2008 MadFish Sideways Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Tasting Notes

A Bordeaux style blend from the classy red varieties of Margaret River. Cabernet Sauvignon is structurally the best variety with trademark blackberry/blackcurrant fruit flavours backed up by long fine tannin.   Merlot has wonderful mid palate fleshiness giving a sweet fruit centre to the wine. Petit Verdot has a very dark colour, firm structure and intense sweet blackberry fruit on the front palate and slightly chalky tannins on the finish.

The 2008 Sideways Cabernet Merlot is an outstanding example of the Margaret River cabernet blend from a great vintage. There are aromas of blackberry, mulberry, smoked meats and roasted cherry tomatoes with the underlying regional bay leaf and black currant Cabernet Sauvignon fruit. The palate shows wonderful Merlot power: layered fruit characters of plum and forest floor with herbal and earthy complexity, a savoury edge to the ripe gravely mouth-filling tannin structure which finishes long and fine. The Petit Verdot adds a subtle but important firmer backbone to the line of the wine.

This wine has the structure to develop more complexity for another five years. A great match with venison and mushroom pie.