Wine with Meg + Mel
The fun + frank podcast which helps you navigate the world of wine. Hosted by Australia's first female Master of Wine Meg Brodtmann, and self-titled Master of Sabrage Mel Gilcrist.
Wine with Meg + Mel
Our Top Wines of 2026
A glass of champagne in hand and a year’s worth of tasting notes on the table, we set out to crown ten wines that genuinely moved us. Not the priciest. Not the rarest. The bottles that delivered texture, balance and joy—whether poured at a barbecue, opened for a milestone, or discovered on a whim at the local.
We start with the unexpected: an Australian Arinto that lives in the mineral, nutty space between categories, and a Pouilly Fumé that rehabilitates Sauvignon Blanc with flint, smoke and structure. Then comes the conversation starter—a supermarket Chardonnay so composed and complete it became our benchmark for modern Margaret River style. From there, we travel to Beechworth for a savoury, high-country Nebbiolo that whispers Langhe without mimicry, and we revisit Tasmanian Pinot Noir for a masterclass in elegance over power. Barossa Syrah gets a fresh reading too: lifted perfume, red fruit purity and mineral lines that sidestep heaviness.
Discovery is half the fun. A Greek Agiorgitiko proves that twenty dollars can buy perfume, supple tannin and weeknight versatility. In the Yarra Valley, Giant Steps Applejack Pinot shows how precision and site expression can make a wine feel inevitable. We also make the case for patience with Scarborough’s The Obsessive Semillon—buy the current vintage, tuck it away, and watch citrus and lanolin unfurl into something profound.
And then our number one: Tim Adams Clare Valley Pinot Gris. Textural, floral, crisp and priced so you can pour it freely at Christmas lunch. When both a Master of Wine and a new wine lover choose the same bottle on merit, that’s the sweet spot we live for. Join us for the stories, the friendly arguments, and the practical buying tips to help you drink better without spending more.
If you enjoyed this year’s ride, follow our socials, share the episode with a friend who loves a good value find, and leave a quick review—your support helps us keep the glasses clinking next year. Cheers.
Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel
Hi and welcome to Wine with Megan and Mel. We're here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Mel Gil Crooster and my master of wine, Meg Rutman, and producer Austin. And this is our top ten wines of the year.
SPEAKER_02:This is our last I actually listened to last year's improperation. What did you learn? Well, the Welsh Riesling. Yeah. Which seems like yesterday that we had it. Yeah. And then I just I look at all the life things that have happened since then. Like we were doing that with Billy and she was still a little baby, and doing it in your dining room. And yeah, just you know, life just sort of happens around this podcast, and somehow we managed to make it work. And I think it's more of an effort on Mel's behalf than on my behalf. So a little shout-out to my podcast. I love ya, Meg. She likes being a little bit famous, as she told me at the Wine Communicators Awards. Yeah, that's between us, Meg. That was funny that night, best.
SPEAKER_01:I like being niche famous though, because people who are actually on the public stage, they get a lot of.
SPEAKER_02:Can I just say people were queuing up to speak to Mel? It was hysterical. Mel was like, you know, talking to whoever. And then there'd be this little this little line of people like wanting to come and talk to her. It was very funny. Big Meg goes to me.
SPEAKER_01:What do you think, Mel? It's a time to go. And I went, no, Meg, I'm being adored. Should we edit that out? I sound like that. No, it was so true.
SPEAKER_02:That was funny.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Um, we have a little shout out to the sponsor of our Beverage for today because we are doing our top 10, aided by a little glass of champagne.
SPEAKER_02:Joseph Perrier.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god. So we got invited to the event uh with Joseph Perrier. It was a dream sitting there tasting all their champagne. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02:The thing that amazed me, and I think I said this after we did the event, the champagne was obviously amazing, but it I sat next to him and it was the history and the stories and the stuff about when, you know, d during the Second World War, and this is this is like family history. It's not like a book.
