2021 John Riddoch Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Winemakers Sue Hodder and Sarah Pidgeon. Own-rooted vines planted 1969 and 1984, 1,800 vines/ha at 55–60 m elevation. Vintage ‘close to optimal’. Moderate temperatures throughout, with no extreme heat or cold. Hand-picked fruit was sorted and fermented in both open and static fermenters. The top vineyards for the season are selected and then the best barrels from those parcels go into the final blend. Aged for 16 months in French oak barrels of which 48% were hogsheads and 52% were barriques, 31% new oak (balance 1–6 years old). Subtle and layered on the nose. Cool. Dry. No cajoling here but proper expression of grape and place. Very chewy at the moment. (JR)
Critic scores
Average Score
Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate
Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux
More reviews and scores
The 2021 John Riddoch Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon is a brilliant wine. It is achingly intense yet is defined by its levity, which is not a common attribute in Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine expounds the virtues of the red gravel in which the fruit was grown, via its iodine and crushed shells, cassis and blood, sweet marrow and tobacco. It tastes so clearly of the place, which is a wonderful thing. The back palate swells with flavor, framed by the earth and the attuned oak. This is a tribute to the earth, an ode to it. Plentiful tannins bob along on the current of fruit. This will cellar interminably. It's up there in both quality and feel with the 2010, or so I think. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
Deep inky purple, full concentration, gorgeous chalky tannins, this is just such a consistently impressive wine, with stretched out architecture and a real kick of freshness, full of Cabernet Sauvignon cassis that sits on the edge of capsicum and eucalyptus, with rose bud and raspberry leaf, black truffle, espresso, cocoa bean, peppery fleshy plum. Savoury, intense and highly spiced. Great quality, tasted twice, easily one of the best wines of the September Releases.
Full screwcapped bottle 1,460 g. To be offered on the Place de Bordeaux in September 2024. Matured in French oak for 16 months – 48% in hogsheads and the rest in barriques. Made only in exceptional years from what is claimed to be 'less than 1% of the top-quality Cabernet Sauvignon grapes'. Grown on Coonawarra's famous terra rossa. TA 6.9 g/l, pH 3.56. Very dark purplish crimson. Already smells quite well integrated. Strong cassis flavours and evidence of excellent tannin management. Sweet start and then a little dry on the end at present but we are promised a life of 30 years! I was able to compare this with Ridge, Monte Bello 2021 and the latter is definitely more sophisticated and already more complex and deeper-flavoured. But John Riddoch definitely has latent complexity too. And impressive persistence. A bit more rigid at present than the Michael Shiraz 2021. Needs time. (JR)