A statesman of Yarra Valley red wine. This year composed of 59% cabernet sauvignon, 13% cabernet franc, 12% merlot, 8% malbec and 8% petit verdot. 330 dozen produced, plus 60 magnums. Sealed under screwcap. Meticulously composed. At this early stage the oak is slightly showy but that’s all well and proper; the fruit beneath is superb. It sits at the richer end of medium - bodied, is spicy and pencilly, is fleshed with plums and pure blackcurrant, and carries overtones of black olive and bay leaf pretty much throughout. Tannin is like a fast flicker in the background. Time will bring greater complexity.
Plum, cassis, golden fruit cake, violets, dusty cedar and tobacco, a feathering of spice. Medium bodied,
richly fruited, yet subdued, with silky but densely packed tannin, cool fresh raspberry acidity, distinctly savoury black olive tapanade/tobacco sorts of stuff, and a superb long finish where a rainbow of fruit splashes and cascades down the old neck, then grainy tannin and tobacco brings you gently back down to earth. Supremely stylish, age-worthy Cabernet. 95+ points. Gary Walsh, The Wine Front.