SPEAKER_01:He was something generation, he was like sixth generation.
SPEAKER_02:Sixth generation. And having watched that terrible champagne problems movie. That's a great movie. I was reflecting on it on the weekend while I was watching that terrible movie which you told me I had to watch. Um that sixth generation is a huge amount of time. Yeah. And what they have seen in in history and in winemaking, yeah, and that champagne problems the way Dom Perignon makes the wine. I mean, I'm sorry, let's just move on from that. But this wine is uh which wine did they actually?
SPEAKER_01:So this is this is the uh the vintage. This is vintage 2018. I will say my favourite is called the Josephine, and I'm sorry to tell you that it cost about$300. Um, but they also have non-vintage, which comes in under$100, and that was absolutely fabulous.
SPEAKER_02:And just an aside, whoever organised that is that event, those yellow pens are the best pens I've used in a long time. Please let us know where they're from. Because it's so funny. Joseph Perry is yellow as a label, so it was everything was beautifully aligned, and I saw it and I thought, oh yeah, that's really cute. But it is the best pen I'm trying to find where it's from. So let us know.
SPEAKER_01:Freaking delicious champagne and go through our top wines. Make sure you go to the Instagram because I put on a sequin dress to celebrate our final episode and don't make it for nothing. You have to see how also my look. She's Christmassy. Christmassy, I'm celebrating this. I need my sunglasses on. Okay. Okay, let's go. We are gonna go. Um, as always, I go first because it means that your wine is the top one, which yeah, we go back to front. So you've you've earned uh um being our top one in the year, being a master of one and all. My um, so this is number 10, say. Um The Arinto by Chica Kontita. I was listening back to um all the episodes, and I was listening back to me tasting it today um the other day. And do you know what I was thinking? Like, we've done this podcast for four years. Your husband is a winemaker, and you have never brought one of his wines on the podcast until that day. Well, you can't, can you?
SPEAKER_02:Sorry.
SPEAKER_01:We don't want him to be a Nepo body. We have built an audience, and I think that like we deserve to be able to get some sort of like something out of it. And so I I was okay, I was like, oh, maybe they're like, I don't know, maybe they're not that nice. I don't know. And then you brought in this sample of Rinto, and you're like, oh, it's just because uh whatever.
SPEAKER_02:I brought it in because I was blown away by it, I have to say.
SPEAKER_01:It listening back to the episode, and the uh some of my favourite wines are wines that I find hard to describe. I love those ones, I love those ones. And I I went through, I was trying so hard to describe it, and I was like, it's like Savign. No, it's like Alberunio, it's like, and then I tasted and I was like, no, it's like Chen Blanc. And the coolest thing about it was it was so heavily um reliant on those characters that aren't necessarily fruit. It was like kind of nutty and mineral and different, and the mouthfeel was beautiful and perfect, and um you were so funny because I tried to be like, this is amazing, and even then you didn't want to give Pete the credit. You were like, it's it's the variety, it's not Pete.
SPEAKER_02:No, he looking for Pete. Of course, he's a very good winemaker, but just so you know, it is available on their website now because I know that when we did that, it wasn't available.
SPEAKER_01:Why might be if Everbroy isn't even available to buy? And they'll start giving me shit. It's like not my fault. Okay, but it is available on the website. 25 bucks or something, right? It was 30 bucks on the website. Ooh, 30 bucks. Okay, so that is so worth tasting. Go get it, people. It is, it is um put it on your summer players. But delicious and awesome, and you want to taste it. Meg, you are number nine.
