Top drops: An expert's wine picks for September

The Langton's Classification is the barometer for determining Australia's best performing wines. There are no arbiters sitting on a tasting panel, voicing opinions and scoring wines as such. Producers take no part. Rather, the Classification is the gold standard by virtue of putting you, the wine drinker, in the driver's seat. A wine's pedigree is important and a minimum of 10 vintages mandated. Yet assuming that this prerequisite is achieved, it is the wine's performance in the secondary market that determines inclusion in the Classification or otherwise. In other words, the Langton's Classification is driven solely by demand among wine drinkers.

The Classification was established in 1988 and the first iteration published in 1990. It is renewed every four to five years as demand for certain wines increases and for others, wanes. As a result, new wines appear while others fall to the wayside. The most recent Classification dates from 2018. It includes 136 wines across 91 wineries, each categorised as Exceptional (22), Outstanding (46) or Excellent (68) in descending hierarchical order. This month's piece highlights top performers from starkly different regions, attesting to Australia's stylistic diversity. It would be unjust, however, to ignore a classic from Bordeaux given that it was that region's older classification, dating from 1855, that inspired Langton's. Similarly, the Bordeaux classification was defined by the performance of its wines at auction. Finally, a Champagne from a small grower, reflecting the region's dynamic new remit of crafting wines reflective of origin rather than style alone.

An epiphany and source of pride when abroad, strongly suggesting that Australia could make more savoury expressions of shiraz than the yeomen from warmer zones. It's no wonder, given maker Tim Kirk's affection for Côte-Rötie, a bastion of finesse, soaring florals and juicy acidity.

You may remember it from Golden Century's Lazy Susan, or from Aussie treasures at our top restaurants. Leeuwin's been around! Yet never better than today. Margaret River's peaches and cream a subtle backdrop. Creamed cashew, too. A saline furl of tension, the mainstay.

A stalwart of Bordeaux's Classification of 1855, lying within cooee of Château Margaux. A violet drift across the nose segues to aged complexities of camphor, mulch and graphite, with a skein of sweet fruit threaded from attack to long, sumptuous finish. Glorious drinking!

Straight Chardonnay, or Blanc de Blancs, all from the lauded Grand Cru commune of Chouilly. Chardonnay is the slinky, going down the stairs: compression and release, transmitting the chalky detail of Champagne's meagre soils to the palate. Dry and febrile. Champagne's new wave. Get on it.

A message of provenance from a famous Italian region flowing across waves of darker fruit, walnut, mint and mahogany. The latticework of tannins and saline freshness, compresses the mass into one of savoury assertion and confidence.

Jasper Button has played the hipster card, but nothing gives him more satisfacation than returning to the land. In the Adelaide Hills, he sews mid-weighted wines with freshness, scents of orchard fruits and a weave of bob of chew and stony tension. Mellifluous stuff.

Dissociate from Australian sauvignon and its tropical clang of acidity. Instead, think of a clear river running over rocks. Think quince, apple and hedgerow, with ripples of juicy acidity. Think of a better life, for here it is in a glass.

Maurice O'Shea is the Hunter Valley's greatest ambassador. A secret inclusion with the shiraz, was a dollop of pinot. His alma mater, Mount Pleasant, has returned to the hearth.

The confluence between Burgundy's site-inflected subtleties and the Japanese spirit knows few limitations. Provenance binds the details, from the silken weave of tannins to rids on pickled Japanese plum, this is pinot noir from a single vineyard that is savoury, understated and forceful all at once. Japan brims with paradoxes and here, in liquid form, they make for intrigue.

A Japanese lawyer who acquiesced to wine's call. Martinborough's pinot noir was the drawcard. Yet the effects of climate change have drawn a brighter future for wines such as this, a shimmer of lime blossom and jasmine; steely, taut and dry. The finest Riesling of the antipodes.

How I love these wines. Takahiro Koyama has worked at some of the best addresses on the planet. His comprehension of pinot noir's porcini underbelly of tannins and its capacity for firework aromas of cherry, violet and west forested scents, makes for one of the most compelling wines in the New World.

The pioneer of biodynamic viticulture in Margaret River, Vanya Cullen is the doyenne of the region. A stalwart of the Langton's Classification and arguably the finest cabernet in Australia, Diana Madeline is about blackcurrant, lilac and bouquet garni set against sculpted tannins and alloyed maritime freshness.

Minerality: a marketing trope, a vacuous ode to romance, or a singsong? Don't be jaded! Here is your passport to sentient nirvana. Atlantic Galicia. Inland and high. Godello grapes, perched amid vertiginous ravines, granitic, slippery and wet. Electricity in the mouth. Saline, saliva-sucking and memorable. Believe!