Devil’s Lair Margaret River Chardonnay 2020
- 94
- $50
- Drink by: 2021-2029
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The next step up the Devil’s ladder. The fruit for this wine comes from some of the more southerly vineyards in the region, a little cooler than most. The wine matures for nine months in a mix of French oak barriques (40% new and the rest a mix of one and two-year-old oak). Gentle lees stirring adds to the complexity. The colour is a vibrant lemon/gold. This has class, intensity and refinement with notes of spices, well integrated oak, lemon, melon, river stones, ginger and stone fruit. Good acidity runs the length, the balance is immaculate and it has great persistence. Good now, certainly, but this will scale further heights over the next three to eight years.
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.
