Leconfield Coonawarra The Sydney Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

‘The Sydney’ pays tribute to Leconfield’s founder, Sydney Hamilton. This is Leconfield’s flagship, a Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, from fruit planted on the famed terra-rosa soils. Extra care in the vineyard ensures that the fruit selected for this wine supports Sydney’s dream of producing a classic, premium Australian Cabernet Sauvignon. It pours a deeply coloured blood ruby (so rich in colour it offers itself as a prop in a vampire film). There are intensely concentrated aromas of blackberries and black currants. A solid dose of oak in the classic Coonawarra style is well supported by the fruit. Together they yield sweetly scented pouch tobacco complete with the soft leather pouch. 

That fruit again dazzles in the mouth with juicy blackcurrants initially, before that beautiful Coonawarra choc mint reveals itself – the classiest of choc mint – mint leaves as you snap them off at the stem and 80% cocoa dark chocolate. There’s a surprising elegance and restraint on the palate, medium to full bodied but without the weight one might expect given the aromatic concentration; and it carries 14.5% abv gently. With time in the glass, a seductive floral spice appears, light and lifted like a rosewater Persian fairy floss tangoing with an earthy liquorice ice cream. It finishes long and bright with plummy acidity and powder-fine tannins.