First thing I noticed on decanting is the wine smells like a winery at vintage, and that's a pretty complex and very pleasant combination of aromatics. Old barrels, fresh fruit, grape skins and seeds, and the angels share of aging wines wafting around the place.
Note how I didn't mention the aromatics provided by the winemakers and cellar hands, it's probably not good to be downwind of guys working 15 hour days.
Tasting it after the decant and I wasn't so excited, it was a bit flat and almost tart. The label said it was Purple Hands and predominantly Mataro and 2012, plus the aforementioned waftings, clearly something was missing. Air, I think to myself. A few more double decant and some serious sloshing followed by a bit of a rest, for me, not the wine. Yup, I was right, a huge improvement, it just needed waking up. I wish that's all it took for me on a Monday morning.
Medium to full body. Red fruit dominant but this is good ripe picked-fresh-from-the-bush raspberry, a bit of fresh from the tree mulberry too, which is the other way to get purple hands. A bit of meaty savoury character before the peppery finish, supported by firm and very fine tannins, and a dash of mouth watering acid to encourage the next sip.
A very good blend this, and by accounts some tinkering and thinkering went into giving this wine the complexity it has. Best of all it's pretty seamless between the three varieties. Actually that's not the best part, the best part is this continues to improve the longer it's in the glass. The only problem being it's not actually spending all that long in the glass.
Highly Recommended++ and maybe even +.
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