Description
- 2024 Garagiste Le Stagiaire Pinot Noir
- 2023 Fighting Gully Road Sangiovese
- 2023 Domaine de Ferrand Cotes du Rhone Mistral
- 2022 Mullineux Kloof Street Rouge
- 2023 Ricca Terra Vintners Bullets Before Cannonballs
- 2023 Lambert Syrah
2024 Garagiste Le Stagiaire Pinot Noir
Barney Flanders loves Pinot Noir, and every release of the value-packed Le Stagiaire Pinot Noir seems to out do the previous one. It has been one of the most popular wines in Different Drop history.
Winemaker Barney Flanders, known for his dedication to Pinot, blends fruit from several of his top vineyards, with Merricks North’s 30-year-old Dijon clones adding plushness and floral lift to the structured MV6 clones from Balnarring, Red Hill, and Merricks Grove.
Crafted with a gentle touch, this wine goes through wild fermentation with minimal whole bunches, 21 days on skins, and careful ageing in concrete, large foudre, and old oak barrels. It’s bottled unfined and unfiltered, keeping every bit of its savoury complexity and purity intact. The result is a beautifully balanced Pinot, layered with red berries, spice, and an earthy edge, all tied together by a refreshing mineral streak.
Simply put this wine represents the essence of Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir. Value for money wise, this is an Australian Pinot Noir star.
94 points
"Spicy, perfumed, complex. It has plenty of structure, juicy cherry flavour, bright but balanced acidity, and excellent length. A short note for an impressive wine. What else do you need to know? Oh, yes, it drinks a charm."
- Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)
2023 Fighting Gully Road Sangiovese
There are few viticulturalists in Australia that get Sangiovese right. It's a difficult nut to crack, it seems. Well, here's one that's inspired by the fantastic wines of Chianti, and hits the nail square on.
Mark Walpole works the Aquila Audax Vineyard in Beechworth with an eye only for quality. This Sangiovese comes from the upper exposed slopes of the vineyard, vines planted on shale and metamorphic rock.
With the skilled hands of winemaker Adrian Rodda doing all the right things in the winery, the Fighting Gully Road Sangiovese comes out with classic varietal character and offers excellent value for those who enjoy the savoury, grippy drinking experience that this variety can give.
96 points
"Grab a salumi platter, pretend you're in Tuscany and pour a glass. Yes, this sangiovese is that good. Combines the red cherry fruits, the earthy nuance, cumin herbals and almond skin with a touch of Campari-like bitters to produce a sangiovese impressively sturdy in tannin, compact and gently savoury. It's all here and more."
- Jeni Port (Halliday Wine Companion)
2023 Domaine de Ferrand Cotes du Rhone Mistral
Philippe Bravay is a master at organic viticulture, one of the gems of the southern Rhone. And the Mistral might be the best gem of all, a truly brilliant value Cotes du Rhone.
Dominantly old vine organic Grenache, with some Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvedre also involved.
The vines that produce this wine were planted as far back as 1945 and offer a level of depth and complexity you rarely fine in reds from the Cotes du Rhone.
Grenache and GSM lovers, don't hesitate.
2022 Mullineux Kloof Street Rouge
Chris and Andrea Mullineux have a gift for making wines that punch well above their weight, and the 2022 Kloof Street Rouge is no exception.
This blend of 57% Syrah, 27% Grenache Noir, 9% Cinsault, and 7% Tinta Barocca captures the Mediterranean-inspired style that has put Mullineux on the map.
Sourced from sustainably farmed vineyards ranging from 7 to 48 years old, the fruit comes from two key areas. Syrah and Cinsault thrive on the shale and schist soils of Kasteelberg, while Tinta Barocca and Grenache come from the decomposed granite soils of Paardeberg, creating a wine with both depth and energy.
The winemaking is equally thoughtful. After hand-harvesting, 60% of the fruit was destemmed while 40% remained whole bunch, and fermentation began naturally with indigenous yeasts. The wine matured for 11 months in third- and fourth-fill French oak barrels and large wooden vats, ensuring the oak influence stayed subtle and allowed the fruit to shine.
On the nose, you’ll find perfumed aromas of dark berries, violets, and holiday spices. The palate is medium-bodied and vibrant, with flavours of blackberry, cherry, and a hint of savoury spice. Each component adds its own touch: Cinsault brings aromatic lift, Tinta Barocca adds structure, Grenache offers ripe fruit, and Syrah ties it all together beautifully.
This was the Best Value Red Wine of the Year in Master of Wine Tim Atkin's comprehensive 2024 report of South African wine. As he said, it's "Almost impossible to beat at the price."
93 points & Best Value Red of the Year
“Almost too good,” mused Chris Mullineux when he poured this wine, and I know what he means. Combining Syrah, 30% Grenache, 17% Tinta Barocca, and 10% Cinsault, it massively over-delivers at its price point, with perfumed 30% whole bunches, bramble, red cherry, and white pepper flavours, and some granitic grip and freshness. Almost impossible to beat at the price."
- Tim Atkin MW (2024 South African Wine Report)
2023 Ricca Terra Vintners Bullets Before Cannonballs
Ash Ratcliff is one of the sharpest minds growing grapes in Australia with a vision towards a new Riverland.
The "Bullets Before Cannonballs" concept is something Ash has used extensively during his time in the Riverland. The idea being, you shoot loads of 'bullets' - small trials of new varieties - and when you see one excelling you light the fuse on a cannonball and go deep on that variety.
It's a methodology which is yielding great results for Ricca Terra Farms. This wine is a fiery blend of the red varieties that have excelled for him so far: Tempranillo, Shiraz, Lagrein, and a touch of Lambrusco.
The finished wine is flush with dark fruits and exotic spice. Great value to be had here and a super versatile red for any night of the week.
95 points
"Tempranillo, lambrusco, shiraz, lagrein. Ricca Terra craft wines that feel quite alive in the glass, perhaps due to their deep agricultural understanding and farming practices. I could be romanticising, but this wine is a living thing. Soft leather, aniseed rings, fresh fig and dry earth. Dark chocolate and blood plum. The tannins have a lateral extension within, beyond the spine of the drink, leaf vein-like. For its close-to-earth rusticity, it certainly polishes up and carries an elegant composition further endorsed by impeccable balance."
- Katrina Butler (Halliday Wine Companion)
2023 Lambert Syrah
The Luke Lambert Syrah is always made with a deft touch.
Luke's choice of vineyard in the South-West of the Yarra Valley (some of the coolest terrain in the region) offers him the opportunity to make a wine of unique elegance and finesse.
The continued success of this wine has cemented Luke as one of the true winemaking craftsman of his generation. Luke uses whole bunches to beautiful effect, elevating Yarra Valley Syrah to a spicy, ethereal wine with a quiet confidence.
Once again, this release is beautifully balanced, refined and pure-fruited - all the hallmarks of Luke's signature Syrah style.
95 points
"Dark cherry and blue fruits, plenty of spice, black olive and grilled meat. It’s medium-bodied, spicy and perfumed, meaty too, with a surprisingly intense burst of ‘minerally’ acidity through its core. Tannin is all crushed rock and sooty goodness, and the finish is long and savoury and stalky. Very good."
- Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)
"Beautifully poised, cool expression of shiraz with concentrated but elegant dark cherry fruit and a subtle overlay of spice. A very good follow-up to the excellent 2022, which is drinking beautifully now."
- Max Allen
Customer Reviews
| Price Bracket | $30 or Less |
| Size | 3 |
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