Orange Wineries Review

 Orange is the new kid on the block in the Australian wine scene; along with Canberra, just a few hours down the road. It's cool climate winmaking, on the slopes of retired volcano Mount Canobolas, whose rich soils are literally the bedrock of the wine industry. You might think that, much 1960s Alabama, this is a whites-only business, but cool climate reds are well and truly establishing equal rights here - they're very different from the velvety chocolate, sophisticates of McLaren Vale or the Barossa Valley, but they have their own distinctive and lighter smoothness; especially when coupled with viognier or cabernet franc. There are a couple of dozen wineries here, but here is a review of the six we tested out.


 Philip Shaw

 Experience:        

Wine:
Winetasting on comfy leather sofas in a sleek modern lounge with panoramic views of rolling hills and vineyards is always going to be a winner! This is a smooth operation all round, with reliably good wines across their whole range. The No 89 (pictured) Shiraz Viognier was outstanding.






PRINTHIE

            


Experience:  
Wine:

One of the more recent addition to the Orange winery listings from the mid 2000s, Printhie is the younger brother who brings style and finese and makes the older ones sharpen their game to keep up. Distinctively labelled and featuring artwork from the Mount Canobolas area, these are easy drinking wines of consistent quality across a broad range. No slam-dunking winners here, but every wine is worthy one of those "Phil Collins" style nods of pleasant surprise.

Canobolas-Smith 

Experience:     
Wine:

Experience al-fresco winetasting in this small, family run winery of the Orange winemaking fraternity's founding fathers: They know what they're doing here. They may have some outstanding wines, but who knows? A limited tasting range that excluded their premium wines meant that only Bacchus knows the truth. Still, they offered a complex "The Cabernets" blend, which is exactly what it says on the tin, and their stand out "Alchemy": which, appropriately, gets the gold stars all on its own.

Experience:

Wine:     A funky ambience with a blend of prints of stylised vintage hot rods and big bums in cocktail dresses lining the walls with a jazz soundtrack, it has everything going for it: unfortunately unless you are a fruit flies enthusiast, don't mind shoddy furniture and prefer the self-serve wine tasting experience - it's all for nothing. On the plus side, the waitress gave us half a bottle of $80 Barbera to 'taste'. It was good - but certainly not $80 good. Aside from an interesting Zinfadel, and its cheeky desert-style sister, the wine was overpriced - plently of glam, but no wham bam - so don't get out the car; go. There are better offerings down the road.

Experience:

Wine:


A rustic, warehouse style experience with winebarrels for tables, Brangayne had slightly lacklustre service, but this could be as it was late in the day - cellar door staff are wise to be wary of patrons after 3pm. The friendly golden retriever - one of the best vineyard dogs on the circuit - meant they were forgiven. As for the wine, well, it was all about their flagsips "Isolde" and her red mate "Tristan". Turn out the lights, turn up the Wagner and poor me a glass.

ROSS HILL

Experience:  

Wine:

If Jesus had rocked up in Orange in NSW, rather than Cana in Galilee,
he need only have whipped out a bottle of Ross Hill when supplies ran low. And if the guests complained that they could hardly drink a Sauvignon Blanc having been on the Shiraz on night, well, no problem: because (to keep with the theme) these fellas can walk on water, not just turn it in to wine - and every variety was a winner. The top drop, though, was their superb Cabernet Franc, which at $40 a bottle was well priced.

This was the last winery on our tour - and so best wine was served last (ok, no more references to John chapter 2). Despite arriving after the official closing time by about 15 minutes, and the fact that they already had some customers, we were welcomed in and given personal attention from one of the winemakers. She sat with us for about an hour, talking us through each of the wines, answering our questions and taking genuine pride in doing so.

Despite having an inate aversion to chardonnay, we were persuaded to try theirs; even the oaked variety not only produced the "Actually, some of Genesis' music is not bad at all" nod - but it was really rather good. This is serious winemaking - several of the local labels send their grapes to Ross Hill who process it for them. At this place, the spitoon was not only rendered redundant, but its use made morally objectionable; despite the fact that someone had to drive back to Molong....