First Drop Mother's Ruin Cabernet Sauvignon 2019

Description

First Drop Mother’s Ruin Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is a lighter style Cabernet Sauvignon from McLaren Vale, south of Adelaide. 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, Mother’s Ruin is aptly named as it is so delicious! From a region known for intensely flavoured wines with soft, ripe tannins, this wine also benefits from a warm vintage. 2019 saw grapes ripening rapidly and fully. Harvested earlier than usual the ripe Cabernet grapes led to what the producer describes as a red wine “with great intensity and structure”. These qualities were helped also by lower yields and “early tannin maturity.” The tannins are dry but they are ripe and not at all harsh.

Described by First Drop as “an ode to the ‘luncheon claret”, this is a juicy, fresh, lighter style of Cabernet with young black fruit flavours – blackcurrants, blackberris and plums – and less of the secondary and tertiary aromas and flavours that you would expect from a long-aged claret. That’s not to say that First Drop Mother’s Ruin Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is pure fruit juice. It also displays complex notes of baking spices, liquorice, dried herbs, cloves and mint with a hint of minerality on the finish. As with previous vintages, I was torn which category to put this into and opted for the soft fruity red category because of the wine’s lighter body though it could easily have slotted into the smooth, elegant red category. It’s just as the producer says below,…”a well balanced expression of McLaren Vale Cabernet Sauvignon…”

First Drop Mother’s Ruin Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is one for those who don’t like big, beefy Cabernets. You might also like their smooth Shiraz.