Nightfall Leo Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
- 95
- $120
- Drink by: 2023-2038
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The Nightfall range might be a recent addition to the ranks of Australian fine wine, but for anyone who enjoys cracking Coonawarra wines, especially great Cabernet, they need to take these very seriously indeed. The packaging will attract many. The pricing may cause pause, but when these wines are tasted, they are going to win a lot of fans.
Dark magenta. This is all chocolate, cassis, fleshy, with smoked meat notes, dry herbs and bay leaves. There is oak but it is so surreptitious that you have to search for it and the balance is immaculate. This is intense on the palate too, but it is a wine which dances. The tannins are so silky that they are effectively invisible, and yet they coat the palate. This is focused, seamless and exhibiting very good length. Fresh and balanced, it is a cracking Coonawarra Cabernet. The Draco might sit as the flagship but for drinking over the next few years, this is the pick. It will go ten to fifteen years and then some.
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.
