Yalumba The Menzies Coonawarra Cabernet 2020
- 95
- $70
- Drink by: 2025-2045
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Famously named after our longest serving Prime Minister, who expressed his admiration for a previous incarnation, the Menzies Vineyard, planted in 1975, sits on terra rossa soil at the heart of Coonawarra. The usual plan is for the wine to spend a year and a half maturing in a mix of French and Hungarian oak, hogsheads and barriques, with a small percentage new. Under cork. A deep red/ maroon colour here, the nose is utterly gorgeous and will delight Cabernet fans immensely. We have cassis, tobacco leaves, a touch of leather and animal skins, mulberries, woodsmoke, chocolate, florals, blackberries and aniseed. This is seamless, has excellent oak integration and good intensity, with a very long finish. Well structured, the balance, intensity and finesse never waver. Satiny tannins are found on the persistent finish. Twelve to twenty years. This is one of the best Menzies I have seen.
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.
