DD Top Drops Red Pack

After apprenticing under Barolo cult-figure Elio Altare and his cousin, the iconic Luciano Sandrone, Renato Corino split off from his family to walk his own path.

He took with him his portion of the family plots situated across some of the great crus of La Morra: Rocche dell’Annunziata, Arborina, Pozzo, Conca and Roncaglie. Since 2005, he had set about making a more modern style of Barolo, starting with a brand new winery with all the creature comforts and ability for high levels of quality control that come with it. This quality-focused approach showed immediately in the wines.

Today, his son Stefano Corino is setting the region of fire as one of Barolo's fastest rising stars. It's wines like this vibrant, juicy Dolcetto that showcase his winemaking sensibility. It's clean, it's fresh, the fruit 'pops' out of the glass. It's classy and precise and excellent value for money.

So much great value vino coming from the cellar of Michael Sexton.

His range is jam-packed with vibrant, energetic examples of alternative varieties. Here he takes aim at Sangiovese and knocks it straight to the boundary.

The fruit comes from a biodynamically farmed vineyard in McLaren Vale. It's all Brunello clone which makes for a more structural style of Sangiovese traditionally. However, with gentle handling from Michael this version has maintained the silky drinkability that is the hallmark of McLaren Vale reds.

It's the perfect Thursday night pizza wine. Bellissimo!

The team behind Vanguardist uses the 'Petit Vanguard' label to experiment on certain parcels of fruit in order to find a better path in producing their excellent premium Vanguardist label.

The Grenache is a wine built for easy consumption, early drinking, and something that goes with a wide array of food styles.

The intense but low yeilding vintage of 2019 supplied fruit that could handle plenty of whole bunch, as such about 70% of the Grenache this wine was fermented as whole clusters giving lightness and freshness to counteract the natural density of the fruit.

It's bright, lively and spot on for a fresh example of McLaren Vale Grenache.

This is a great example of modern South Australian Cabernet blend from the hands of energetic young Danish-born winemaker, Uffe Deichmann.

This comes from two McLaren Vale vineyards: Paeroa & Sommerville. It spent a couple of weeks on skins, Uffe looking for a soft extraction of tannin and colour to produce a Cabernet with early approachability.

This is great drinking, with plenty of deep, ripe fruit flavours and a lick of toasty oak and that vibrant pop of blue fruit and violet that Cabernet Franc brings to the table.

It's a Cabernet blend you can get stuck into right now or cellar in the medium term.

The Adelina Shiraz Mataro showcases the exquisite old vine Clare Valley fruit that Jen Gardner and Col McBryde have at their disposal.

Over half of the fruit is sourced from vineyards 100+ years old, these are some of the Clare Valley's most precious and respected vineyards.

The wine itself is treated with the typical Adelina care: wild ferments, gentle handling, and this year a portion fermented in concrete. This is yet another remarkable release, delivering a flavour-packed yet elegant representation of old-vine Clare Valley fruit.

As a complete package, this is unbeatable value and one of the best pound-for-pound reds in the Clare Valley.