Longview Saturnus Nebbiolo 2019
- 95
- $50
- Drink by: 2022 - 2030
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100% Nebb from the Adelaide Hills, this is right up there with the better examples ever made in this country. A vintage which the team at Longview believe ideally suited this variety, the fruit was hand-harvested from three different blocks and a range of clones. Average vine age is 25 years. Immediately crushed into two-tonne open fermenters, and then left on skins for four weeks, before being transferred to a 2,500 litre Austrian (Stockinger) Botti and 6-year-old French oak puncheons for 18 months. 3,500 bottles. No fining or filtration. A very pale red with a tawny rim, this was beautifully fragrant. Full of spice notes and the aroma of a complex, mature Cohiba Siglo VI (or more prosaically, tobacco leaf). Classic Nebb notes here. This is as good a Nebb as I can recall from the team at Longview. Terrific stuff. Good focus, elegance and yet there is also intensity, impressive length and a silky finish. Really looking good now but has the potential to go even higher in time.
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.
