Hewitson 1853 Barrel 2021
- 97
- $450
- Drink by: 2024-2044
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The annual blending of the barrels (sounds like an Aussie version of the running with the bulls), the team select their very best barrel of Old Garden Mourvèdre and their very best barrel of Monopole Shiraz and blend them. So production is limited to just two barrels. It is, naturally, a 50/50 split of Shiraz and Mourvèdre with 65% of the grapes from this vintage whole bunch pressed, followed by three weeks on skins, and twenty months in new French oak barriques. Inky maroon, this is a special wine and it very much drinks like it. The oak is still a little evident but for a wine of this size and power, this comes as no surprise and will continue to integrate. Time is very much on its side. Vanillin and nutmeg notes to the fore, the fruit weaves its spell with good concentration and notes of cassis, chocolate, mocha, spices, new leather, black fruits plums and warm earth. Dense, balanced and intense, the wine is fresh and complex, finishing with silky tannins. Such length! A twenty year proposition.
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.
