Cape Mentelle Explorers Blend 2017
- 97
- $180
- Drink by: 2024-2049
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Each parcel that made the final blend spent two years in new oak, before incorporation and bottling. The blend is 30% Petit Verdot, 30% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. Under cork. An inky dark maroon, this is a powerful wine, dense and focused, but it is supremely well balanced. The nose exhibits notes of chocolate, mulberries, plums, dried herbs, bay leaves, soy, beef stock and cassis. Notes of animal skins and bacon fat emerge during the journey. A beautifully structured wine, there is no reason that this will not sail through the next couple of decades in good cellars. The palate sees the emphasis shift to axle grease (again, in its most positive sense), licorice, soy and black fruits. Drink for fifteen to twenty five years. A cracker.
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.
