Illimis Cinsault 2017

HANSCORE: 20/25
👃🏼 A delightfully large Omar Shariff-esque nose of red cherry, plum, pot pourri… with a hint of banana thing going on. Also herbal spice, black pepper, and finally some Pinot Noir-esque savoury leather dried leaves.
👄 Palate carries superbly clear-cut cherry acidity, rocket leaf pepper spice, blood orange acidity, and fine-but-oh-present tannins on the tail. It’s clean, juicy, fresh…and layered enough to be serious.
🔬 The fruit is taken from 45-year-old bush vines from Darling, after which is it fermented under carbonic maceration conditions (fermented as whole berries in an oxygen-starved sealed tank) and then matured in very old 225-litre and 500-litre barrels.
🧠 Older oak doesn’t have as many soluble compounds, like vanillin, that can leach into the wine, so you don’t get that strong sense of oaky vanilla or tannin to the wine), but you still get that slow controlled oxidative ageing process.
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