UMAMU Estate MacAnn Cabernets 2019
- 94
- $48
- Drink by: 2024-2034
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The wine is named as a tribute to the estate’s founders, Mac and Ann. It is a Bordeaux blend style with a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, with the vineyards planted in 1997. Fermentation takes place in a combination of open and closed tanks. The wine is pressed off, after twelve to eighteen days of skin contact, and then spends a year and a half maturing in French oak, one-third new, mostly from the Allier forests in France. Dark magenta hue here, the wine is concentrated, intense and powerful. Brooding and coiled, if you like. The nose gives us dark berries, bay leaves, mocha, blackcurrants, chocolate, cigar boxes, warm earth and leather. The oak is evident but well handled and does not intrude. It is showing some early complexity with mouth filling tannins, good acidity and excellent length. This is still very youthful, with at least a decade ahead of it.
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.
