Stella Bella Cabernet Merlot 2023
- 92
- $29
- Drink by: 2025-2029
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A streamlined, linear Cabernet Merlot that hails from the southern end of Margaret River and offers some pretty sharp value for money. That’s one penetrating aroma, all spearmint, dried herbs, rosemary, jalapeño and baking spices married to the ripest blackberries. What starts off well-structured and a little closed doesn’t take too long to open up. After a few swishes of air, it’s more upfront with a middle palate of sweet ripe fruits in blackberry and dark plum, black cherry bright with graphite, pencil lead oak. This is one Cabernet Merlot fully dedicated to black fruits, dried herbs and an earthiness that speaks of the region’s Aussie bush environment. Tannins are well-built, ensuring more time in bottle should you wish.
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.
