Allegiance Wines The Artisan Reserve Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2024

The fruit here comes from a discrete block in a vineyard planted at the southern end of Coonawarra in 1998, called the ‘Overland Track’, in honour of the thousands of Chinese who made the journey through the region back in the mid-1800s. Fermentation is for a year and a half in French oak barrels, a small percentage of them new. Opaque magenta, this is quite a formal, austere style of Cabernet, though very well crafted. The nose gives us notes of chocolate, tobacco leaves, licorice, spices, axle grease, blackberries and some impressive and definitely handed vanilla oak. It has serious length and fresh acidity. Still very youthful, it will drink impressively for at least the next ten to fifteen years.