Howard Park Leston Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
- 95
- $50
- Drink by: 2020 - 2032
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Margaret River Cabernet can be a pleasure palace, intrinsically hedonistic and plush. That’s in the warmer years.
But 2017 was not a warm year but rather was guided by a long, slow ripening period over a mild summer which, for the most part, delivered Cabernets of elegance and longevity. That’s what’s to be celebrated in the Leston 2017 Cabernet.
Winemaker Janice McDonald talks up the influence of the Houghton clone in this wine. Whatever the contributing factors, there’s no denying the wine’s presence. It’s all about the vibrancy of plush black fruits for me, so enticing.
It grabs you, sucks you in, and it’s a sweet ride counterbalanced by dark chocolate, typical Margaret River bay leaf and bramble with light, spicy background oak. Tannins are ripe and smooth.
A wine to savour, as they say, over the years to come. And there will be many.
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.
