the palate goes down a treat. With what we've got on hand there's no chance of a reorder, so pressed to choose between 4* and 4.5 I rounded down. Very good summer drinking.

Bloodwood 2011 Riesling

A few words I don't expect to be able to peck out very often.

We tried this at the winery when it was just out of fermentation and were rather impressed then (not that we had much prior experience to compare it with, you understand).

Now, just on seven months later, the first sample of the finished product is almost certain to have us lining up for more. We're talking a classy Riesling with acharacter that sets it comfortably apart from the familiar Clare Valley styles we tend to go for, but at the same time is just as impressive.

Bloodwood 2011 Riesling (4.5* $28) Pale green-tinged straw in the glass, understated but rather complex floral notes with a smidgeon of talcum powder through the nose and a bright, complex citrus-centric palate that runs along nicely and finishes very nicely indeed. We'll be having more of this one for sure.

Grosset 2009 Picadilly Chardonnay

We're not too big on the actual Christmas here in the Little House of Concrete, since being non-believers takes out the Christmas observances and a lack of kids in the vicinity tends to remove Santa Claus from the equstion, but the prospect of an effective two- to four-day long weekend means we tend to stock up, cook up big on the actual day and sup off leftovers until the supermarkets and butchers are open again.

And drink well; Under the circumstances you might as well, at least from where I'm sitting, drink well.

This year's Chrissie lunch was centred around what we could put through the LHoC oven while the air conditioner purred away im the background.

Moreton bay bugs with a bechamel sauce, my favourite roast chicken and a heaping helping of risotto was washed down with a bottle of bubbles I'm not inclined to review because we're not that big on bubbles, and, in any case, it paled beside the sheer magnificence of

Grosset 2009 Picadilly Chardonnay (5* $46)  Clear, almost shimmering pale straw in the glass that drew the briefest of inspections as the vessel made its way to the nose. From the first whiff it was obvious we were in for something special. There's an incisiveness on the nose and across the palate that's simultaneously luscious and austere, with competing elements perfectly balanced. Give it time to open up and there's a buttery richness that wasn't immediately obvious among the citrus and peach notes in the first waves through the nose and across the palate. Textured, focussed, perfectly integrated and a joy to drink. Between this, the SBS, the Springvale and the Polish Hill there's a bit too much to fit into a single box. Looks like we'l be up for the Off-Dry Riesling, Pinot Noir and Gaia next time around...

Cullen 2009 Mangan

The invitation that brought Warbo and the Dragon Lady to the LHoC last night was, I must admit, a calculated move to kick off what's intended to be a serious assault on the quality end of the stock on hand in these parts over the Festive Season.

We've got 'em here, and as far as Hughesy's concerned, it's a matter of finding a suitable excuse to drink 'em.

One of the first things I did when we started out on the retirement bit was to start keeping a record of the wine expenditure, since finances weren't exactly tight, but they weren't going to allow massive extravagance either.

I like my bottle of wine at night, don't mind a glass with lunch, want something interesting to sip and was, at the time, working on a $10/bottle budget.

The spreadsheet started with a selection from the Tahbilk Everyday Drinking Range back in March 2007, and now, more than four and a half years later, with the most recent entry $180 for a six pack of Hay Shed Hill 2011 Block 1 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, the long term average per bottle is still under $11.50 ($11.33 if you want to be pernickety).

We end up, in other words, with plenty of budget priced selections in these parts, but we've got a good range of bottles further up the price range, and we need excuses to open same.

Visitors are one, the Festive Season is a second, and there'll be a flurry of blog activity in these parts as Hughesy mounts a valiant attempt to move boxes off the office floor. Along the way there'll be a few wines like this little beauty which, trust me, I would luurve to be able to afford as an everyday drinking prospect.

The 2009, sampled at the winery a bit over a year ago, left me speechless, and that was before I got to the Diana Madeline.

Mangan for everyday drinking, a case of Diana Madeline for special occasions, and unlimited temperature controlled storage…

Well, a man's allowed to dream, isn't he?

Cullen 2009 Mangan (5/5 $45) Malbec (63% for fruit and colour), Petit Verdot (27% for the length and texture) and Merlot (10% for the structure) blend that, according to Mr Halliday, approximates a pre-phylloxera Bordeaux. Deep red in the glass, berries and oak across the sinuses and a palate that runs on and on. There's a characteristic subtlety that runs through the Cullen wines that would have you (or at least me) scrabbling for superlatives if you weren't so busy drinking. A rich, savoury wine that demands far more restraint that Hughesy can deliver. Definite evaporation problem here…