1994 Chapel Hill The Vicar Cabernet Shiraz

This is a superb wine and a must for anyone with a statistical brain. Winemaker Pamela Dunsford just loves to dish out the details - well here they are! The wine is a blend of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon and 44% Shiraz, produced from 85% McLaren Vale and 15% Coonawarra fruit. It has spent 22 months in 300 litre hogshead, of which 75% were American oak, 25% French oak and 44% new oak. So much for the stats - now for the tasting notes.The nose is magnificent and leaps out of this opaque crimson wine. Cedar, blackberries, ripe plums, vanillin oak and some liquorice over tones. The palate is rich, filled with flavours of blackberries, spice, ripe plums and a trace of dark chocolate, counter pointed by a touch of vanilla and cedar oak influence with a hint of smokiness. Excellent concentration of flavour, great length and persistence, fine grained tannin structure and long spice plum berry aftertaste. An outstanding red, cellar 8 - 10 years.