- Winery: Primo Estate
- Wine Region: McLaren Vale, South Australia
- Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot
- Vintage: 2024
- Price: $100
- Find it: from the winery direct
- Alcohol content: 14.5%
- You’ll like this if: you’re after a big, bold red with a good story
Body: Full
Mouthfeel: Silky
Taste: Rich, elegant, indulgent
Flavours: Blackcurrant, chocolate, cedar
- Enjoy it with: a special meal
- Food pairings: Slow-cooked beef, a good cheese board, or something dark chocolate for dessert
Wine review: Primo Estate Moda Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2024
Every great wine has a story, and the Primo Estate Moda Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2024 is a good one. Picture it: London, 1984. A young Australian winemaker is on his very first overseas trip, hopping between wine bars trying to taste everything the world has to offer. One night, a sommelier pours him a glass of something completely unfamiliar. It’s an Italian wine called Amarone, made by drying the grapes before crushing them to really pack in the flavour. One sip and he’s absolutely blown away.
Roll forward a few decades, and that same drying technique is now used in McLaren Vale to create the Moda. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes are dried Amarone-style, then crushed into old-school open-topped concrete fermenters. From there, the wine gets 18 months in French and American oak.
Give this one a good swirl, and the aromas practically leap out of the glass. Think juicy blackcurrant, raisin, a little dark chocolate and a hint of cigar box, all wrapped up together in the most inviting way. It smells like the kind of wine that means business, in the best possible sense.
Then you take a sip, and wow. Lush, ripe blueberry rolls in first, hugged by silky dark cocoa, and the whole thing just glides across your palate. It’s smooth, it’s plush, and it has this lovely poise to it that keeps things feeling elegant rather than heavy. The finish is where it really shines, though, settling into a long, gentle fade of cedar oak that lingers beautifully. This is a wine that rewards you for taking your time with it, so pour a glass, get comfortable, and enjoy the ride.
About Primo Estate
Every great bottle has a story behind it, and Primo Estate’s is one of my favourites. It all began in 1953, when an 18-year-old Primo Grilli left Italy’s Le Marche region and landed in South Australia, chasing a new life. In one of those wonderful twists of fate, he met his wife Santina in Adelaide, only to discover they’d grown up less than a kilometre apart back home in Italy. The pair settled in Virginia, just north of Adelaide, with a dream of one day planting their own vineyard. That dream became reality in 1973, a full 20 years after Primo first arrived, and it wasn’t long before the family decided to go all in and build a winery, ready in time for the 1979 vintage.
Primo handed the winemaking reins to his eldest son Joe, who graduated Dux of the Roseworthy winemaking course and wasted no time putting his knowledge to work. Joe brought a spirit of experimentation that was unheard of at the time, from double pruning Cabernet to using botrytis on Riesling, and trialling Amarone and Ripasso style winemaking long before it was trendy. He was also one of the first Australian winemakers to embrace Italian varieties, a curiosity that gave the world Primo Estate’s much-loved Colombard and cemented the winery’s reputation for blending Australian innovation with Italian heritage. Today that story continues with the next generation, with Joe’s children Daniel, Matteo and Elena each finding their own place in the family business, proving that this beautiful blend of Italian romance and Australian ingenuity is far from finished.
Learn more about this wine on their website.
Note: This wine was sent as a sample. I was under no obligation to post about it.