John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon, Wynns Coonawarra Estate 2020

The beautifully expressive 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon Wynns John Riddoch radiates with lavender and violets over a deep core of blackberry and gravel. The fine oak is seamlessly balanced. There's a fantastic brightness of flavor with dried herbs, fennel seed and rosemary intertwined with layers of robust dark fruit flavors. A heart backbone of dense tannins is sure to reward the patient for what is a searingly weighty Coonawarra Cabernet.

A lustrous deep crimson. The oak is a little fuzzy and unresolved, but this is a full-weighted wine built to go a considerable distance, despite the cooler, challenging conditions. It seems more gently extracted than usual as a result. The fruit is a bit sweet and the texture rounder. Sourced from just a single block. Mottled blue fruits, black pastille, mulberry, licorice strap and clove, with a fleck of tea tree across the finish. The tannins, gritty, chewy and nicely moreish, although with a cushy approachability. Best to wait. Drinkable now, but best from 2027. Screw cap. -

Bright and clear nose, so fresh and fragrant, smells amazingly inviting with perfumed raspberries, blackcurrants and black cherries with savoury olives, thyme, violets and liquorice. Concentrated yet graceful in terms of the silky smooth texture, the tannins glide across the palate, lifted by mouthwatering acidity but so full of flavour, depth and life. Definitely on the lighter, brighter side, not lean as such but really juicy, forward, energetic and ample, yet not heavy in the slightest. A slight undercurrent of sunshine, but there's such finesse and freshness. Generous and harmonious with focus. Tannins are at the fore, filling the mouth, but soft and plush, velvety with appealing plum, chalky slate and black pepper spice. There is so much to love about this, still youthful, but well worked, charming, lively and extremely drinkable. A joyful and truly elegant wine with soul. Ageing 17 months in French barriques and hogsheads, 23% new, 45% one year old and 32% two years old. Winemakers Sue Hodder and Sarah Pidgeon. 3.5pH. - Georgina Hindle

Intense inky purple in colour, and these tannins are silky smooth. Opens with controlled delivery of juicy black cherry, cassis and damson, with plenty of estate signature, majoring on smoked earth and oyster shell salinity. The longer you sit with it, the more the underlying brightness of the fruit comes through, delivering in spades the blackcurrant pastille that is such a signature of Australian Cab. Cold flowering in Spring meant this was an extremely small crop, down as low as 2 tons per hectare instead of the usual 6, and the 2020 John Riddoch comes from a single vineyard (Child's Vineyard) because of the cooler-than-average season, with extremely old 19th century vines helping achieve this concentration and complexity. 23% new oak, Sue Hodder winemaker.