Driftwood Single Site Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2021

You look once, you look twice. Third time is a charm. You have to admire a red wine that opens up before your eyes. A couple of swishes and there it is, a tight essence of black wild berries, licorice, cocoa, with a dusty earthiness leading into cinnamon, briar, leaf. This ’21 Margaret River Cabernet is not so much plush as fine-lined, with sapid tannins forming a most secure, firm structure for now and for the future. It specialises in the slow reveal, the more time open, the more to explore. And it’s only just beginning its journey. Not the easiest of vintages – there were disease pressures – so you have to admire the quality of fruit, the delicate balance of baking spices to the earthy Aussie bush tones, the warmth of toasty oak and the slow build-up of flavour intensity as it nears the finish.