SPEAKER_02:My only non-Australian wine. Or non, yeah, non-Australian wine. So it's the Clement E Florian Berthier Pou Fumé. So the Sauvignon Blanc. That was nearly on my list. One of the Sauvignon Young's. Yes. So we did the Niave. Yes. We did a weird coteau de blah blah in the Loire that I can't remember. Yeah. We did a Pu fumé. Did we do a saucer? Yep. I put this in, I really honestly tried to make 100% Australian list because we need that the industry needs it. Yeah. And there are so many great ones out there. But I put this in because Sauvignon Blanc is such a maligned great variety. And apart from that gorgeous NiV$8 Aldi wine that I, you know, mold with Sauvignon, I just thought this was a beautiful iteration of that black, current, flinty, smoky, textural Sauvignon Blanc that I don't see why we can't make that here, which we can, but the problem is Sauvignon Blanc has been overcast by Marlbra Sauvignon. So that's what people want. So I would just encourage you. Remember, we tried the Sedona? Yeah. So the textual one. So I would encourage you to go out to your independent retailers probably and just say to them, I want to try a Sauvignon Blanc that is not Marlborough Sauvignon. Do you want me to put it down the back? We've had to close all the doors to be and you are wearing.
SPEAKER_01:I am wearing this full sequen dress.
SPEAKER_02:So that yeah, that was I just I want people to drink more Sauvignon because we are literally pulling it out right around Australia.
SPEAKER_01:But we called it that episode, we're like Sauvignon Blanc is coming back, and I actually think it is now, and I keep telling people, hey, we called that like early this year, just let like let's stamp that.
SPEAKER_02:We called it. Yeah, I hope so, because it's uh and if we could find a style like that in Australia, maybe we need to taste more Aussie savvy to get there, but I just I love and we I did actually have a fight over who was going to take that home and I won.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I have number eight, and number eight is um, and I should say we are currently in a paid partnership with Eldie that I very, very deliberately in the agreement in no way said you will be in our top ten episode. Like I was like I had another one in the episode. This has to be um no, no, no, but I mean it this isn't paid for, is what I'm trying to say. Like, um This is just our this is literally our top 10 opinion, and this is our objective opinion. They did not in any way pay it to be in our top ten. I just want to get that out there because number eight is the Blackstone Paddock Chardonnay for me.
SPEAKER_00:Um so if I can just say no, literally you can't say as soon as the episode came out, I went and bought I think three of those wines. I've already re-bought the Chardonnay. It is phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01:It is phenomenal. The did you see the Instagram video for Out of Us?
SPEAKER_02:Which one? I sometimes I try to avoid them because I always look terrible. Mel always looks fabulous. Have you noticed?
SPEAKER_01:I'm like, Joe, and I look horrible.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, you look gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01:Anyway, anyway. The point is that um the funny part of the video is I say almost nothing for the full 40-second video. And I don't think I've ever been speechless before in my whole life.
SPEAKER_02:No, and and we should capture that and frame it for Christmas because Melissa's.
SPEAKER_01:I'm basically speechless. You're kind of going through what you think and you're talking, and I'm just sitting there with my mouth hanging open, going, Yeah, it's bloody good wine. What does this mean? The fact that this is an aldi wine. I was I was actually kind of freaking out, going, if I say what I think about this wine, are we gonna get cancelled? I don't know. I was like, it was a whole thing. It's incredible. And I just also want to note that um after that episode with Jason, he had a bunch of wine with him, and and he was like, um Mal, you're you you were flying home, so you didn't take any home. But he gave Austin's just refilling Meg's champagne. Um he he gave me, he said, You loved the Chardonnay. Do you want a bottle of the Chardonnay? And I was like, Yeah, and so I had a glass before I went out for dinner with my friends. Thanks, Austin, darling. And then I went out for dinner with um a couple of uh wine friends, and we went to a very, very frenzy bar in Paddington and C. Consider that XMAR and the No, that and I've got a big day. Yeah, yeah. And um we I texted my friends and said, get order me a Chardonnay. I'm on the way, order me a Chardonnay. Because I was like, I had just had that Ali Chard, I just had a glass of the Ali Chardonnay. I was buzzing off Chardonnay. I was like, fuck all love Chardonnay. Yeah, get me more Chardonnay.
