Nose

The Cabernet Franc looks exceptionally
bright and vibrant, with a very lifted bouquet of blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries
and lots of floral characters and perfume.

Palate

With its juicy fruit, a hint of olive tapenade,
the supple yet firm tannins and a seductive finish this wine is drinking beautifully now.

Growing Conditions

Early winter chilling with above average rainfall and full soil moisture provided
excellent conditions for complete vine dormancy and an even budburst with steady
uniform vine growth. Even warm temperatures and south easterly breezes introduced
the summer weather pattern in early December, setting the vines up for the allimportant
ripening period. With only 11.5mm of rain falling over December, January
and February, it was one of the best and driest preludes to vintage in Margaret River
and consequently harvest commenced earlier than most years. The whites were
harvested over February with the reds following and continuing into March. Overall the
2014 vintage was warm and dry with cool evenings enabling the fruit to ripen
consistently and retain excellent natural acidity and freshness. Baumés at harvest were
generally lower than in previous years with the fruit displaying bright and vibrant
flavours with great varietal expression.

Winemaking

The unirrigated vines were planted in
1999 on a small ridge with the soil comprising of gravelly loam with a clay subsoil
peppered with quartz crystals leading down to decomposed granite and a granite
bedrock. The vines are planted in a North South row orientation allowing for optimal
sunlight and ripening time. The vines are cane pruned each year by Chris to ensure that
the vine and crops are balanced. Green harvesting is not employed as this is simply a
correction of an unbalanced canopy, something that is not an issue when the vines are
pruned correctly. The fruit was handpicked on different dates from three blocks that
were all planted in 1999. The berries were sorted, crushed and destemmed, and then
inoculated for fermentation in 1000 litre open fermenters, which were regularly and
manually plunged. The wine was gently pressed off using our traditional hand-operated
basket press, and then racked to French barriques for 15 months of maturation prior to
bottling, which occurred in September 2017.

Aging

Cellaring for up to 10 years.