Conte Estate Reserve Over the Hill Shiraz 2020
- 93
- $60
- Drink by: 2025-2035
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The grapes are sourced from a McLaren Vale vineyard planted way back in 1880. Maturation is in French oak barrels, a mix of new and older, for a year and a half. Under cork. An inky dark maroon hue here, this is tight, concentrated and still youthful. It gives the promise of much more to come. We have notes of black fruits, cloves, licorice, black olives, soy, cold tea and chocolate. There is ample evidence of the oak influence, which is well underway in the process of integration. A wine of good focus and a long, lingering finish with sleek tannins, it is still building. A future of at least a decade, over which time it will surely improve.
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.
