Carlei Green Vineyards King Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

We are starting to see a little more cabernet sauvignon being sourced out of the King Valley. Planting in the higher reaches of the Valley, heading up to Whitlands at around 800m, could prove to be a smart move in a progressively warmer climate. The winemaker refers to “natural winemaking” on the back label of this wine which also comes under a cork closure (increasingly, the ‘natural’ winemaker’s choice). The four-year-old is moving into attractive secondary characters with leather and earth combining with blackberry fruit and spice on the bouquet. Some lifted volatiles are also present. This is not a wine for extended ageing and is one to be enjoyed now as it retains ripe fruit, leafy notes, cloves and chocolate wrapped in oak toasty-vanilla oak

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

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.

Wine writer and critic