2021 Koomilya Cabernet Touriga, McLaren Vale

75/25% cabernet sauvignon/touriga nacional. There’s something agreeably old school about this, but it’s also clearly the product of a refined approach, in both vineyard and winery. When I say old school, I’m going back much further than what we generally regard as such. It feels bygone, in a very good way. Oak performs a function, but it doesn’t headline, fruit is ripe but not pushed. Plush blue and red florals, liqueur cherry, dark chocolate, toasted malt, licorice, caraway, so much iodine and kelp, like wintery sea-lashed rocks, a fresh blueberry levity, lavender and ground fresh rosemary, a cabernet leafiness levelling. Complex, layered and abundant, but savoury with it. What a lovely bottle this is.

97 points Special Value Marcus Ellis winecompanion.com.au

Raspberry leaf, pink jelly crystals, split red wood, star anise and black currants are matched by an oyster shell texture that builds and builds again before a glossy crescendo, and a wall of fruit that slowly disassembles and forces you to swallow.

Upon purchasing the vineyard in 2012 Steve Pannell saw it as an ideal place to create blends that included grape varieties that he believes will see McLaren Vale into the future, and further, complement the traditional varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

Steve grafted two contoured and terraced blocks on deep red soil closest to the scrub at the top of the south-facing slope to Touriga Nacional with the intention of blending with Tempranillo, Graciano and Mataro. Blending with Cabernet Sauvignon was never planned, but as fate would have it, there is a magic between the two varieties that can’t be ignored.