Ben Glaetzer Anaperenna Barossa Valley Shiraz Cabernet 2022
- 96
- $52
- Drink by: 2025-2040
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The great Aussie red blend from a top year and a producer nearing cult status. This is heavily Shiraz dominant – 82%, to just 18% Cabernet. From the Ebenezer sub-region, the yield overall is just two and a half tonnes per hectare. The Shiraz vines range in age between 30 and 100 years, while the Cabernet is even more impressive, between 30 and 130 years. The wine spent sixteen months maturing in hogsheads, all new, with 92% of them French and the remaining 8% American. Under cork. This is a bit special. An opaque maroon, we have notes of blackberries, cold tea, chocolate and mocha with some soy, bay leaves, dried herbs and graphite also evident. A wine with a supple texture and immense length, this is seamless, with the intensity never wavering for a moment. There is oak, but it is immaculately handled and simply adds to the overall impression of a brilliant wine. Fifteen years ahead of it, without a hiccup. It is cracking buying.
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.