SPEAKER_02:He had a big hangover too.
SPEAKER_01:And I go, I get there. And so they come over, the guy comes over straight away, and they hadn't had a chance to order it yet. And I go, and I said, Chardonnay, please. And he goes, I was like, I think I was buzz up. I was like, your best Chardonnay, please. And they were like, our best Chardonnay is a$28 a glass. And I was like, ah, it's a weekend away from the baby, screw it, get back here. Get me a glass. So I was like, let's do this. Like, get me a glass out of$28 Chardonnay. And and it was so disappointing after the Aldi$20 bottle.
SPEAKER_02:It is good wine, and it's one wine that my husband, who never goes to the shops, dashed out and bought it as a benchmark to show his winemakers. Yeah. And you know, Pete, Pete never effuses over anything. Yeah. And he was just like, yeah, that is hot shit.
SPEAKER_01:I do want to say, we endorse buying wine directly from wineries wherever you can. Like if you can go to a wine region, go to a cellador, buy wine from the winery. If you really want to support the wine industry, that's the best way to do it. But you're not always in celladors in wine regions, and sometimes you are in Aldi buying your stuff in preparation for Christmas Day or whatever. And if you are, there are great options there.
SPEAKER_02:But I also think if you want, if you are just getting into wine and you want a benchmark for where good quality, great quality Margaret River Chardonnay should fit, then buy that, and then you can go in and say to people, oh, this is the sort of style that I like, and you can try others from other different wineries. So use that as your sort of baseline and then expand out after that. Because often you don't necessarily know what you want until and and we've said this many times about Adler that they're they're kind of the our benchmark styles of wine. Make your number seven. Oh, number seven was the Traviati Beechworth Nebbiolo. Do you remember? So we had the Pizzini Nebbiolo, which you really liked because it was March, yeah, which was March fruitier and everything. And I just like this because it was more of that savory, mineral. Yes, we were divided on that line. And then we had a lovely neat langy nebbiolo, which we both loved. Yes. Um, but I didn't pick the langy nebbiolo because I wanted to go Aussie. Um, and I thought this for me was the best iteration of Australian cool climate. And I do think Beechworth has a great future for Nebbiolo. Um how good it was the most langy style of Nebbiolo. And it's look, it literally is around the same price. It's yeah, it was 45 and 45, I think. But if you've got$45 to spend, spend it in Beechworth, and I think you can buy it online. And you know, finding it in an independent retailer is going to be tricky, and so just go online. And even if you go to somewhere like different drop and you do some of those mixed dozens, because they often support these sort of smaller producers, um, I just thought it was lovely, and I have subsequently bought it again, and I've just been really impressed. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:So I love that yeah, yeah, that's a really nice inclusion.
SPEAKER_02:I'll keep you drinking my champagne.
SPEAKER_01:All right, um, this is number six. Number six is hand-picked Auburn Road Tasmania Pinot Noir 2022.
SPEAKER_02:That was great.
SPEAKER_01:We tasted some of the best Tasmanian, uh sorry, we tasted some of the best Pinot Noirs in Australia. That episode, that those two episodes about um like regionality and self-regulation.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I know probably going away and proposing to your fiance was important, but seriously, we missed some secrets. Yeah. Yeah. Look what I gave up for you. Uh yeah, that hand-picked episode, and then the the so we did um Can You Taste Region? And then we did um Can You Taste? Does a Hill make a difference? I think was uh how you did the episode.
SPEAKER_01:It was it was two episodes all about regionality and how much of a difference it really makes. And we use Pinot Noir as the grape to describe it.
SPEAKER_02:It's a bit of a variety to make, yeah. I sound like Scott Morrison, but how good is Australian cool climate peanut.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So first of all, it's not gonna sound like Scott Morrison.
