Pizzini 'White Roman' 2012 (King Valley)

This is a new white blend from Pizzini, with a different varietal mix and character from the initial release. Riesling, Gewurtztraminer and Pinot Grigio are the varieties used. That mix says the very north of Italy to me rather than Rome, and I'd prefer a name less passing-off Italian geography than 'White Roman', but to give the Pizzini's their due, this is a successful example of an acid-driven but still textured white blend.

If anything, the gewurtz is muted here. Overall alcohol is labelled as 12%, so perhaps the gewurtz fruit was picked without the heady lychee & Turkish Delight aromatics it is capable of. Acid kicks off on the front palate and carries the wine through, with a wash of soft and generous fruit in the mid-palate. Citrus runs the line, but this is clearly about more than riesling drive. Lighter pasta with a chilli kick would be a good idea with this, or Cajun-spiced fish dishes. Would not go astray with a prawn sandwich either.

Drink now. Screwcap, $18.50, purchase from cellar door, 12% alcohol, website here.

Morrisons of Glenrowan Fiano Garganega 2013 (Glenrowan & King Valley)

Earlier this year I spent a bit of time tooling around Glenrowan, checking in to the old vine Trebbiano at Booths Taminick and a quick look at the Bailey's vintage port. Whereas I went to Baileys expecting to buy and left empty handed and disappointed, the punt taken on a first visit to Morrisons came off.

While I often think of Beechworth as the 'higher country' for Rutherglen and Glenrowan, the latter has its own slopes over and up to Mt Glenrowan and the Warby Range. The Morrison's site feels different to other Glenrowan vineyards. It looks like ideas tipped out at random across a hillside. A plot of vines here, a bit of green building over there, a winding track designed to disorient and lift SUV driving blood pressures. You half expect a grove of miniature, chainsaw-carved Ned Kellys or a nudist colony, or some full-beard mix of both.

Bob and Dianne Morrison run the place, but there are vines over in the King Valley as well as the art-farm-colony on the hill at Glenrowan. The ideas carry inside their sheds and cellar door, or maybe spilled out from there in the first place. Bob's a gregarious guy - a distracted air about him, a sense it's the women that yoke the ideas to the ground.

The more you talk with the Morrisons, the more you get a sense the whole thing is a blend of the deliberate and the accidental, a pinball rythym of ideas across time and site. Lets try a distinctly lighter style of Durif from a NSW-developed, lower alcohol durif clone, but grow it at Glenrowan? Sounds good. Cock a snoot at that Rutherglen durif. Why not a bit of Glenrowan tempranillo as well?

And then something wilder still. Why not a blend of Fiano and Garganega? But let's turn Soave & Campania inside out and around. Why not ripen the Garganega to a rich texture of pear-juice and apple-candy, but do the Fiano light, bright and lean, then put them together? They won't see that one coming. It'll be a bit Barbie, a bit Bride of Frankenstein, all off to a school dance, corset holding in the pieces.

I didn't see it coming. But I liked it. And did I mention Bob is keen on the Zork closure, so there is no screwcap or cork? A bottle drunk at home in Canberra perked up early and held its own with chicken & pasta. Towards the end of the bottle the air started to show in cut-apple-brown, but in a group on a warm day at lunch, I'd wager this wouldn't last long enough.

I still don't think I completely understand what's going on at that Glenrowan hill, but the distinctive, scatty vision, stitching ideas and places together, experiment piled on... there is a freedom there, a sense of plowing your own road. Worth some attention and regard, for mine.

Website, $18, 12% alcohol, Zork.

Pizzini Nebbiolo 2001 (King Valley)

One of the reasons for this blog is to taste and write about aged examples of Australian wines made from Italian grape varieties. This early example of a Pizzini nebbiolo has come to a point of gentle, assured, aged-wine drinking. Nothing showy - good, light nebbiolo fragrances of roses steeped in tea, dried orange peel, the lightest touch of leather - and a fine balance of acid and tannin. Some refreshment here too, and a polite foil for braised beef & polenta or cous cous.

So add another tick of evidence in the column for the age-worthiness of Australian nebbiolo. Drink over the next year or two if you still have some.

Cork, purchase, $45, 13.8% alcohol.

Post script: An intriguing claim sits on the front label of this wine - 'Nebbiolo's aristocratic personality has asserted its supremacy over other wines'. Some irony in the bombast of that claim being in direct contrast to the gentle, understated, assured character of this as an aged wine... Nebbiolo not as a domineering lecture, but a good conversation.

