Nose

Ripe berry aromas of great intensity with underlying dusty and earthy characters. There is depth to the nose indicating there are reserves of complex aromas yet to develop. The palate is substantial with intense and fully ripe, fleshy sweet fruit filling the mid palate with great palate extension driven by the ripe and mature tannin. The mouthfeel is robust but the tannins are smooth.

Palate

This is a strong wine with ripe tannin and strong fruit depth indicating it will benefit from careful cellaring. The expectation is that the wine would benefit from 10 years maturation.

Growing Conditions

BLOCK 2 on the Hay Shed Hill vineyard was planted in 1975 to the Houghton clone of Cabernet Sauvignon. These old dry grown vines have sunk deep roots into the gravelly loam soil profile providing the nutrient basis they need. Block 2 has a steep northern facing aspect maximizing the sunlight interception by the vines providing ideal ripening conditions.

What a long, and strange vintage 2017 was. Every vintage is different; lessons learned from the previous year don’t always help the following year.

2017 vintage started late, two to three weeks later than the preceding couple of years. The reason for this was the mild, cool spring weather experienced all across the southern part of the state. During the middle and latter part of March the South-West region including Margaret River experienced a very unusual amount of rain and very cool weather, ripening over this period was very slow. The first suggestions of worry started to appear in growers eyes. Of recent history Margaret River has experienced very dry conditions in March and early April with the season breaking mid to late April, not a problem with all the grapes picked. But this year the concern was that if the season broke in mid April all the red grapes would be still on the vine. However anyone that lived though the late April and early May in the South-West of Western Australia will testify that never had we had a better, warmer early autumn. It was simply perfect; cool crisp mornings and evenings but beautiful warm and sunny days; not too hot, textbook conditions for great ripening especially for the red varieties.

Winemaking

The grapes from Block 2 were de-stemmed into open topped vessels for fermentation on skins with traditional pump over cap management. At the completion of fermentation the wine was left on skins for a further 10 days to maximize the development of the mature tannin.

Aging

Maturation in French oak barriques for 18 months added further complexity and structure without dominating the fruit. The wine was matured in bottle for six months prior to release.

Appearance

Dense dark red to black colour of great intensity.