SPEAKER_01:And and these uh that episode, um, every single wine was well, there's two episodes. Every single wine was top top of its class. Like we did not taste a wine that wasn't extra, extra, extra, top, top, top, fantastic, amazing. No, no, no. They were all about$90 a bottle. They were between, I think all the wines we did in those two episodes were between 80 and maybe 115 or something. But um, of all those Pinot Noirs, the one that stood out to me personally for my style was Tasmania. And I remember saying it was stunning. I said that um I thought it was flawless. I said that the Sud-Ins were subtle, integrated, and move and smooth.
SPEAKER_02:And um I seem to remember you like there was a savouriness that you found in Cassi Pinot that you weren't finding in anything else.
SPEAKER_01:There was an elegance and a lightness. I love wines that can be amazing without relying on power. I think that that is a real Like me. No, Meg. Absolutely not like you at all. Um I thought I was about elegance and you know. No, you are power. Sorry, babe. You're one powerful woman. Um I can't who does it? Maybe just Cinder Hodgern or something. I don't oh no, I actually didn't see the movie? No, I won't anyway. Anyway. So um but elegance and without the power, just elegance and and that for me, it's so impressive when a wine can pull that off. That kind of finesse without without heavy tannins, without massive ripeness.
SPEAKER_02:It was very good wine.
SPEAKER_01:It it was technically, I found it technically flawless. I absolutely loved it. So that was number six. Meg your number five. Spinifix Syrah.
SPEAKER_02:So you weren't here for this episode. Oh we were stuck in the red room, which was okay, Austin's probably not old enough, but if any of you have seen Twin Peaks. Oh okay. Okay, yeah, it was a little bit specul like being stuck in the red room. We we did walk in and uh Austin said, I did not know it would be this red. I think was his first comment. Um it was kind of velvet and and red touched the blue walls, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Very weird.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway, we were doing Aussie Shiraz that named itself as Cira. Was that the episode? That's correct. And with all due transparency, um Spin Effects' uh guy I went to uni with, Pete Shell, haven't seen him for years, but we were mates. I was just blown away about how Sirari that wine was from the Barossa. It was$35 odd dollars, I seem to remember. It wasn't very expensive. Um it was just fresh and beautiful and lifted perfume, and the alcohol was high, but it was really held in check by the the winemaking. And Pete's partner, uh Magali, is French, and they have spent a lot of time making wine in France, and I think that that informs their winemaking, but still at 14.5%, you expect it to be quite big, but yeah, somehow he contained that and kept it in this sort of minerally red-fruited, not dried fruit um spectrum, and it was it was pretty delicious. We had some good wines that day. All right, and thanks to um Austin for stepping in.
SPEAKER_01:That's so awesome to step in. My baby got sick. Remember, she was in hospital. I was stuck in sitting here. Yeah, not in the nice place. Well, yeah, well, that that studio was pretty cool, actually. You guys pulled that together within can I can I actually tell listeners that within 24 hours, Austin had found a studio, booked it, Meg Got Wines, and somehow they pulled together an episode within 24 hours. Well, it was around the course because my baby was. What's that fantastic?
SPEAKER_02:A1 Bakery. A1 Bakery. Did you go?
SPEAKER_01:And they kept talking about the bakery. Okay. I can't remember what are we up to. This is number five. Five, four. Oh, thank God Austin takes notes. Whenever Austin's here, I'm Like, how do we do this without him? Like, I don't know how we do it without it when he's on here. Anyway, okay, so number four, we are getting to the top end. For me, oh no, I don't know if I can pronounce it. It's a Greek A Greek. Ayoyutico. Ayoyutiko. It was Ayoyutiko mountain fish label. It's it's only worth$20. And it's Greek.
