Geoff Merrill Jacko’s McLaren Vale Shiraz 2018
- 94
- $30
- Drink by: 2026-2036
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This wine is a tribute to a young cellar hand who worked with the team before sadly passing far too young. From the excellent 2018 vintage, the wine spends the best part of two and a half years in a mix of new and older French and American oak hogsheads and puncheons. Deep maroon with a garnet rim, there are gorgeous aromas here. Fully mature but with time ahead of it, the nose gives us notes of aniseed, blackberries, coffee beans, root vegetables, chocolate and cassis. There is a sleek texture, impressive length, a seamless structure and excellent balance, all through to satiny tannins. The intensity is maintained throughout. Enjoy it now or anytime over the next decade. Seriously good value.
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.
