A warm vintage in the Clare and looks it here, though the winemaking style doesn’t help. The argument for this sort of extractive, old fashioned and raw style is that it’s what people like to drink. Concentration over polish. But is it really? Surely most would, if presented with the choice, pick a more balanced medium bodied wine over an unbalanced full bodied wine?

Anyway this wine falls into the latter camp – it’s an inky purple beast that is streaked with overripeness, the nose like a minty blackberry reduction sauce, complete with fruit concentrate sweetness and topped off with older oak. The palate follows with sticky, sweet and sour, blackberry fruit richness with cedary oak and raw tannins. A rough and ready, old school red made with extraction and concentration but little in the way of delicacy. 14.8/82