I attended a fantastic tasting this evening on a cold winter’s night in East London’s Shoreditch ahead of the Australia Day Tasting tomorrow. Plenty of interesting wines on preview from ABS Siegel, the award winning wine shipper and distributor.

But I thought I would write about one wine specifically that caught my eye… the beautifully maturing Redman Coonawarra Red Blend 2004. A current release vintage in the more ‘archive’ spirit of fine wine, this wine was aged 13 years in barrel and bottle. Made from 30+ year old vines grown on the famous terra rosa red Limestone soils, this 14 Abv. blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz was aged for 24 months in French oak to produce a fine wine that firmly tips its hat to the French Languedoc red blends of the L’Herault and Faugeres, but at the same moment remains a true essence of the coonawarra itself. 

Tasting Note: Dark dense and opaque, there is a wonderfully exotic expression on this 13 year old Cabernet based blend. Such a complex interwoven nose of sweet tannery leather, burnt oranges, citrus peel, cedar spice, violets, salty liquorice, tart cassis, and earthy, oyster shell notes. There is just a hint of bruleed blackberries in milk chocolate with caramelised molasses hints. The palate is as expressive as the nose, truly characterful with an impressively salty, tart crystalline acidity, picante notes of cedar wood spice and liquid minerals, edgy gravelly tannins and a salty, dense, textured orange peel tinged finish. A truly impressive wine that is embracing its age gracefully but only because it knows its muscles are still bristling youthfully underneath a designer t-shirt. (Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)