Pirramimma Basket Weave Ironstone Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
- 94
- $70
- Drink by: 2021-2031
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This is the first vintage of this wine from the team – a great start – using Cabernet from the Reynell Clone from their ‘Orchard Block’, planted back in 1967. The Basket Weave vines are also fifty years old. 25% was fermented in new French oak with the rest in three to four-year-old barriques. The wine was in oak for 26 months, although it has sucked this up and the integration is impressive. There really is a lot to like here.
Near black in colour, more evidence of just how special the 2018 vintage was in McLaren Vale. Aromas include licorice, chocolate, soy, black fruits, aniseed, tobacco leaf, bell pepper and beef stock. The wine is finely balanced, with good length and velvety tannins. On the palate, flavours of black cherries emerge. There is a flick of acidity which keeps the wine fresh and alive and helps carry the flavours. What really appeals here is that there is more elegance than in many McLaren Vale reds, though everything is relative. A good decade ahead if you want.
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.
