Murdock Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2000 (review)

87 points

Dark even colour, nice shine. Fruit driven aromas, brambley with mint. This is a sleek concentrated wine. Plenty of blackcurrant fruit, some nice gylcerol and restrained alcohol. It is very noticeably Coonawarra, but thankfully without over the top mintiness.

Very much a fruit driven wine. Quite lovely and approachable. With a reasonably long life ahead of it.

But if you prefer more serious savoury wine you'd wonder what all the fuss it about. This wine is a darling of the critics, James Halliday recently gave it 97 points. It's made by Peter Bissell the Qantas/Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine winemaker of the year (he makes Balnaves and Parker Estate).

What I like most about it is the restrained alcohol. It's a premium wine, a worthy competitor to the top Western Australian (and Californian) cabernets. A reminder that Coonawarra is one of the serious cabernet regions of the world.

What I don't like about it is the rather simple yet full throttle fruit flavour.

WAIT ON.. I wrote this before I had it with food.

Let me revise somewhat to say it is more old fashioned (eg added acid) and overt fruit than I give the impression (above). Wine critics ! They taste (rather than drink) too much - when they do they find it hard to revise their prior ratings (for many obvious and non-obvious reasons).

Bottom line - I won't buy another bottle. Even for the reduced (now around $35 - odd the price has been coming down in spite of the rave critic reviews) price.