Click... here for Labor Day fine wine:

One of our favorite importers is Peter Click’s-Click Wine Group. Most commercially recognized through the brand ‘Fat Bastard,’ The Click Wine Group's soul is a less cheeky and quite serious portfolio of Australian wineries. Peter Click founded Click Wine Group in 1987, long before the huge category growth from Australia. Peter’s hope was to introduce American consumers to high quality, boutique Australian wines. Peter's love affair with "Down Under" began with his first trip to Australia. Working in a Sydney wine shop, he experienced a tasting tour of Australian wines and later went on six-month 4,000-mile walkabout to explore Australia's wine country and culture. It is worth exploring the Click Wine Group’s Aussie products as they tend to be great value for quality. We'll explore four of Peter's more interesting offerings in this blog.

Certainly one of the best values that we carry in our stores is the ‘2 UP’ Shiraz. This wine is a collaboration between Peter Click and Kangarilla Road winemaker Kevin O’Brien. Before creating the Kangarilla Road vineyard and winery, Kevin was a winemaker educated at the highly regarded Roseworthy College in Adelaide. Kangarilla Road is located in the McLaren Vale district west of the Adelaide Hills and east of the Gulf of St. Vincent.


The vineyards of the Southern Fleurieu contribute color together with a signature blackberry and spice. The McLaren Vale vineyards give depth and texture together with the complex spice, dark plums and cherry always associated with this region. Together the two regions provide depth, complexity and a powerful mid-palate. The summer of 2005 brought mild daytime temperatures and typical cool nights. The wines show intense fruit and excellent balancing acidity. Thus, as far as vintage years go, 2005 will be remembered as one of the truly great ones. Fermentation is in submerged cap and static open fermenters. The wine is pressed at dryness and matured in French and American oak for 12 months.



An amazing offering for $14 (I assume discount stores will have it priced even lower), this firm is a joint venture between importer Peter Click and winemaker Kevin O’Brien, who produces the youthful cuvees from McLaren Vale’s Kangarilla Road estate. This deep ruby/purple-tinged Shiraz offers gorgeous aromas of sweet blackberries, figs, plums, and kirsch. Dense, opulent, and full-bodied, it is a terrific South Australian fruit bomb. Enjoy it over the next 2-3 years. It is the type of wine value that simply can’t be found in California. 90 points Wine Advocate

2 UP Shiraz 2005, Retail $13.99 Warehouse $11.99

Throughout many of the premium vineyards of South Australia you'll find large signs which read "Nepenthe Viticulture." That's because Nepenthe is widely known as the premier cool-climate viticultural management company in South Australia. In the past decade, Nepenthe wines have made a huge splash in the premium, cool-climate Australian wine scene. Nepenthe is located in the Lenswood area of the Adelaide Hills, one of the premier cool climate wine regions in Australia. The vineyards are on beautiful, wooded rolling terrain that is only a 40-minute drive from the center of Adelaide. With an altitude above 1,200 feet, plentiful rainfall, and deep, well-drained soils, the vineyards are ideal for cool climate varieties such as chardonnay, pinot noir and sauvignon blanc.

All around the world, there are winemakers who combine Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon in various proportions, but few include other varieties. While the heart of the wine is much-admired Adelaide Hills Sauvignon blanc (which provides the distinctive tropical nose and palate), backed up by Semillon (adding the fine palate structure and delicate herbal edges), there is 5% Pinot Gris added which contributes roundness and spice which lifts the blend to a notch above the ordinary. This blend makes up the fresh and zesty Tryst white.

The sumptuously rich, but light on its feet Nepenthe 2005 Tryst White is a gorgeous blend of 59% Sauvignon Blanc, 36% Semillon, and 5% Pinot Gris. A stunning effort, it offers subtle aromas of spice, honeysuckle, citrus oil, and orange marmalade. 91 points Wine Advocate

Nepenthe Tryst White 2005, Retail 14.99 Warehouse $11.99

Approximately 25 miles from Adelaide’s back door is the McLaren Vale wine district. RockBare's winemaker, Tim Burvill, has established strong relationships with grape growers throughout the vale. So he has his choice of the best grapes the area has to offer. He then uses a winemaking process without a lot of handling or manipulation. The idea is to get the best grapes and let the fruit speak for itself. Tim Burvill gained extensive winemaking experience working at Southcorp, where he was responsible for making one of Australia's most expensive premium chardonnays, Yattarna. So Tim knows all the most modern winemaking techniques. But when Tim created the RockBare label in 2000, he made a conscious decision to incorporate winemaking techniques that go back a hundred years or more. Using a minimal-filtering or no-filtering approach and very little oak ageing, Tim makes wines that are filled with complex flavors driven by the fruit. McLaren Vale is most famous for its Shiraz. One taste of RockBare's Shiraz and you know why. It has a deep, intense color and a peppery taste with hints of licorice.

The fruit for the Rockbare Reserve Chardonnay 2003 comes off one of the Penfolds Yattarna Vineyard. These 20-year-old vines are nestled in a particularly cool part of the Adelaide Hills. This allows for the slow and maximum flavor development in the berries during ripening. The wine underwent 66 percent barrel fermentation, 50 percent malolactic fermentation and was stored for 10 months on lees with battonage. In 2003 there was a nationwide drought; extreme heat in some regions; widespread rains in February; and low fruitfulness in cool-climate areas. As a result Adelaide Hills had low crops with very intense, yet elegant flavors.

