Brand & Sons Silent Partner Cabernet Sauvignon Coonawarra 2022
- 94
- $40
- Drink by: 2025-2035
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This superb Limited Release Coonawarra Cabernet is dedicated to one of the nice guys of the Australian wine industry, the much missed Jim Brand. He would have been very happy with it, of that I have no doubt. First made in 2005, the family use vines planted back around 1985. Maturation was for twenty-two months in oak from a range of coopers. 510 dozen made. A dark crimson maroon colour with aromas of plums, mint, mocha, coffee beans and blackberries. The oak is deftly handled and we see notes of graphite, cloves, soy and black fruits on the palate. Finely balanced, there are abundant tannins, reasonably firm, with excellent length. Put this away for the next three to four years and then drink for the following ten.
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.
