Note to Self -> “If your face has been overdosed with Kelvin Klein Obsession wash it before sampling wine”.
The label reads: aged in a French Oak “Cube” a “build it yourself” square oak barrel. I’m not sure why (?) but there would be more oak surface contact than with a traditional barrel.
This is an 80/20 Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. 
The shiraz coming from the Sancerre Estate vines and the Cabernet from Codys vineyard immediately next door which is tended by Brad Allan, so splinting hairs somewhat but you could say it’s all estate fruit. This is a really enjoyable wine sealed under procock and waxed. It has a deep dark centre and a glowing rose garden meniscal lustre. Please respect this wine, 2018 was a very good Granite Belt vintage, don’t rush – a prolonged mutual greeting offers bilateral rewards.
A deeply fragrant bouquet connotative across dimensions of berries, red and black fruits, earth, spice and oak is the wines gestural appreciation of being allowed to breathe long and your sensual reward for respectful patience. Likewise the reciprocal relationship allows a presentation to your palate of powerful and mouth coating early swells of red berries and red cherries floating in a reasonably smooth acid tannic current with swirls of oak, black pepper, some eddies of black plums and deeper currents of minerals and earth. The finish has good length and just a slightness, perhaps a politeness, of tannic tonic – nothing especially drying and frolicking here, just a beautifully judged civil offering. The wine is a sincere collocation of power and servility, just a lovely respectful mutuality, a genuine point of difference to many other Granite Belt reds. Get some and develop your own affinity with the wine and with Brad and Stacey Allan from Sancerre Estate.
Tasted: Saturday 12th December, 2020 without food and then with over several hours.
Alcohol: 13.9%
Closure: Wax sealed Cork
Price: $35
Suggested Drinking Window: now to 2030
Winemaker: Andrew Scott and Glen Robert
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