Wine: Kay Brother’s Basket Pressed
Varietal: Merlot
Vintage: 2012
Region: McLaren Vale
RRP: 25.00
Good evening once again wine lovers. Tonight I am back with the fine folk at Kay Brother’s wines. This time with the troublesome Merlot in hand. As a man who doesn’t rate Merlot, I hope this review does not attack the varietal too much.
Colour: Deep Plum with Plum Hue
Aroma: Semi Rich Blackberry, Beetroot, Bacon, Mocha, and Musk. Not usually the kind of flavours one would associate with this variety. This wine steers itself away from the pungent over sweet board fruit driven Merlot’s and introduces a bit more vegetative and herbaceous elements. This could be due to the small time this wine spent fermenting in New French and American Oak Barrels. It has only spent 10% of the overall fermentation in New Oak, however, this has rounded of some of the overall sweetness that this varietal promotes on the nose. Especially one from a hot vintage year such as 2012. To me, it doesn’t represent the kind of Merlot expected from this vintage, and personally, I credit the winemakers for this as it introduces new dynamics to this wine.
On the palate, this wine displays a medium body of black and red fruit with savoury elements as well. Lashes of black olive and tobacco and beetroot come through, numbing out the blackberry and red cherry fruit that is represented on the forefront of this wine. There are hints of the warmer climate flavours pushing through, traces of mocha and nutmeg, but predominately, this wine showcases cooler climate flavours. There is good acid behind this wine which tails off into traces of red cherry and charcoal to the end. The good level of acidity and tannin in this wine promotes it to be aged.
I was quite surprised, as it really does not fulfil the fruit characteristics of warm climate as 2012 was. And you might think they got it wrong and meant to put 2011 Vintage on the label. It’s not at all ripe with black and red fruits. There is more complexity to this Merlot. As a man whom does not consume too many Merlot’s, this is one that I thought was interesting, and quite complex, and actually tells me as a wine drinker, I actually prefer cooler climate characters of this wine over the hotter climate, which quite strangely is one of the very few wine varietals that does. The only other one I can think of is Pinot Noir which is severely underrated in the Western World where we tend to lean heavily on fruits of the variety, rather than the vegetative elements of the variety.
Is the SA Wine Guy slowly started to become fascinated in the world of Merlot? Interesting…
Drink: Now – 2030
Rating: 94/100
The SA Wine Guy