Brown Brothers NV Prosecco (King Valley)

I have never had a wine that tasted so much of lemon sherbet. This is fairly simple and straightforward charmat-style prosecco, but none the worse for that. The wine has a final alcohol of 11% and stays bright and crisp from nose through palate and finish. The lemon sherbet flavours and characters (the pressure-tank fizz) do repay some attention. There is a fresh lemon aspect, a touch of candied lemon, and also a kind of 'chemical lemon' commercial confectionary note (much better than it sounds) all working together. Perhaps fruit of different ripeness and multiple picks from the Banksdale vineyard in the King Valley? While I'm unsure a cork closure rather than crown seal makes sense for this wine, it does the business as a $20 a bottle aperitif prosecco. Which is more than I can say for the Flash-dependent Brown Brothers website.

Update - Brown Brothers are certainly on the ball. They've advised me they are part way through removing Flash from their website, aiming to have the whole site iphone compliant. Nice work and great to have feedback from the winery at such pace.

David Hook 2009 Barbera (Hunter Valley)

What is the point of barbera? Where does it sit against sangiovese and nebbiolo as 'the' red grapes of Italy? And why bother with barbera in Australia?

I have a lot of time for barbera as a grape. When done well, it can be both 'serious' (for whatever that's worth) and functional. There are few wines I reckon do as well with dishes using slow cooked tomato sauces, in part due to barbera's ability to retain natural acids as it ripens. Ripe barbera can sit in the purple (rather than red or black) fruits spectrum, riding high on acid, with a generous set of dusty, grippy, sometimes sandy tannins.

Whereas some sangiovese will offer grilled nuts, nut skins and dried herbs, barbera can substitute a slightly bitter, fresh herb, astringency. Against tomato-based pasta sauces, for example, or an osso bucco made with tomato, that bitter herb character, combined with bright and bouncing acid, yet still a decent weight of primary fruit, can see barbera a better match than sangiovese or nebbiolo.

But it can go wrong. Overcrop it, shade it out, don't thin the fruit back and you can end up with a thin, barely-fruited, overly-tannic, searingly acidic underdone soup of a wine.

This 2009 Barbera from David Hook in the Hunter Valley avoids many of the problems that can befall this grape. There is a bit of a hidden story about the Hunter Valley, cloud-cover and sunshine hours that make it a region nominally too hot for some types of 'quality' grape if considered on heat summations alone. This is ripe, with red and purple fruits, a touch savoury and attractive to smell. The nose says real wine and brambly spice to me, before a palate that builds tannins and acids as you move through a glass, then a bottle.

It livens up even more with food. The fruit folds back into the wine (this was tasted with bistecca) and lets the tannins and acid cut and refresh. My minor quibble about what is otherwise an enjoyable barbera is that with more airtime the acids and astringent finish become more pronounced, including a tinny note of pressed citrus rind (almost as you can find in young-vine tempranillo). A glass carried over to a second day continues this trend.

Fully-priced at $27.99 from Dan Murphy's, this is $25 a bottle from cellar door and is sealed with a Stelvin Lux closure. This could settle a flesh out a little more with time in bottle, but I would drink it in the next two years, not trying to hold a bottle over more than a night open. Worth a look to indicate what barbera is doing in Australia (and can do in the Hunter), but the current release Chrismont 2009 Barbera (King Valley, $26 rrp) is a more convincing and better value argument for the grape in Australia.

Chrismont La Zona NV Prosecco (King Valley)

Prosecco, like cava, often seems to have no desire to thrill, but is built for easy pleasure. There are worse things for wines to try.

Chrismont, in Victoria's King Valley, have invested significant time and effort in Italian grape varieties. On a recent trip to their cellar door, the 2009 barbera was the standout wine for me, eclipsing the sangiovese and other Italians, though I also bought the marzemino frizzante and this prosecco.

Made in the charmat method as with the vast bulk of Italian prosecco, there are several apple characters apparent on the nose and palate. Red-skinned apple is the most apparent, with a bit of Granny Smith at the edges. There is a slightly tired, oxidative, old apple skin character that comes and goes, giving me the impression that this is an ASAP drinker (but no harm in that). The bead persists, and neither it nor the acid are harsh or grating, just refreshing. Don't look for mousse, or depth: it's not that kind of wine. But as a relaxed pre-dinner drink, a bottle of this won't last long at all.

Great to see this under a crown seal, dressed up in a decent hood. Given the perception issues crown seals on sparklers have for some market segments, this approach seems sensible, compared to a naked seal or pass-over paper strap.

Continuing my recent Italy & the Middle East theme, this was tasted with flathead fried in sumac, carrots with mustard seed and a green salad. Would also work well with mezze.

Source: Milawa cellar door purchase. Alcohol: 12%. Price: $22 rrp. Closure: Crown seal, under hood.