Mount Horrocks 2011 Riesling

Fragrant, elegant, taut and precise, this is a Clare Valley riesling that is perky and racy in its youth but will comfortably cellar for a decade or more. A backbone of searingly crisp acidity is the key to this wine's appeal, with a floral, sweet talcum pwder aromas leading on to searingly freah lime citrus and mineral/flinty notes notes in a wine of formidable structure. If you like your rieslings fragrant, pristine, bone dry and disciplined you won't go wrong here. $33. www.mounthorrocks.com.

Cullen 2010 Kevin John Chardonnay

For the past four years now, this stunning chardonnay has featured among my wine of the year selections. It's not cheap, but you get what you pay for and this offers quality with a capital Q. Vanya Cullen has the Midas touch with her biodynamically grown fruit, using basket pressing in the winery for a more gentle approach. This comes from a slightly warmer year in Margaret River than the 09 but remains a wine of elegance and complexity. There are the citrus and mineral characters you'd expect to find on the palate, but also oyster shell notes, gentle spices, hints of rich cashew nuts, integrated French oak and structural complexity aided by partial malolactic fermentation. This is a masterpiece of wine architecture - everything is in balance. $105. www.cullenwines.com.au.  

Glaetzer-Dixon 2010 Mon Père Shiraz

This is the Tasmanian wine, made in tiny quantities unfortunately, that shocked the wine world by  winning the Jimmy Watson Trophy at the 2011 Royal Melbourne Wine Show. It’s a  beauty, as you’d expect, classic cool-climate shiraz with bright and spicy red berry/cherry fruit; hints of cloves,  bay leaves and white pepper. It’s an intense wine in the Rhone style, beautifully composed, with herbal earthiness and supple tannins. A triumph from Nick Glaetzer, whose family knows a thing or two about shiraz, but almost impossible to find as demand hugely exceeded supply. $46.

Vasse Felix 2010 Heytesbury Chardonnay

There are some pretty fabulous Australian chardonnays out there at the moment but it is hard to top this one; the flagship white wine of the Holmes a Court family's Margaret River winery. Winemaker Virginia Willcock has been in brilliant form over the past couple of vintages and this is absolutely stunning. Matured in largely new French oak barriques for nine months and given regular lees stirring to add complexity, this is far better than many village Burgundies; stylish with great purity, texture and length. It is a wine that is, quite simply, a thing of beauty, reminiscent of Lionel Messi's Barcelona in full flow. $60. www.vasefelix.com.au.