Style with substance
Scapegrace Black Gin, New Zealand, 41.6%, 700ml, $79.99.
Scapegrace Black is a multi-award-winning gin from New Zealand that lives up to the hype. Aesthetically, it's a beauty. Organic botanicals (including aronia berry, saffron, pineapple, butterfly pea and sweet potato) combine to produce a distinct black hue that changes colour. And that's not a gimmick. It changes colour when exposed to the various mixers included in the Box Bar pack delivered to my door as part of a fun and informative at-home virtual tasting with Scapegrace founder Mikey Ball - from black to pink or purple depending on the pH level of your mixer. And the taste? It's a crisp classic dry (with a more complex balance of flavours than most - the Scapegrace team know their craft) that worked well with a lemon tonic. I loved the smokiness when it met a ginger beer with a hint of chilli, too.
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Lisa Rockman
Stone fruit uprising
Free S'Peach (Salted Peach Sour); Dainton Brewery; Frankston, VIC; 4.5% $8.
What a delicious "Free S'Peach" pun we have here in Dainton Brewery's tasty new beer, released right in time for the seasonal shift into spring, and, some 200 days and counting into a "two-weeks-to-flatten-the-curve and follow the science" mass lockdown of the great city of Melbourne. The placards held aloft by the otherwise peachy protesters on the can read, "Give Peach A Chance", "Stop The Squeeze", "Less Fear, More Beer", and, a rather pithy, "Unhappy". In Free S'Peach there's a balanced abundance of fresh stone fruit flavour that's pitilessly salty and sour in equal measure, finishing appetisingly dry. Free S'peach or Bust!
Daniel Honan
Case for organic wine
Pig in the House 2020 Organic Shiraz; $25; 4 stars (out of 6).
Advocates of organic and biodynamic wines declare they "are full of flavour, vibrancy, and personality and do less harm to our bodies and the environment". It's a persuasive slogan and one that is evinced by the increasing number of organic wines on the market. Today's focus is on organic wines from South Australia's Adelaide Hills and this red from Jason and Rebecca O'Dea's Cowra Wine Region Canowindra vineyard. With 14.5% alcohol, bright crimson hues and berry pastille aromas, it has juicy blackcurrant front-palate flavour. The middle palate features Maraschino cherry, rhubarb, spearmint and toasty oak characters and the finish has ferric tannins. At piginthehouse.com.au and bottle shops, team with lamb kebabs and cellar for four years.
John Lewis
Frisky Hills pinot gris
Mount Bera 2019 Dreamcatcher Pinot Gris; $30; 4 stars.
Organic wine is made from grapes grown without synthesised chemical fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides or fungicides and Australia's first organic wine was made at Mudgee by journalist-turned-winemaker Gil Wahlquist. Gil planted his Botobolar vineyard in 1971 and in 1984 it qualified as our first certified organic vineyard. This frisky Adelaide Hills pinot gris comes from organic vines in the Mount Bera vineyard of Greg Horner and his wife Katrina. The wine is straw with pink tints and has grassy scents and crisp kiwifruit front-palate flavour. The middle palate shows pear, spice and sherbet elements and the finish slatey acid. At mtberavineyards.com.au and post-lockdown at the Gumeracha cellar door. Drink now with salmon and dill quiche.