SPEAKER_02:I had that in my backup. Yeah, it's a good wine.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so I think I'm gonna come clean and say how I got my short list. But my short list was long, but still, we've tasted a lot of wine this year. Can I just say I'm not impressed by this? What I did was I'm a little bit short on time. So I um To be fair, I understand that. I I couldn't remember every single wine we've tasted this year, and I just needed a short list to remember what we bloody tasted this year. So I put the transcripts from every episode into Chat GPT, and I've trained my ChatGPT to be like Doesn't that take longer than just Nah no? It was quite kind of quick. I've trained mine to be quite um quite funny. Mine, my ChatGPT. Oh, my personal little picture. So you however you you talk to it, it learns your style and talks that way back to you. And that scares some people, so they only give information. Mine, I give my personality, so it gives my personality back to me. So I think it's hilarious. And um it created the Mal Excitement Index. And I did AI trademark. I didn't even tell it, I didn't tell it to. I just said go through all these trans kids and tell me what were the best words of the. And it said, well, this one rated very high on the Malex Cybin index. Trademark. Trademark. And then I was like, what's your formula for the Mal Excitin Index? And it was like, whether you tried to force Austin to try it, whether you swore, whether you tried to swear, but then held back. That's how it works out the index. Oh, I missed that. It also um was like, um, whether you if you use technical terms to describe it, then it got a certain rating. But if you used emotional terms, you were emotionally connecting with the wine, then it got more points. It it was amazing. And um, so this one rated really high on the Mal Excitement Index. I said, I am struggling not to swear at how much I love this country. And then apparently I blew that to the wind because then I said, I fucking love Greek wine. Fuck, I love it. And Chat GBT said to me, You said fuck four times that episode, so I think you liked this wine.
SPEAKER_02:You're not having a relationship with Chat GPT, are you?
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm not. It's just um really good PA. It's a fantastic PA, and I think he's really funny. Okay. He, yeah, so you can give it a voice, and I gave mine a voice that sounds like Obama because I like to feel like Obama's giving me advice.
SPEAKER_02:I'd like Obama to give me more than an advice. Alright. I've got a glass of champagne, man.
SPEAKER_01:Meg though like.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Obama, yeah. I'm with you. He's yeah. I do love Michelle Obama as well, though. Yeah. I would be calmly, but I'd take John Fevre over Obama. But anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, okay, uh, number three, Meg, what is our number three one of the year? Giant steps. Applejack. Pinot.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. So this is. Oh, I'm really glad. Yeah. This is the Gladysdale uh Pinot, so it's up the hill, it's the Apple Yara. Um you preferred so the sex, no, no, you preferred the other, the one starts with a bit Bastard Hill. Bastard, I preferred the Bastard Hill. Um I just think, and I know Applejack's won a bazillion awards. Um, I just think it is uh an extraordinary expression of the Pinot Noir grape. Um and I would happily go to my grave drinking it every day of my life. It is such great wine. Wow. Yeah, it's that is such a good quote. I would happily go to my grave drinking stalk my life. I you know, I love all Yarupino. I don't want to be, you know, well, no, fuck it. I think this I think this is amazing, amazing wine, and it is well awarded. Melchester and her team, amazing winemaker, and she's um such an advocate for the region.
SPEAKER_01:We love good people. I love good people.
SPEAKER_02:She's good people, she's good people, she's good people, and that they're they're good, and Jackson Family Wine, who sadly lost one of their greatest winemakers uh last week. So I didn't put it in there because of Peter Fraser's um passing, but I just honestly I I've actually been taking notes, unlike you, throughout the year. Um, why I say I'm gonna take notes for what every year is I just go home and highlight what I think is a great wine and then cut it down. But this was top of my mind. Um I had to put something from the Yarrow Valley in there. And I'm really proud to put this wine in because it is extraordinary.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, this is number two, our number two top wine for the year. Of course it's an aged white for me. It is the Scarborough, the Obsessive Semion 2018. That was the very, very start of the year.
SPEAKER_02:So we were close, Austin. We didn't, yeah, yeah. We nearly crossed over, but we didn't. I wanted to put that in, but I yeah, I've chosen something that aligns with the times.
