Kilikanoon Ashton 1920 Mataro 2021

The attraction of old vines can be hard to pin down, sometimes you just need to drink it all in, literally. Planted in 1920, these centenarian vines – one year older and they would qualify for ancestor vine classification! – contribute a delightfully understated quality. No showing off here, it’s more a case of good depth and concentration of fruit and a confident balance right across the board. Plum, blueberry, bramble, chocolate, sage and liquorice aromas are lifted and complex. There is a lot of flavour here, it’s quite deceptive, with a strong and lingering thread of blackstrap liquorice and spice running the length of the wine with ripe, sweet fruit in tow and dried herbs. Fine tannins help define shape and structure, together with integrated oak. Together, the effect is a delight.

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