Another successful virtual wine tasting for members tonight! It was a limited ticket event for 8 luscious Aussie Cabs on this cold January evening.
Again, a number of our directors drove around the GTA delivering 8 small tasting bottles to each of the lucky 30 members that signed up within the 48 hours that tickets were available.
Our speaker for the evening was the Certified Sommelier and partner at Vinologie Inc, Anne Popoff. Anne's experience as a consultant for Wine Australia gave us deep insights into Australia's winemaking success and the 8 wines in our blind tasting.
Anne gave us an overview of Australian wines, focusing on Cabernet Sauvignon and what makes them distinctive. We got to hear about the different wine regions for Cabernet Sauvignon, paying particular attention to those represented in our tasting: Barossa, Clare Valley, Coonawarra and Margaret River.
The vintages ranged from a 2002 Elderton Ashmead and 2004 Evans & Tate, to a number of 2010s from Margaret River, to the youngest in our tasting, the 2014 Dog Ridge Most Valuable Player from McLaren Vale.
There was much discussion about whether some of the older wines would have passed their peak performance against the 10-year-old wines in the tasting. These big wines certainly displayed their ripe and aromatic fruit flavours on the nose, and with robust tannins and excellent finishes on the palate. It was an impressive range to kick off our 2021 virtual tastings.
The surprise from the night was just how good the 2002 Elderton and 2004 Evans & Tate The Reserve were for their age! But the youngest stole the show, voted number one by Guest and Group alike.
See the original notice for tasting notes: