Spring is here and with the silly season just around the corner, be sure to stock up on a budget with these top wines for $25 or less per bottle!
Mezza di Mezzacorona Blanc de Blancs Italian Sparkling
Our Price: $20 per bottle
91 pts – Angus Hughson (The Wine Pilot): They call the Mezza a glacial sparkling wine thanks to its home in the cool Italian Alps. It’s a unique blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Muller Thurgau, and is made in a similar way to Prosecco creating a bright, fresh and juicy sparkling wine. This wine is unique and elegant with its chalky, baked apple and citrus fruits plus a faint floral edge. It’s then dry, crisp and light weight with gentle earthy flavours finishing fine and long.
Our Price: $15 per bottle
92 pts – Ken Gargett (Wine Pilot): From Sicily, this is cracking value. Gleaming gold in colour, the nose offers exuberant aromatics with notes of orange rinds, nectarines, lemon curd, stone fruits, ripe peaches and apricots. Seamless in structure, there is a creamy texture, impressive balance and very good length. This is perhaps the best example of this grape I have seen from these guys. Delicious. Enjoy it over the next three to four years.
Our Price: $15 per bottle
93 pts – Kim Brebach (BWU20): This co-op in Trentino in the north of Italy is 120 years old. I’ve always liked this Gris for its Alpine-fresh style and its energy and zest, along with its mouth-filling flavour, depth and length.
Our Price: $25 per bottle
90 pts – Ken Gargett (Wine Pilot): From Chardonnay vineyards, found at quite an elevated altitude, grown on the stony hillsides in the south of France, this is a pleasing variation on the theme. The colour here is a deep yellow. The wine is fresh youthful and quite an easy drinking style. There are notes of fresh herbs, florals and citrus, a touch of apricot and other stone fruits. An easy drinking wine of medium length for enjoying over the next three to four years.
Harewood Estate Great Southern Riesling
Our Price: $15 per bottle
92 pts – Erin Larkin (Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate): The 2024 Great Southern Riesling leads with Arum lily and wisteria, powdery/talc-like notes and white and green fruits. This is delicate and long. It comes from a warm, early, dry season and is a triumph of place and construction. There’s a little bit of phenolic bitterness through the very finish, but it works to imbue the wine with some energy and savory structure.
Our Price: $25 per bottle
94 pts – Bob Campbell (The Real Review): Vibrant, pure and punchy wine with mouth-watering passionfruit, red capsicum, lemongrass and lime zest flavours. Delicious wine that achieves a perfect sweet-sour balance and has an ethereal texture.
2022 Val du Soleu Organic Rose
Our Price: $25 per bottle
92 pts – Gary Walsh (The Wine Front): Soft, composed and good to drink. No harsh edges, rosehip, tangerine and fresh raspberry, gently creamy, fine powdery texture, pulls quite bright and clean on the finish with a little orange and perky red fruits, a slight basil flavour in the aftertaste. Very nice. All just so.
2022 Feudo Arancio Nero d’Avola
Our Price: $15 per bottle
93 pts – Kim Brebach (BWU20): Nero is Sicily’s major red grape. It offers cherries and plums, licorice, tobacco and dried herbs with some smoked meat thrown in for good measure. It’s smooth and soft on the palate with a fine acidity guiding it to the clean finish. Good drinking alreay and a bargain at this price.
Our Price: $20 per bottle
93 pts – Sam Kim (Wine Orbit): Beautifully fruited and perfumed, the bouquet shows dark plum, cherry, rich floral, warm spice and roasted nut aromas, followed by a silky-smooth palate that’s succulent and fleshy. Splendidly composed and harmonious, offering fabulous drinking.
2022 It Wasn’t Me Natural Red – Serve Chilled!
Our Price: $20 per bottle
91 pts – Christina Pickard (Wine Enthusiast): A vibrant cherry juice color, this succulent, easy-drinking red blend comes with red fruit, a hint of florals, heaps of spice and a satiny texture, framed in subtle, supple tannins. There’s a crunchy vibrancy that come through thanks to hands-off winemaking.