SPEAKER_01:Now, yeah, this is it? Look, this is the bad thing about me including this, is because it doesn't appear that they've got this vintage on their website. But better, buy the buy the current vintage. So you can buy the current vintage for$45. I am so sorry. How long do you have to wait? How long ago was 2018? Seven. Oh, seven. You can wait seven years, you're right. Okay. Go buy vintage.
SPEAKER_02:And what's the current vintage though? It wouldn't be 25.
SPEAKER_01:23. You're right. That's only five years. Okay, everyone. As Austin demonstrated in the episode where we we did the some aged semion is so special. This one is only$45 for a bottle. Put it down for five years, and your mind will be blown. Your friend's minds will be blown. You will drink something that is truly, truly, truly exceptional, truly special. I'm looking at my notes. My I'm looking at your excitement cues. Oh my god, it is so good. Yeah, this is the Mal Excitement Index cues. It explained why this was one of my top words. And it said, it said, you drift. Chat Jibbert said to me, You drifted off into your imagination. Always a sign of deep sensory engagement.
SPEAKER_02:This is just creepy. You do not need insight into your personality from a fucking machine. Anyway, I'm such a boomer, but I'm not. You actually are you're not, but in this case, you sounding. Well, I just think about the amount of energy that's required to use ChatGPT because my children don't use it because of the effect on the environment. How cool are they? Yeah, it's like vegans.
SPEAKER_01:I admit that vegan. No, but I mean I was a vegetarian. I admit that vegans are better than us because I know that they're doing better for the world than us. But um, I am just like, until we all do it, I'm gonna eat chicken. If everyone gave up Chat GBT, I would too, but then I would be left behind and I need the help. Meg, what is the number one wine of the year?
SPEAKER_02:Well, a bit of a drum roll. Everything's so expensive at the moment. Oh forgot, I'd like dervis. We tasted this wine and we were both blown away by it. So it's the Tim Adams Clear Valley Pinot Gris 2024. I think it's like$13.99 a bottle. It's just happily drink it on rotation. I've bought it. It's lovely, it's delicious, it's not expensive.
SPEAKER_01:How is a Pinot Gris our top? I completely agree. That was amazing. But how amazing that a Pinot Gris is our top wine of the year. Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And not, you know, it's not because it's the we're not being precious about this. The most um, you know, in-depth, concentrated wine. It is a really good value for money. Easy drinking 20 bucks or something, right? It was no, it was this, it was like$14, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00:No, I think it was, I think you were, I think it's$22. Oh, the Chapman Hill one. During uh the Dan Murphy's it was the top one Dan Murphy Awards, and it dropped down to$20 for the Right, but just Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, I remember being blown away by that. I do remember. That was amazing.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm actually buying that for Christmas day this year because I've got a mixed bag of people. There will be champagne. Um but having yeah, I think it's a really good crowd pleaser. I think it's pr um promoting Australian producers. I just yeah, I thought it was really good, right?
SPEAKER_01:It was like um super textural, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it had that orchid fruit and great acidity and yeah, we had the Chapel Hill Pinot Grigio, which we thought was a bit in that episode. It was very Grigio Liner in style, whereas this just came forward with this lovely texture and fruit. Unreal.
SPEAKER_01:Austin, I'm so sorry, but I didn't prepare for this. I'm putting you on the spot though. Do you have a favourite wine of the year?
SPEAKER_00:If I may just put my two cents in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You did contact me and you said maybe just have a wine ready in case we need to, you know, make sure that it it does sit up in the echelon, and my number one was also the Tim Addens Pinot Gris. As never a Pinot Gris drinker, I was blown away. I even drank it warm later that night, and I still loved it. Yeah, the texture was gorgeous. It was good. It was phenomenal. That's my one.
