Leconfield Coonawarra The Sydney Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
- 95
- $115
- Drink by: 2023-2035
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‘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.
Nicole loves wine. So much so that she gave up a successful career in Pharmacy, perfected her spitting technique, and moved from sunny Queensland to the wine-drenched laneways of Melbourne. Stints in hospitality, wineries, retail, sales and marketing filled the next few years while Nicole built her knowledge and searched for the right path. She completed the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Diploma in 2016 and became a certified WSET Educator the following year. She now juggles a number of roles including teaching people about wine, curating wines lists for restaurants and bars, judging in Australian wine shows and, of course, writing. In 2016 she won the Negociants Working With Wine writing award and has since contributed to Gourmet Traveller WINE, Halliday Wine Companion Magazine and Nourish Magazine.
