96 Ned Goodwin, 95 Huon Hooke, 92 Nick Stock, 92 Joe Czerwinski…”as good as any merlot on these shores”
If there’s a merlot to convince you that it’s a variety worth buying, then the Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard ’The Revivalist’ is the wine to do it. The variety’s image was tarnished by “Sideways” but these are no ordinary bottle-shop merlots, rather they are hand-crafted wines made by Chris Carpenter of Lokoya and Cardinale fame. When people “turn up their nose’ at merlot as a variety, he reminds them that one of the greatest wines in the world is a merlot – Petrus. I’m a big fan of this variety when made by Chris, which also includes the Napa Valley merlots of La Jota and Mt Brave. Chris travels to Australia specifically to make three wines at Hickinbotham, namely The Peake cabernet shiraz, Trueman cabernet and The Revivalist merlot. Always a few in my cellar.
You might also like to try:
2016 – $92 – 14 btls in SG – 95 Jane Faulkner (HA)
2018 – $97 – 11 btls in SG – 97 Campbell Mattinson (HA)
