Blue Pyrenees Estate Section 5 Merlot 2018
- 90
- $22
- Drink by: 2022-2026
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Merlot has seen a series of highs and lows over the years, but a few producers have never wavered from the aim of making exceptional wines from the variety. Blue Pyrenees, from the Victorian Pyrenees region, is one. Their Section 5 vineyard produces
their top stuff. It was planted back in the early 1970s, on ‘quaternary gravels’, without irrigation. This wine spent 18 months in a mix of French and American oak.
It is a soft, pale red with a nose of dry herbs, warm earth and some of those lovely Christmas cake and plum pudding notes, one finds in good examples of this variety. This is a youthful style, though it would probably benefit from drinking in the near term, rather than locking it away in the cellar for too long. It offers an attractive palate, which is reasonably long with some slightly gritty tannins. Drink this fine example of Merlot over the next couple of 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.
