The 1982 Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon is also included in The Australian Ark ’s Canon of Australian Wine. 1982 Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon Coonawarra – South Australia 5 Deep crimson. Pure blackcurrant pastille, dark chocolate/praline, roasted chestnut aromas with herb garden sage notes. Beautifully concentrated, inky deep, and chocolaty with ample cassis, dark chocolate, espresso flavours, plentiful fine-grained tannins, superb mid-palate richness, and underlying cedar notes. Glorious and complete. When I saw the 1984 Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Hermitage being poured, I almost fell off my chair! While studying at Roseworthy Agricultural College, I worked as a cellar rat at Brokenwood in the Hunter Valley. For around 10 weeks, I lived and worked at the winery, renowned for its weekends of revelry. Looking back at the experience, I was steered into a direction that would eventually place me where I am today, but not without the snakes and ladders of life. Iain Riggs AM, who is now retired from Brokenwood, professionalised winemaking and established Brokenwood as a big Hunter Valley name. The winery was founded by lawyers James Halliday AM, John Beeston, and Tony Albert in the late 1970s. The partnership expanded, but James Halliday left around 1984 to pursue his dreams in the Yarra Valley. Recently, I was with Iain Riggs, in Macau, judging at the Wynn Signature Chinese Wine Awards. If I had known that this dinner was going to be so extra special, Iain would have been with us. When tasting the 1984 Graveyard Hermitage, all the memories flowed back: running through spider webs between vineyard rows, tractors getting bogged, picking grapes, stomping ferments, shovelling out grape skins, the cricket match against Rothbury, early morning bacon and egg rolls, and ‘seeing’ so many great vintages. What a life! I am completely into this. When I told Iain Riggs that we had opened a bottle of 1984 Graveyard Vineyard Hermitage, he assumed that it would be stuffed, as was mostly his experience. But it wasn’t! While it was well developed, the wine still had freshness and vitality. I think Iain would have been amazed too.
Hong Kong, March 2026
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