Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2023

Almost, but not a completely solo Cabernet Franc. It is joined by 8% Shiraz, presumably to bring a little more breadth and width across the middle palate. Either way, the two varieties like each other’s company and together they produce a wine that can easily pull up a chair at the dinner table and match a range of proteins. The scent of Cab Franc is quite seductive: rose, rosehip, cinnamon, pepper, jalapeño and leaf with black cherry and plum. Sinewy tannins hold the fresh youngster in place rolling through and across the palate in plenty of ripe black fruit and spice with just a touch of savoury, roast meat juices. Good concentration here and with mid-term cellaring it will become a little more fully formed.

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