|
Wine of the Week Reviewer Sue Courtney on Tahi 2004 and 2005
Click here to read the full review
Hatton Estate Tahi One 2005, a blend of 78% Cabernet Sauvignon and 22% Cabernet Franc is a massively coloured, shiny, purple-tinged black. On the nose at first it seems a little closed but blackberries emerge - concentrated ripe blackberries and brambles over creamy oak, mocha and chocolate biscuits. In the palate it's earthy and dense, young and infantile with rough edged velvety tannins, sweet oak, a purity of red and blackcurrant fruit and rose petals on the finish. It has some lovely complexities in its big, rich, chocolatey, grainy, grunty cloak with a voluptuousness emerging with time. This is a wine of excellent potential. Hatton Estate says this wine is good for 20 years. I can totally believe that.
Hatton Estate Tahi One 2004, a blend of 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 13% Cabernet Franc, is also deep and lustrous in colour. Concentrated berry fruit and sappy French oak on the nose and sweet oak in the palate makes this a big, rich, juicy style on delivery with a liquoricey berry concentration, a dark, savoury, cedary undercurrent, fine grippy tannins and a long succulent finish with a velvety voluptuousness. The dry, grippy, beefy tannins are still immense and with its underlying acidity, this wine is still really too young to broach without decanting.
|