Eight at the Gate Cabernet Sauvignon 2022
$30, 14% alcohol, screwcap, Wrattonbully.
This is a genuinely good cabernet. It’s well fruited and well balanced, which is most of the battle won, but structurally it’s textbook, aromatically it’s enticing and it finishes with good persistence. It tastes of blackcurrant, bay leaves, olives and redder berry characters and everything it does, it does well. 93 points.
Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.
Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.
