A blend of 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot. A wine of pedigree and it’s in excellent form with this release. Matured in tight-grain French oak, half new, for 18 months. “We don’t have a problem with you noticing the oak but we don’t want the oak to dominate,” explains winemaker Travis Lemm. Mission accomplished.
Cedar and cocoa, violets and blackberries, mulberry and raspberry with regional notes of bay leaf and roasted bell peppers. The density is lit up by well pitched acidity and moulded by long, tactile tannin. Terrific fruit quality, outstanding architecture. Should make old bones. 94
Region: Margaret River
Alcohol: 14.0%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $70
Tasted: August 2013
$70 — aieee! Memories of the 90′s despoil my enthusiasm. And why the paucity of Merlot? Overripe? Hardly worth mentioning! A nominal Bordeaux blend as such. There is some element of humbug inherent in my cynicism, of course, as it’s still one of my favourites, damn it all.
Ha, I did have a chuckle when I read the percentage of Merlot in the mix
And yes, the old price creep. $10 up I believe. Still, cheaper than Bordeaux…
Its a wine that always happily sits alongside Moss Wood, Cullen, Woodlands etc in the quality stakes, yet all those are north of $100. So the price is very reasonable.
People forget that this wine through the early to mid ’90s was made to far more commercial standards (albeit bloody good), not a world above today’s Girt By Sea. The enormous quality uplift, attention, investment in time and money on this label’s quality and overall repositioning is more responsible for the contemporary price than any inflationary reason. The fact that it sits among the Margaret River elite is testament to that.
That, and the 98 and 99 are fangingly bretty wines.
I must admit I wasn’t even drinking it in the 90s. But I don’t really have an issue with the price now. The quality is there and I’m sure someone will mark it down.