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Saturday, January 21, 2012

A 1998 Australian Cabernet

1998 Veritas Winery Cabernet-Merlot (Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley)
A friend of mine, gave me this in honor of my first novel getting accepted for publication. It's a 70% cabernet sauvignon, 30% merlot blend from Barossa. It’s really interesting in color, a ruby-purple color with clear, glassy rims, a bit of cloudiness around the rims, an opaque purple core. The aromas are just beautiful. Plum compote leads the way, followed by earthiness, just a hint of dill pickle, and some fresh, snappy cassis. There’s a hint of warm pie filling on the end of the nose as well. This wine is wonderfully aromatic, and it evolved a lot over time, getting better and better.


The wine starts off with bouncy red fruit. The tannins are fine and the creaminess of the fruit is delicious.  It tastes like raspberries picked from the side of a dirt road. There’s this creamy, tangy fruit, but also this dusty, loamy aspect. Endless black cherry jam, pure and ripe plums, sweet tobacco, but balanced by these fine tannins. Then there’s a hint of toast on the finish, with some vanilla to accent it.


This is really delicious. It smoothed out more with time, and became like silk on the palate. Time has mellowed this out, because it was probably really dense and fruity upon release. It’s aged well and has five-plus years of maturity at least .


Thanks, Jeremy, for the gift!


92 points

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