By David Ellis from vintnews.
It’s not often we get to enjoy more than a small tasting glass of a $100 bottle of red, but just this month we shared the full bottle of just such a wine with a mate celebrating a birthday – a Big birthday – and he surprised us even more with the revelation he’d got a second bottle in the cellar for his granddaughter’s 21st in 2030.
Lucky granddaughter, and lucky everyone else who’ll be there for the occasion, for this Katnook Estate Odyssey Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 is up there with the very, very best of them, and winemaker Wayne Stehbens believes it’s only going to get better over the coming 15 to 18 years.
Justifiably proud, Wayne says this wine’s the result of a vintage in Coonawarra that was one of the finest on record, an early, warm, dry and low yielding one that led to fruit of intense aromas, great depth of flavours, and fine tannins. And from all this he selected only the most outstanding parcels of fruit from specific vineyard rows.
A wonderful benchmark Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, this 2010 Odyssey is all about concentrated blackcurrant aromas, mocha oak complexity – some parcels of the fruit were ‘double oaked’ to increase flavour complexity – and dense chocolaty tannins. At $100 enjoy on its own for that special occasion or celebration, or if you are after a food match, think about beef spare ribs braised in a port wine sauce.
One to note: with summer just around the corner, a great drop to think about with seafood, salad and lighter meal options is Verdelho, a wine whose homeland is Portugal – in particular the island of Madeira – and which does exceptionally well in our NSW Hunter Valley.
One particularly good one to look for is a McGuigan Bin Series No. 6000 Verdelho 2014, a wine that’s full-bodied, fruit-driven, refreshing and easy drinking, with lovely fruit salad and lime flavours and a zesty finish.
At $13 it’s a great match with oysters to start, followed by a good smoked trout salad.
