The Double Barrel range has been a giant success for Jacobs Creek, with the wines proving yet again that rich flavours will wine over drinkers of any persuasion. Sweetness sells, baby! However, there is more to this Jacobs Creek Double Barrel Shiraz Cabernet Rum 2021 than just the cocoa-y richness of heavy toast barrels – and therein lies the Jacobs Creek genius.
This brand-new release sees South Australian Shiraz Cabernet juice fermented first in traditional French and American oak before a second maturation in Caribbean rum barrels. Understandably, it’s an oak-drawn red – there’s this line of caramel fudge and hard caramel through the grainy textured palate that is the defining flavour. Flavour! There’s shitloads here. Plenty of dark fruit, and the oak makes it savoury through the finish, even if the coffeed, grainy tannins are blocky and distracting. It’s a structural oak, too, which means more oak tannin layers, and will ensure this lives and lives (a bit like one of those inexpensive, long-barrel-aged Rioja).
Do you know why else this will work? It’s a lot of wine for $25! A hearty, chocolatey, evocatively named red that makes everyone think of the smell of oak and rum, all at a fair price. It’s not my drink, but I dip my lid at the style.
- Best drinking: now to ten years
- Score (out of 20): 16.8
- Score (out of 100): 89
- Alcohol %: 14.5
- RRP (in $AUD): 25
- Winery website: https://www.jacobscreek.com/
- Would I buy it?: probably not. But plenty will
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