Wine writer RICHARD CALVER takes to his notes and his nose to line up his top five wines for 2025.

Looking back nostalgically is like pursuing grammar: we find the present tense and the past perfect. 

Memory is a strange beast: sometimes memory lane is a dead end. So, I keep notes on most wines that I’ve tasted.

The wines that I underline for 2025 are the five most memorable for me: context plays a big part in this evaluation. The importance of context is discernible whenever I use idioms out of context: people look at me as if I’m thick as thieves. To the wines:

1. At my birthday lunch, hosted by my two adult children at Beltana Farm in September, my daughter recommended the Ravensworth 2022 The Grainery. It is a blend of viognier, marsanne and roussanne, white Rhone varietals, all grown in Murrumbateman. This wine was textural, perfectly balanced, stone fruit and light acidity, cashew nuts in the finish, and went extremely well with the fresh and elegant food that the restaurant produced. We only had one meat dish, as the vegetarian dishes were superlative. This wine is a testament to the skills of Canberra winemaker Bryan Martin and, for me, the epitome of wine that matches well with vegetarian food. 
2. My second favourite wine was also associated with a birthday: my sister from NZ had given me a 2018 Villa Maria Reserve Syrah two years ago for a special birthday where both sisters from across the ditch came to visit. I put the wine away and brought it out mid-year at a family Sunday dinner. Light red in colour despite its age, the nose was of blackberry and a hint of pepper and violets. It was light in the mouth; hence, I suppose, the designation syrah rather than shiraz, and finished like silk, leaving just a hint of plum. It too was a good food wine, well complementing the roast lamb that I’d cooked. 
3. In contrast to the lightness of the Kiwi, my next choice is at the other end of the spectrum. Perhaps we opened it up too soon, a 2023 Warrabilla Parola’s Shiraz, but it was an excellent wine. All of the Parola’s are from exceptional vintages and the 2023 is no different: extraordinary depth, bold fruit flavours, mouth filling and rich. This is a wine that matches perfectly with eye fillet steak and an instance where I wish, while in Rutherglen, I’d purchased more than just one bottle from the winery, which is a delight to visit. 
4. The fourth wine is one I’ve written about in a previous column but had to be included in this list, the 2020 Burge Family Winemakers Homestead Tinta Cao-Souzao. This blend is usually used in the making of port/fortifieds, but this table wine was superb. It was deep red in colour with a white flower and fragrant plummy nose, including a hint of mint. The palate showed soft approachable tannins. It finishes long with cherry/berry fruit and is velvet in the mouth. Alas, it’s no longer made.
5. The fifth wine is a pinot noir. I’ve mentioned this wine before in a column. In the 2025 National Wine Show awards the Stargazer 2022 Palisander Vineyard Pinot Noir was awarded a gold medal and allocated 95 points out of 100. Samantha Connew is the winemaker at Stargazer, located in the Coal Valley Tasmania. I’ve tried three of her wines and found them to be textural and complex, worthwhile drinking, with the pinot noir tasted at the wine show, expressive and velvet like.

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” –Abraham Lincoln

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