River Café's Emily O'Hare writes to us from her trip down under, currently in Yarra Valley

Hunter Valley old vines and amazing Semillon

River Café's Emily O'Hare writes to us from her trip down under, on flights, arrivals, and failed attempts at early nights.

Global warming causing problems for Australian winery

The Barossa winemaker goes back to his roots

No Golds, but plenty of positive feedback. A good hunting ground for those of you who ‘do’ esoteric on your list

With screwcaps to the fore, the quality of the whites (particularly) and the reds here was amazing for the price. Rosé was another matter entirely

The Sommelier Wine Awards doesn’t give out trophies per category because we’re worried that tasters will feel under pressure to dispense extra awards in categories where they may not believe the wines are up to it. Instead, in keeping with the whole ethos of the competition, we leave the judgement up to the sommeliers…

Riesling is making itself at home in more and more countries, but where is it performing best? Clinton Cawood joins an eager sommelier panel for a top-notch tasting that pits Old World against New World and some acknowledged masters against hungry, young upstarts

Entries of this much-favoured grape may well have been more or less evenly split between Australia and New Zealand, but this year the latter definitely came out on top

Over 1,500 wines can be boiled down to this: the hallowed Sommelier Wine Awards Gold List for 2011...

How many wines can genuinely stake a claim to being alternatives to both Sancerre and aged white Burgundy? Sarah Ahmed tours Australia to get to grips with the many faces of the country’s magnificent Semillons

Still no Golds for Viognier, though certainly lighter, fresher, more food-friendly wines than in previous years

More ambitious pricing but some decent wines too, with Australia, Argentina and South Africa leading the way

A good selection of medals from across the New World shows this is a category with real strength in depth