(Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot)
- Coonawarra, SA - $43-$70
- Cork
- 14.0%alc
After digging out Petaluma's 2000 Coonawarra from the cellar I thought I'd also try to dig up any old reviews I could find on my bookshelf. (Pre-consumption) It delighted me to read in Langton's Australian Fine Wine Guide 5th Edition the words; "Super wine. 98 points. 2005-2012." The 2000 is a 50/50 blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot aged in new Nevers and Alliers oak for 18 months.
It's still very fragrant and richly perfumed, with a violet-like bouquet of dusty cedar entwined with cassis, redcurrant and dry earth notes. Particularly smooth, its ready-to-drink palate contains good weight and richness through the mid-palate, with an assertive merlot component contributing a pleasing plumpness and leafy/olive aspects to its blackcurrant fruit core. Both tannins and oak have integrated nicely into a more velvety and fruit focused wine, and although it isn't terribly complex, it does present good length of sumptuous flavour with a lingering finish marked by moderate dryness.
ü A very slurpable and good, but not exceptional Coonawarra; the 2000's new oak and tannin have now been enveloped by its fruit, as perhaps more surprisingly its merlot overshadows its cabernet sauvignon. You could hold onto it for a few more years but I don't think it'll accomplish much. Drink to 2012.
93 points
The only petaluma worthy of 98 points is the 1998.
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