La Kooki Las Piedras Tempranillo 2020

Another riff on the use of stones – Las Piedras means stones in Spanish – with stones this time being used to top barrels and keep them full. Team Jarvis/Goodall is on a roll. Don’t think it has all that much to do with the stones, but Las Piedras definitely rocks! A blend of Tempranillo (98%) with 2% of Cabernet Sauvignon (clearly, it’s important to the big picture and hails from Margaret River), this feisty, joyous, delicious red is sourced predominantly from the Geographe region. It doesn’t get more lively, more punchy than this, with spice, black fruits, liquorice and earth; all the good things we love to see in the Tempranillo grape. It boasts an invigorating presence and is delicious; a glad to be alive kind of wine.

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