Nose
The nose shows lifted aromas of blackcurrant and hints of dark chocolate.
Palate
The palate is rich and smoothly textured, yet displays youthfulness and vibrancy. The ripe fruit of the Cabernet Sauvignon provides richness and flavour, while the Sangiovese provides youthfulness, aromatics and overall acid to the blend. The Cabernet also contributes classic layers of plums, and a touch of clove thanks to the French oak portion whilst the Sangiovese maintains spiciness from the Hungarian oak. This wine has a little more complexity mid-palate and a rich texture, which shows off wonderful fruit and well-integrated tannins.
Growing Conditions
Lucky for us, the 2021 vintage came in behind a ripper growing season the previous year. The mild spring in 2020 made for great condition and a solid foundation for vintage 2021. In general, budburst and flowering was fairly normal, yields were slightly better than 2020 but still lower than average on the whole, and Marri tree blossom was around, which helped reduce the bird pressure. The unlucky part of vintage 2021 was the weather systems that resulted from La Niña and labour shortages due to Covid.
Weatherwise, the long-lasting cyclone season in the north west translated to increased rainfall in the south west – specifically in November, then again in February through to April. Fortunately, December and January were dry and warmer than normal months which allowed for some early ripening which raised hopes of an ‘easy’ vintage – that was until a combination of tropical lows and came in in late January and soaked the south west in February. As far as cyclones go, there were four names that will be embedded in the minds of viticulturalists – Joshua, Lucas, Marian and Seroja. Joshua started the rain dance in late January and Seroja finished the dance party in April.
The rainfall however was a pro and a con, it soaked deep into the soils and was great for later ripening varietals – particularly in our dry grown vineyards, however the warm weather combined with high humidity increased the risk of botrytis disease pressure. Fortunately, our model of spending more time in the vineyard than the winery paid off, with the extra attention given to canopy structure early on in the vintage. The effort put to shoot thinning, fruit dropping and leaf plucking was rewarded in good clean fruit.
Harvest
Our general take on vintage 2021 was that although it was challenging and exhausting in the vineyards, the effort paid off with clean fruit harvested. The Sangiovese comes from a vineyard within the Wilyabrup subregion and was hand harvested mid March to retain that natural acidity and brightness. The Cabernet Sauvignon was hand harvested from our vineyard that we naturally farm in the Wallcliffe subregion a little bit later in April to ensure it had time to develop tannin ripeness and flavour. The Cabernet Franc and Malbec came from vineyards in the Treeton sub-region and was harvested at the end of March, the same time that a small parcel of Merlot was also harvested from a vineyard in Wilyabrup. All parcels of fruit were carefully harvested a little later than normal to remain longer on vine to achieve measurable softening and ripening of tannins in cooler and wetter vintage conditions.
