Château Tanunda 50 Year Old Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon 2022

A cool ripening season in the Barossa Valley in 2022 has certainly brought with it greater elegance and added fineness of detail to this Cabernet. While it is sweet fruited and full bodied, it carries it well with good structure in place and a lovely elegance of fruit and spice on display. Aromas are quite delicate and the longer the wine is open the more is revealed, generous in spice of cassia bark, clove and nutmeg with black fruits, leaf, a touch of mint. There’s a brightness to the palate, a juiciness, a freshness. Tannins are fine but lithe, the setting for some delicious exploration of fruit with red berries emerging among the black fruits, sweet spice and leaf. An arch of flavour builds through the wine and while it finishes a tad short, it’s a quality Barossa Cabernet.

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