2019 Craiglee Cabernet Sauvignon, Sunbury

Still very much in its infancy, this feels cool with mint infusing the cassis and blackberries, wafts of tar and cedary oak. Ripe tannins and perky acidity work across a more medium-bodied palate where it is juicy and enticing. Allow more time for this to settle. It will. It’s good.

92 points Jane Faulkner winecompanion.com.au

It’s telling that Craiglee cabernet sauvignon has never been reviewed on WineFront before. Vigneron Pat Carmody is one of a kind, a bloody legend in the greatest Australian sense, and, of course he says as a dyed in wool shiraz man… “I overlook cabernet as well. Shiraz is my priority. About a hectare of cabernet exists at Craiglee. It’s the last variety pruned each year and my wife says every year, ‘what are we doing here, cut it out and we will finish earlier’. After all the years I don’t really understand it but hope to get fruit flavour and savoury characters. I taste shiraz at any time on the vine and can say what it will do at any point in the growing season and know what it will do as a finished wine, but with cabernet  nah, I have no idea. More the point, I sort of don’t really care to”. There is only one Pat Carmody."