Romney Park Merlot, Adelaide Hills, 2005
Super strange wine! Truly interesting, and really very nice. In my slightly drunken note taking I have written "almost as fun to sniff as a Pinot Noir" which really says a lot! It was amazingly complex, truly interesting array of tobacco, gameyness, raspberries, dark chocolate, cherry, eucalyptus, raisins and all sorts of other elements. However for me, the Fifi Factor was the overwhelming nose of mint sauce!!! If you can get your hands on some, would love to hear other opinions on this fabulous wine!

Squawking Magpie, Gimblett Gravels, Chardonnay, Hawkes Bay 2006
I tasted this wine while I was in Taupo, at the enomatic machine. I honestly thought I had smelt something wrong. Maybe there was blue cheese stuck up my nose or something, but it was just all blue cheese, with the classic pineapple and other chardonnay traits. In my urgency for someone to be as shocked as I was (I was missing my wine friends) I made my mum and sister try it, and both of them could smell it! So to try a chardonnay with the most fascinating blue cheese nose, definitely give this one a shot!

Kusada Syrah Martinborough, NZ, 2007
Strange strange wine. I had been told that it only tasted of white pepper (which I personally am not a fan of), so I was a little nervous and not expecting much. I was worried that it was going to be some sort of NZ imitation of a punch-you-face-out Australian Shiraz. It was not. The nose was classic Martinborough tobacco (something about the terroir), however the palate was the strangest thing. Vanilla. Vanilla, vanilla vanilla vanilla. More a vanilla bean than the more classic vanilla you normally find. The rest of the palate was pretty classic, pepper, floral, mouse droppings etc. But worth a shot for the strange vanilla bean syrah.