Fresh Australian wines for the park this spring

• Fresh Australian beers to drink this spring

How great is spring? Newborn lambs, local asparagus, salsa verde on everything and the opportunity to spend five hours podding broad beans for one slice of bruschetta. It's also when new Aussie wines start appearing in bottle shops around the country.

I had the enjoyment of attending Mental Notes in October, a Sydney wine party featuring some of Australia's most interesting winemakers and distributors. Organised by Joel Amos, from sustainable/organic/natural online wine store drnks.com, and mates Jake Smyth and Kenny Graham (Mary's, The Unicorn), the day wasn't about swirling, sniffing and scribbling notes, as much as it was about having a yarn with the juice makers, discovering a bunch a new wines and eating a cracking ham sandwich.

Inspired by Mental Notes and warmer weather, here's a nine new Aussie wines to drink outdoors. They're all 2016 vintage (fresh!) and benefit from a spell in the Esky for maximum refreshment.

Ochota Barrels, Texture Like Sun, Adelaide Hills

Husband and wife legends Taras and Amber Ochota make beaut Basket Range juice that's high on life and low on sulphur. This whole-bunch sunny boy is an unfiltered blend of pinot noir, grenache, gamay, syrah, pinot gris, merlot, gewurztraminer, chardonnay and riesling, that makes for a super smashable drop ripe with jube lollies and lushness. Taras used to play in a hardcore band and you can taste punk rock in this wine – a Sonic Youth shredder of hot scuzz founded on sharp technique.

Best with: The Pixies and party pies; shorts and a T-shirt.

Unico Zelo, The River, Riverland

I once spent a day swimming in Nundle's Peel River, playing Neil Young on the car radio until the battery went flat and my girlfriend had to call her dad to bring jumper leads. Great times. Would have been even better if we had had a bottle of this crunchy South Australian nero d'Avola, though. Made with grapes grown on a metre's worth of sand over fresh limestone in Barmera, it's a siren call of sour cherry, blackcurrant and strawberries-and-cream that makes you want to paddle in a creek and read Tim Winton.

Best with: charcoal chicken and pasta salad; a camping chair and hand line.

Jilly Wines, Field Blend, New England

A field blend is a way of making wine that remixes a number of a vineyard's grapes for a bit of old-fashioned fun celebrating place. Jared Dixon's fruit tingle from Tingha contains – get ready, here we go – gewurztraminer, nebbiolo, shiraz, tempranillo, tannat, pinotage, tinta cao, touriga, barbera, chardonnay, viognier and petit manseng. One hundred per cent whole-bunch and fermented with indigenous yeast, the border-hopping blend has a palate dominated by citrus and vanilla with a red forest-fruits dancing down a dusty road. This would be a cracker in winter, too.

Best with: old verandahs and lazy dogs; wood-roasted vegetables and fresh-baked damper.

Murdoch Hill, Sulky Rouge, Adelaide Hills

Winemaker Michael Downer Jekyll-and-Hydes between classic estate wines that hum like a tuning fork and whole-bunch funksters using indigenous yeast. The Rouge is one of the latter – an unfiltered and unfined syrah, pinot noir and merlot blend that's had a short nap on French oak to keep things fresh. And fresh it is. A fountain of creaming soda hits your tastebuds before giving way to spicy, meaty grown-up flavours and grainy tannins. Perfect side-of-table at a backyard barbecue.

Best with: fat snags and burnt onions; roast beef and redcurrant jam.

Frederick Stevenson, Riesling, Clare Valley

"Are you tired of being limited by the restrictions of our current spacetime continuum?" asks the website of Frederick "Freddie" Stevenson, the alter-ego of winemaker Steve Crawford. If "yes", you'll likely love this approachable and unadulterated rizza. It has that quality, like the chirp of crickets and smell of citronella, that transports you to heady summer nights cooled by the sound of ceiling fans and far-off trains. Honey on the nose, a hint of rockmelon on the turn and custard apple on the finish. A delicious and textural drop in any universe.

Best with: porchetta and grilled peaches; barbecued whole snapper and green tomatoes.

Smallfry, Rosé, Barossa Valley

I fell upon this little ripper after a big innings at Brisbane's Brunswick Hotel that left me deadset useless the next day. Then, after a sip of this foot-stomped, wild yeast-fermented, certified biodynamic rosé: POW! We're back in the New Farm groove. So much straight-up sherberty, strawberry, zingy brilliance. The cinsault, grenache and mataro blend also has a creamy palate and dry finish so you can enjoy it with food other than Redskins and Milkos. That wouldn't be a bad afternoon, mind.

Best with: rabbit paella and a long sunset; old friends and Boggle.

La Petite Mort, Pinot Rosé, Granite Belt

Hey! Look! It's a wine from Queensland! Bypass the Granite Belt's mass-produced plonk and you'll find top little drops coming out of a region with vineyards among the highest in Australia. This crisp, refreshing and unfined rosé is from the minimal-intervention side project of Bent Road Wine. The grapes were picked at 820 metres above sea level and hot conditions resulted in small, powerfully flavoured berries. Fruity, elegant stuff. Check out the Strange Bird alternative wine trail for more Granite Belt belters going beyond chardonnay and shiraz.

Best with: prawns served on the butcher's paper they came in; provencal chicken and a nice squeeze of lemon.

Commune of Buttons, Birds Share, Adelaide Hills

A balanced pinot noir with a lust for life. The grapes come from an area of the vineyard loved by local birds and the berries were picked early before the winged warriors could have their way. No sulphur, no stems, no problem. This is balanced and luscious juice – the mulberry tart on the window sill, the Cherry Ripe in pass-the-parcel. There's a limited supply of these party-poppers, and if you can't get your mitts on a bottle, other 2016 Buttons of excellence include the Basket Town pinot noir and ABCD chardonnay.

Best with: bushwalks and blue skies; home-made sausage rolls.

Gentle Folk, Vin de Sofa, Adelaide Hills

"Vin" meaning wine and "sofa" meaning sofa, this is booze to be slurped on the couch watching cricket. A field blend from the Folk's Scary Gully vineyard in Forest Range, it's a light and ridiculously drinkable red of pinot noir (85 per cent), cabernet franc, pinot gris and gewurztraminer. Don't only drink this wine in front of the telly, though. This is leafy-tree park juice that makes you say "Yes! How good is life? How good is wine? Let's go eat some chips."

Best with: pineapple-glazed ham on a soft white roll; a shady lane and Pavement.