September 2, 2016 - Onion nose - which is distracting. Dry lighter body.
July 30, 2015 - With Lisa
April 20, 2015 - Deep purple with red rim. Pleasant Leathery musky aroma. Medium body with short finish. Coarse taste with minimal fruit, underlying tannin and a bit of alcohol burn. Not a bad wine but a bit past its best.
May 3, 2014 - Rich nose and immediately attractive when opened. Good colour - slight browning at rim. Excellent 1h after decanting - pure blackcurrant on nose and palate but velvety with fully integrated tannins. No eucalyptus on nose or palate at first.
With time, the wine developed tremendously in the glass. Great legs! The fruit character developed and the second glass still showed blackcurrant at first but this evolved into big cherry, tarry, smoky complexity. Eucalyptus later but subtle.
With a rare aged ribeye steak, the wine was lovely - it softened and grew further in complexity.
A lovely, classy bottle. Not yet losing its fine qualities. I wish we had more!
May 26, 2012 - (a winter's eve slow roast with Mich&Bo and Newan) Quiet nose, which opens up with time to reveal musky vegetal notes, tomato stem, toasted bell pepper, dark plums, faded cassis. The taste is a tad empty, overshadowed by structural puckery tannins amidst fractured impressions of floral and licorice sweetness, bitter smoke, dark spices, cedar, cigarbox, and again green stems and mushrooms. Short finish, ending on some ferrous notes and characteristic Coonawarra eucalypts. Quite a different personality from my previous bottle.
March 21, 2012 - Dark, almost black in the glass. Quiet, introverted nose on pouring, with a clear ferrous quality and herbaciousness which blooms with time in the glass, growing in umami characters. Stemmy herbs, chockful of dark dusty berries, cocoa powder, some capsicum, and rather prominent eucalypt mintyness. Focused and clean, there is also some savoury-ness, earth and cough syrup towards the end. Eloquently soft velvet tannins at this stage with sinuous structure, but still a considerable wine which is drinking very well now. A food wine, this paired VERY well with a Lamb Saag.
January 29, 2011 - Very deep colour. Explosive, eucalyptus, deep and rich, excellent fruit, terra rossa in a bottle, wood completely absorbed; so rich, concentrated and velvety that it is perfectly drinkable straight from the cellar (at 12C), even though it has truckloads of dry extract and a masculine structure. An excellent example of a marriage of power and finesse. Perfect now but will last for 10 more years, although I question whether it will gain a lot from further aging.
December 25, 2009 - Delicious ripe fruit, minerally depth, beefstock, rich tannins, good weight and length, touch of eucalyptus; not very intense or concentrated but perfect with Turkey with all the trimmings.
April 11, 2008 - I'm not great believer in decanting except for some very young wines, but the overpowering eucalyptus in this bottle demanded it. After a 2 hour decant proved itself a quite pleasant understated medium-bodied drop with nice minerality, reserved fruit and sensible use of oak. (I imagine this an inky monster in youth). No point in sitting on it for too long.
March 30, 2008 - Deep, rich and powerful Cabernet, well-structured and speaking of its terra rossa terroir, needs some time but goes very well with spicy food; the next day excellent, expressive, powerful, ripe and rounded.