Genista Duck, Duck, Cat Barossa Valley Grenache 2021

Easy drinking all the way with a flood of plum, dark cherries, anise and light spice saturating the tastebuds. There’s plenty of bounce here, both flavour-wise and in the lively purple-dark cherry bright colour. Barossa Valley Grenache has a reputation for living large, but these days there’s a finer expression being espoused, less oaky and dense, more medium-bodied and spicy. Duck, Duck Cat falls into the latter category and works the style nicely. It’s a fine follow-up to the 2020 DDC with the same degree of attention in bringing out the fruit’s delicious spice, tasty black and red fruits, chocolate with just a hint of varietal-led confection. This is a wine intended to be enjoyed now with oak nicely in balance and understated to the fruit.

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