Nannup Estate Rolling Hills Cabernet Sauvignon 2019

Nannup Estate’s home is in the emerging Blackwood Valley region of Western Australia. Like its neighbour to the west, Margaret River, the Valley looks to the Cabernet grape for one of its signature wines. If Rolling Hills ’19 Cabernet is anything to go by, the Valley style is firm in tannin and requiring of patience before it starts to hit its straps. All the ingredients are here from arresting fruit – blackcurrant, blueberry, redcurrant – to lively oak-derived spice and varietally-strong leafy, herbal notes. As it opens up, there is a little more give, a glimpse of enlivening anise, cedar and sweet black berries. But it’s just a glimpse at this stage. Taut tannins keep everything in their place and then some, giving the wine great line and length, but the overall effect remains one of restraint. Give it time.

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