Daou Dessert Red 2019

Written By Campbell Mattinson
A bottle of daou vintage port 2019 on a white background.

Daou Dessert Red 2019
21% alcohol, cork, Paso Robles/Adelaida/California.

I only had a brief taste of this but there don’t seem to be too many references to it out there so I made a quick note. It’s made mostly with cabernet and, according to the Daou representative that I was sitting next to at dinner at the winery, “It’s a sweet wine for people who don't usually like sweet wine". It tastes of chocolate cake and woodsmoke, blackberry and a freshening hit of boysenberry. It’s sweet but it has a dry, structural backbone, so characteristic of cabernet-based wines. It’s pretty delicious, all told.

  • Apologies for the bottle images. It’s the only one I could find, and it mightn’t be quite accurate.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of both The Winefront site (the home of Australia’s best wine reviews) and of Mattinson Photography.

Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer since 1987. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson is a storyteller. He is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic, and in all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
Previous

TarraWarra Swallowfield Chardonnay 2024
Next

Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon 1982