2021 Paul Hobbs Cabernet Sauvignon Nathan Coombs

Decanter 100 – “Paul Hobbs’ 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from their Nathan Coombs Estate was hand-sorted while still cold from night-harvesting, fermented in small, closed-top, stainless steel tanks with native yeasts, cold soaked for five days and macerated for 30 days with gentle pump-overs and délestage, aged 20 months in 96% new French oak barrels, including Darnajou, Taransaud, Boutes, Leroi, Baron, La Grange, Marchive, and Vicard coopers and bottled unfined and unfiltered. This is an immaculate wine. It is positively brimming with incredible upfront drinking appeal, but this is a wine you could lay down for a generation. It’s a masterful creation, imbued with tension, density, ironstone, and black rock minerality so prominent that you taste pulverised igneous and metamorphic rocks in powder form. The mineral component is just remarkable. Medium-bodied with beautifully pure black cherry and blackberry fruits, black olive, and liquorice, underscored by such precision-focused tannins that the textural feel is so delicate, pixelated, and silky, the wine glides over the palate with ease. An undercurrent of expressive acidity keeps everything light and refreshing, and nuances of tobacco, brown baking spices, salty dark chocolate, and cedarwood layer in a tapestry of flavors that will meld together over the years to form a wine so pleasing it might simply be overwhelming. (Drink between 2024-2050)”

James Suckling 99 – “Wow. The aromas are so precise with blackcurrant and ink notes. Perfumed. Seashell. Brine. Subtle and complex. Full-bodied but not heavy with a texture that caresses every inch of your palate. It’s just so beautiful in a curated way. The length is endless, and the alcohol is all in balance. What a wonderful bottle. Try after 2028.”