Nose

Ripe berry fruits with chocolate mint characters typical of Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon.


Palate

Good concentration of ripe sweet berry fruits with impressive mid palate fleshiness. Soft round palate profile with ripe tannin at finish.

Growing Conditions

The vintage of 2019 in Margaret River was particularly challenging logistically and financially but in the most important sense, that is grape quality, it was nonetheless a good vintage.
Margaret River experienced a warm and dry winter, which meant that the vines never deeply entered dormancy as soil temperature stayed reasonably high. This led to early initial budburst in last some varieties. It is never good to burst early as spring in Margaret River can be quite wild with wet and windy conditions which can be devastating during the grapevine flowering period. And so, it proved this season with hail, wind and heavy rain during the critical flowering period leading to low fruit set.
The challenges remained as we entered the summer part of the growing season with several rain episodes and generally mild conditions. This made ripening slow, which is not a bad thing except that we had pressure from the two main pests in grape growing in Margaret River, birds and kangaroos, resulting in extensive damage to the fruit
The accountant would doubtless judge 2019 as a very poor year, but when you toast the vintage with a glass from 2019 you will be grateful that not all decisions are made from a financial basis.

Winemaking

This traditional blend of the two classic grape varieties is designed to produce a wine with a complete palate profile. Cabernet Sauvignon is the structurally strongest variety with good flavour in the early and late part of the taste spectrum backed up by fine tannin. Merlot has less flavour persistence than Cabernet Sauvignon but has wonderful mid palate fleshiness giving a sweet fruit centre to the wine. The grapes were sourced from Margaret River; the premier grape producing region of Western Australia. Fermentation in open topped vessels with traditional pump over cap management produced a wine with loads of fruit flavours and background tannin providing structure without astringency. Maturation in French oak barriques for 10 months adds further complexity and structure without dominating the fruit.

Appearance

Vibrant youthful red hues of good depth.