Briar Ridge Hunter Valley Albariño 2023

By any measure, this is one impressive wine. If you didn’t realise that the Hunter Valley grew some astonishing Albariño wines – let’s face it, it’s still a new variety to the region – it’s worth noting that the grape’s Spanish home, Galicia, and the Hunter Valley both share similar climates alternating between wet and rainy, and dry and warm. On paper, it’s a no-brainer. In 2023, yields were extremely low – just 75 dozen wines were made – and this has brought some astonishing flavours and concentration. The scent goes on and on, lingering, bright and exotic in apple blossom, lemon peel, papaya, apple skin, honeydew melon, tangerine peel and spice. The interplay of spice and tropical, citrus fruits explores some rich, exotic territory on the palate, all tied bright by an oyster shell, rockpool minerality. Smoothly layered across the palate, this wine saw no oak. What an absolute delight of a drink.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic