Rowlee Single Vineyard Arneis 2022

The Piedmont white grape, Arneis, is certainly making itself right at home in Australia. It’s being planted in warm regions through to cool, and doing a mighty fine job of delivering some distinctive styles according to each individual terroir. In Orange, Rowlee has looked to the ripe and textural side of the grape. In fact, very ripe, coming in at 14.5% alc. The grape holds the ripeness and higher alcohol well, in part due to the cooler regional climate from where it is sourced and the scintillating acid profile that comes with that. The scents are summery and fresh in white peach, green apple, lime zest with an almond meal, macaroon touch of lees-fuelled depth. Flavours expand across a warm and textural palate – apple, stone fruit, lemon – with just a hint of fruit sweetness. Racy acidity rings in a wine that is both tasty, ripe fruited, textural and well balanced.

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