Geoff Merrill Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
- 95
- $50
- Drink by: 2026-2038
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This is very good buying. Warm climate Cabernet just shouldn’t be this thrilling, although Coonawarra does play a significant role. The team undertake a thorough blind tasting of their best barrels of Cabernet from both Coonawarra and McLaren Vale for selection for this wine. The final blend for this vintage was 56% Coonawarra and 44% McLaren Vale. The wine then spent 30 months in a mix of new French and American oak hogsheads. At this price, it is definitely worth buying some. Opaque maroon in colour, this is bold, balanced, focused and offering excellent length. The aromas weave through notes of chocolate, cassis, blackberries, flesh, mocha and cigar box hints. There is plenty of oak, but it is well integrated. On the persistent finish, we have sleek tannins. The palate does see the emergence of notes of warm earth and aniseed. No reason why this wine doesn’t have another ten or twelve years ahead of it.
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.
