Silver Heights Chardonnay Reserve 2021 (Ningxia, China)
The wines of Ningxia offer the most promising blueprint for north-westerly China’s vinous potential. In that locale, no name is more firmly rooted than Silver Heights, a family-owned outfit established in 2007 by Gao Lin and his daughter, Bordeaux-trained winemaker Gao (Emma) Yuan. The duo’s wines, like this reserve chardonnay crafted from the estate’s best fruit and made using indigenous yeasts and minimal sulphites, tell the story of the surrounding Helan Mountains.
A relatively untouched wilderness marked by gravelly soil, a semi-arid climate and good natural irrigation, the area yields wines with broad spectrum appeal, despite its uncompromising geography.
$89, cardwellcellars.com.
Chateau Musar 2016 (Ghazir, Lebanon)
Yet another artefact of the enduring French legacy in modern Lebanon, Chateau Musar has been making wine in the resort town of Ghazir — about 30 kilometres north of Beirut — for the best part of a century. The estate’s grand vin, from low-yielding vines first planted in the 1930s, is as much a by-product of France’s long history in the region as its chic seaside inns.
In classic Bordelaise style, full-bodied red grapes including cabernet sauvignon, carignan and cinsault, grown on limestone-rich soils, are blended, then matured for four years in the deep stone cellars of M’zar castle — the 18th-century fortification from which Musar derives its name.
$110, winestar.com.au.
Clos Cibonne 'Tradition' Tibouren Rosé (Provence, France)
Wine writers often speak of Provençal rosé as “liquid sunshine”. Yet it’s more accurate to classify the wines of Clos Cibonne’s fifth generation winemaker, Olivier Deforges, as cult summer accessories.
One of only of 18 cru classé estates in Côtes de Provence, Cibonne produces rosés that capture the appellation’s bucolic setting — all green hillsides and coastal villages — by way of tibouren, a grape variety known for its complex and earthy aromatics.
One to drink high above the Antibes coastline over lunch of fish stew and aioli.
$79, differentdrop.com.
Occhipinti SP68 Rosso 2022 (Sicily, Italy)
A bottle that wouldn’t look amiss on the backbar of the Four Seasons: San Domenico Palace — the real-life setting for season two of “The White Lotus” — SP68 Rosso is the brainchild of the cult Sicilian winemaker Arianna Occhipinti.
The young producer prioritises farming with flavour: two quintessentially Sicilian grapes, frappato and nero d’Avola, are hand-harvested and certified organically, while oak is eschewed in favour of more neutral concrete tanks.
In the glass, the payoff is plentiful. SP68 is a juicy, fruit-driven red wine with a balance of tannin and acidity that’ll take it from poolside to trattoria.
$57, princewinestore.com.au.
This story originally appears in Issue 29 of T Australia (on pg. 61) with the headline “Getaway Glasses”.
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