I was lucky enough to attend a Coonawarra tasting put on by Coonawarra.org...Great event with large tasting glasses...It was $30 which is pretty fair although probably on the steeper side for tastings in Sydney.
Overall, Coonawarra had some very nice Cabernet Sauvignons...most of them were consistently good...but I will say the region itself seemed to have a very similar style to them....which I guess on one hand is good....on the other, you start looking for things that are different...
Highlights....I really like Katnook's Cab, great fruit, fairly tannic but felt right..Great cab...Their special Barrel selection was really good as well...Oddly enough, I wasn't as happy with their high end wines which are the Prodigy and Odyssey....To me they were big fruit, low tannin, basically made for the US type of wine...Good here and there and probably good for people that aren't into wine...but it felt like something was missing..
Kidman wines...This one surprised me..both the Cab and Shiraz were both pretty good...and for 20 or less? Probably one of the best QPRs at the show...
Raidis. All of their stuff tasted like it should....Actually, I can say that for most of the stuff at this show but Raidis in particular...Pretty good Sav Blanc, really solid Riesling and a surprising Cab. Actually, their Cab was the most surprising because it was definitely a cab but had fairly high acid which was quite nice. Especially since this was in the later half of my time there, it was actually very enjoyable. Not too tannic which wasn't typical at this show but definitely a great drink me now type of Cab and I imagine it would be great with food....would be interested to see how this one develops.....At 21 for the Cab and 14 for the Riesling, these were also great QPR wines...
Lowlights: really nothing...most of the stuff here was pretty solid and I'm really glad they put on this show...Got to try a few things from Coonawarra I might not have had a chance to try (which is the whole point). I will say, Wynn's had a couple of disappointments....their green label cab was blah...Their black label cab was ok...the rest was pretty good. VA Lane was good....I think on its own I probably would've though their standard black label cab would be pretty decent..but it was just up against a lot of really good Cabs which is a pretty good testament to the entire region...
