...An unloved Cabernet, from a big bastard company... opened up and danced, like an old couple re-living the night of their lives in a just-lit dance hall on a Saturday. Blow me down. On Facebook at the moment I’m seeing lots of close-up photographs of exotic fungi. This wine didn’t taste like mushrooms, but it had that extra-sense to it, that point between horehound and mint, as if decay could blow a fresh new breath and be vital again. Pouring a glass was like the dawn of a new age, where the old tasted new; tobacco leaves from so long ago, smoked in oak and cured in blackcurrant and alcohol, had transformed into something only possible with the passing of time and the obliteration of prejudice… I can’t see the empty bottle of Mildara Cabernet Sauvignon 2004, which sits on my desk and will do for some time. It’s a reminder, of sorts. They tell you a lot of things. But beauty is rarely the hell where they tell you it is.

94 points, Wine Front, June 2018