Moss Wood Ribbon Vale Elsa 2020
- 90
- $70
- Drink by: 2021 - 2025
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A wine like this is always a tough one to review. As ever, it must be done as objectively as possible on the undoubted merits of the wine and this is a wine that will have many supporters. That said, this is a love-it-or-hate-it wine – all these ‘worked’ Savvies are. After pressing, the must is settled for two days in stainless steel, then racked to a second tank to commence fermentation with multiple strains of yeast. Halfway through fermentation, the juice is racked into French oak, 6% new. Malo is encouraged. Then racked again, to stainless steel, blended and returned to oak for nine months. There is 10% Semillon included in the blend.
The colour is more green than gold. Quite pungent. There are notes of florals, herbs, chalk and minerals. A mid-weight style, good complexity and length with crunchy acidity. If this is a style you enjoy, then this is a good one.
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.
