Cape Mentelle Icon Shiraz 2020
- 95
- $98
- Drink by: 2023-2036
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A marvellous ensemble production. Fruit from three vineyards, the arrival of a near perfect lead up to vintage and small yields have come together to produce a corker of a Shiraz. Immediately relatable in a flurry of fragrant, sweet mulberry, bramble, plum with Aussie bush notes, spice and the appearance of some fancy vanillin, mocha French oak (45% new). I’ve written the word, ‘seamless’ twice in my tasting notes followed closely by ‘elegant.’ That’s a good sign and indication of a wine that seems to just roll easily with all elements in sync. Unfolds cleanly, evenly, across the palate in serious dark-fleshed fruits, chocolate, earth, woodsy spice, mocha-coffee and more. Margaret River Shiraz at its bright and lifted best.
Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.
