Hare’s Chase Cellar Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

A 100% cabernet from the Marananga sub-region, and a single vineyard with 30-year-old vines. Fermentation was in 5 tonne open top fermenters, with pumpovers twice daily, after which the wine was basket-pressed to a mix of French and American 300-litre hogsheads (half new, half seasoned) for 16 months. 

Barossa cabernet rarely gets the love and respect it deserves (think of Penfold’s Kalimna Block 42 as an example of just how stunning it can be), but wines like this should slowly make enough of an impression to alter that, in time. 

A deep, dark red. There are notes of chocolate and dry herbs, together with a hint of capsicum. Spices. This is a classic warm climate cabernet. There are attractive, though mostly upfront, flavours and if one were to level a criticism, it does fade slightly on the finish. But I suspect that most consumers are drinking a wine such as this for the pleasure of the flavours, rather than seeking technically correct structure. Towards the finish, some juicy dark fruit notes and a hint of liquorce. Pleasing drinking over the next 3-4 years. 

Ken Gargett

Contributor at Winepilot

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.

Wine writer and critic