This pale straw wine with green hues bursts with lifted mineral aromas integrated with peach, mango and limes. The powerful fruit aromatics are supported by background vanilla bean oak nuances. The palate is reminiscent of limes, citrus and passion fruit with a subtle buttery Malolactic note that is underpinned by spicy oak, and a creamy mouth-feel as a result of the traditional method of lees contact. Individual, fine-grained, French oak barrels were selected for perfect integration, complexity, and fruit expression. The aim of the oak in this RockBare Chardonnay is to compliment the primary fruits inherent in the grapes.

The Rockbare Reserve Chardonnay underwent 66 percent barrel fermentation, 50 percent malolactic fermentation and was stored for 10 months on lees with battonage. The oaking regimen included 33 percent new French barriques, 33 percent one-year-old French barriques with 33 percent remaing unoaked. Wonder what happened to the other 1%?

There were tiny crops from the drought year of 2003 with yields being 50 percent down on the previous vintage. This resulted in an early vintage where full fruit flavor was easily attained. By comparison, the 2002 vintage in Australia was universally defined by one factor, cool temperatures. 2003 was a more complex matter where four factors converged during vintage: nationwide drought; extreme heat in some regions; widespread rains in February; and low fruitfulness in cool-climate areas. As a result Adelaide Hills had low crops with very intense, yet elegant flavors

The superb 2003 Chardonnay Reserve exhibits a slight greenish hue to its color along with notions of peach, lemon blossom, orange rind, and a nutty, brioche-like component. Medium to full-bodied, with a fabulous texture as well as a long finish, it is reminiscent of a New World version of a premier cru Chassagne-Montrachet from the likes of Michel Niellon. 91pts Wine Advocate

Rockbare ‘Adeleide Hills’ Reserve Chardonnay 2003, Retail $24.99 Warehouse $19.99

Rockbare’s regular Chardonnay employs cool fermentation over four weeks, with 40 percent maloactic fermentation and maturation on yeast lees for five months. This is fruit forward, complex Chardonnay that has brilliant green hues and pungent aromas of grapefruit, green herbs, lime juice and spice that leap from the glass. The wine has an intensely flavored palate with crisp flavors of tangerine, pear and honeydew. The fresh citrus fruit rounds out nicely with an attractive, cleansing lemon-peel tang in the clean, long finish.

There was a combination of hand and mechanical harvesting is used at picking all day and all night. This helps ensure, especially for the white varieties, that the grapes arrive into the cellars cool, protecting and enhancing the more delicate flavors and minimizing the risk of oxidation. Cool fermentation was employed over four weeks. The grapes are harvest from McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills.

The remarkable Rockbare 2005 Chardonnay sells for a song. It sees about 40% malolactic and includes 13% Semillon in the blend. A flamboyant perfume of lemon blossom, flowers, orange marmalade, and white peaches is followed by a wine with great weight in the mouth, gorgeous acidity, beautiful freshness, and a long, heady finish. This terrific Chardonnay blew me away. 92 points Wine Advocate

Rockbare Chardonnay 2005, Retail $15.99 Warehouse $13.99

Rockbare is not just a Chardonnay winery. Killer Shiraz from old vines will light up your glass. Rockbare’s Reserve Shiraz is made predominantly from 140-year-old Barossa Valley Shiraz vines. The Reserve Shiraz goes through a warm fermentation in small open fermenters, spending 18 months storage in oak of which 70 percent is new French oak barrel with 30 percent being new American oak barrels.

Structured, massive, and backward is the 2001 Shiraz Reserve, whose major component emerges from a 100-year plus vineyard. Its deep plum/ruby color is followed by aromas of figs, plums, black currants, berries, licorice, and pepper. This full-bodied, powerful, moderately tannic, rich Shiraz requires 1-2 years of cellaring. 91 points Wine Advocate

The 2002 Rockbare Shiraz Reserve is a blockbuster-styled Shiraz. Its dense purple color is accompanied by gorgeous aromas of toasty oak intermixed with licorice, spice box, blackberries, and figs, fabulous concentration, a huge, muscular yet silky-textured, opulent mid-palate, and an explosive finish. Enjoy this knock-out Shiraz over the next 10-12 years. 92 points Wine Advocate

Rockbare Shiraz Reserve 2002, Retail $33.99 Warehouse $27.99

Rockbare Shiraz Reserve 2001, Retail $33.99 Warehouse $26.99

Why not finish with one of the world’s best values in a dessert wine? Campbells produces some of the world's finest and most intense dessert wines. This family-owned vineyard and winery uses a modified ‘solera’ method of blending and maturing new and old wines over a period of years. Some of the material used for blending is 70, 80, even 90 years old. The solera, originally made famous by the Spanish and Portuguese, is a series of up to seven casks, each containing wine at successive stages of maturation. The result is a uniformity of quality, age and concentrated character.

The unctuous, light amber-hued non-vintage Campbell’s Muscat exhibits a sweet, caramelized, raisiny character with notes of plums, fruitcakes, and marmalade. It is gloriously sweet yet relatively light on its feet. 93 points Wine Advocate.

Campbell’s Liqueur Muscat 375ml, Retail $18.99 Warehouse $15.99

The non-vintage Campbell’s Tokay reveals hints of Chinese black tea interwoven with caramel, buttered nuts, prunes, and toffee. These wines rarely improve in the bottle, but even after 5-10 years, they do not reveal any signs of falling apart. 91 points Wine Advocate.

Campbell’s Tokay 375ml, Retail $18.99 Warehouse $15.99

Dorothy, you always had the ability to get back to the Wine Warehouse.....just CLICK your heels three times and repeat: there's no place like the Wine Warehouse, there's no place like the Wine Warehouse.....