Kilikanoon Oath Cabernet 2020
- 94
- $65
- Drink by: 2022-2028
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If wine has the equivalent of a ‘pub test’, and please forgive the obvious irony of that suggestion, it is for me, when friends get in touch, unprompted, and start raving about certain bottles. At the moment, the ‘Oath’ series from Kilikanoon is pretty much top of the list for raving friends, so to speak. This wine comes from selected rows from the estate’s Leasingham Vineyard, overlooking Watervale. Transferred to open fermenters for seven to eight days and pumped over twice daily, the wine is then basket pressed into French oak hogsheads, 5% of which are new, with the rest between two and five years old. Then to barrel for fifteen months maturing, followed by blending and bottling, though no fining or filtration.
Dark maroon in colour, there are aromas of black cherries and blueberries with some cigar box, cedar and chocolate notes. Concentrated and balanced, there is a minerally backing. Good acidity runs the length of the wine and there is serious grip here – firm tannins on a long finish. Some cocoa powder, more chocolate and black fruits emerge on the palate. Lots to like here already, but give it four to six years and there will be even more to like.
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.