SPEAKER_01:Ow! I am so sorry. So we sit at the moment, um, the way we make up the show is we have this like master of wine knows everything there is to know about wine. Blah blah blah. Meg. I'm somewhere in the middle. I know my shit about wine. I teach level two, but it's just level two, like I'm nowhere near Meg. Austin's come in pretty new, he loves wine, but he's, you know, no like formal qualifications and stuff. How insane is it that our kind of beginner and our most advanced wine person chose the same favourite wine of the year, and that favourite wine is only worth 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_00:Unreal.
SPEAKER_02:We're living in the life of the common people. What's the family man?
SPEAKER_00:This is your Victor Hugo moment.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's just, I just think, yeah, we need to. Sorry, I don't want to sing, but we need to I thought you were gonna say something really like poetic and instead you tried to sing. Paul Paul Young. Oh, family man. Oh man. Okay, stop. I okay, can I just say do you know the play Man for All Seasons? No. Okay. This is probably going to land. There is a person in the um Man for All Seasons, which is about Sir Thomas Moore. No, we have an audience as well, right? You know, just talking about your awesome. It's about Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII, and Henry VIII wants to get the divorce, and Thomas More is sort of anti, and they have the common man as this the speaker. Um and the common man is sort of speaking for the the people of of England, and I think that we are the common man in A Man for All Seasons. Beautiful. Very good. Even though Sir Thomas Moore could have just listened to his heart and not worried about it, and his daughter Meg told him, but anyway. Look, see?
SPEAKER_01:I'll close the story. I have to say thank you so, so, so much to um our listeners this year. I know I kind of want to get soppy actually. Like it's a year of being a new mum and trying to keep up at work, and and everything has felt really difficult at some times. And I don't beg, shut up. I just want to say that every time I open our Instagram and there's like a message from one of you guys, and I'm sorry if I don't always respond, but there's uh always messages from you guys telling us why you loved an episode or telling us a bit about yourself or telling us uh that we recommended a wine that made your week. And that is what makes me so happy that we can like reach you and and just contribute something to your week, even if it's a bit of just silly wine knowledge, it just brings me so much joy, and I just want to thank our listeners so so much for for everything for those who've been there from the start who have always been there from those who recently joined and binged every single episode. I don't know how you listen to our voices for that long, but um you guys rock.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know how to follow up on that, darling. Can I exact?
SPEAKER_01:I don't care about listeners.
SPEAKER_02:No, I do. But Mel said it a while ago that of all the things that she does in her life, and she's an amazing wine professional across many things, this is the one that gives her the most joy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I would kind of agree with that. It's we always have fun, we get to taste some really good piss. Um, we squeeze it in somehow around Mel's. Um you know, I'm my kids have left home now, but I simply so I'm um easy, but we somehow make it make it work even when Mel has no voice. Um so yeah, I just think it it is, it's a joyful thing to do.
SPEAKER_01:And because you guys rate us and review us and and comment on our Instagram and send it to your friends, which I have nothing to do with. We we've gotten to this point that, like, yeah, we're getting sponsors, and there is like we are getting to a point that there's some sort of longevity to this, and we can really stand behind it, and that's really all thanks to you guys. And then I think the last thing that we need to do is thank Austin who came on board this year. Um and he does this for pure love, just the love of it. Literally, I was like, his he's DMing me, and I was like, I'm so awesome, we really can't pay you anything. I'm not joking, like, we have nothing here. And he was like, No, like, trust me, your socials need an upgrade. And they do, and they did, and um, it has been a huge part of new followers that we've got in and this community that we're building. Um, is all thanks to Austin. So thank you so much for coming on board. We really appreciate having you here. I think also just the extra voice of someone who's a bit common man. New to wine. The common man is I think brings a lot. The man for all seasons. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's what we'll call you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much. Any other finishing words, Meg? Drink well. Drink well, alright. Have a great Christmas and New Year's. We will be back next year. Can't promise when, but keep an eye on our socials, we'll let you know. Enjoy next class one. Drink well. Woo! Oh that was beautiful. You softy old bitch.
.jpg)