This wine gave me the shock of my tasting-note life on May 12th 2005, when Andrew Caillard brought 114 wines from the Langton's Classification pool over to the UK and served them blind. This was my pick of the Cabernets and Cabernet blends (I gave it half a point more than Cullen's Cab-Merlot), yet it was so different to the rest of its peers. In place of the rigid acidity which defaces so many Australian Cabernets, it had a naturalness of articulation which fell across the palate like balm.

The tannins had a real Bordelais briskness to them, too; and the fruit was, happily, just on the cusp of ripeness. What was it? Cabernet from Tasmania: you're kidding! Chatting to Paul Hopkins from Domaine A on May 19th 2007, I discovered a little more — the longest sunshine hours in the country, for example, thanks to the low latitudes, and only 400 mls of rain. On its seventh birthday (picking is usually in May) it was still looking good, though perhaps not with the depth and penetration of fruit I remembered from 2005.