Hewitson Old Garden Vineyard Mourvèdre 2020

A rare wine, a rare tasting experience, one that brings the flavours of the soil and the grape together with the emotional connection that comes with drinking wine off the oldest Mourvèdre vineyard in the world. The vines were planted in 1853 on soils that comprise sand over limestone and see no irrigation. This is classic Barossa Mourvèdre (aka mataro): medium bodied, silky textured, red and black fruits flowing alongside a riot of spice, chocolate, clove, pepper and licorice. Fills the mouth and the senses with a seemingly youthful intensity, robust tannins and then you come across a sub-strain of savouriness, followed by chocolate, woodsy spiced oak. It sends the senses wild. What a generous, flavourful, surprising, mouthful.

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