Allegiance Wines The Artisan Reserve Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2024
- 94
- $70
- Drink by: 2026-2041
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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.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
