Nose
The bouquet gives up a heady & intense perfume of dark skinned berries & blackcurrants with a touch of bay leaf & cedar.
Palate
Medium-bodied in weight, with cassis & chocolate covered liquorice flavours, reined in by assertive, but ripe tannins, on a smooth palate with length to burn
Growing Conditions
The 2007 vintage was the earliest vintage on record for Margaret River being only 9 months after the challenging & late 2006 vintage. Spring got off to an early start, which brought forward all phenological stages & the warm dry conditions continued through to ripening. We experienced a small heat wave in early March, which caused considerable stress to younger irrigated vineyards but didn’t faze our old dry grown vines. Baume levels spiked during the hot weather, however patience prevailed and baume levels returned back down to manageable levels after a week or so. This extra hang time was vital for proper flavour ripeness in the Cabernet Sauvignon.
Harvest
Hand-picked in small batches from 11 to 29 March between 12.6 - 14.0 Be° at a yield of 5 tonnes / Ha
Winemaking
De-stemmed & chilled into open fermenters with cold soak for up to five days with plunging or pumping over once to twice a day for extraction once fermentation had commenced. 14-30 days on skins depending upon variety. MLF in barrel
Aging
Maturation took place in French barriques of which half were new, for 18 months
Appearance
Medium deep red
Food Pairing
Rib-eye with anchovy butter and roasted cauliflower
