The Levantine Hills Cabernet Sauvignon is a supple Claret-inspired, mid-weighted savoury red. It is embedded with the quintessential Yarra DNA of black currant, leaf, sage and green bean riffs. The tannins, well-tuned and herbal, will escort this elegant Cabernet into a graceful maturity. An effortless drinkability is nicely juxtaposed against a grand design of impeccably ripe fruit and a latticework of structure.
’...the most ambitious wine project in the history of Australia. Period’
- Ned Goodwin MW
Deep, developed tawny/brick-red colour. The bouquet is leafy, forest floor, humus-like and suggests some whole-bunch fermentation. Very complex! It's rich and fleshy, with silky-soft texture and seamless harmony across the palate. There are plenty of tannins but they're so supple they're almost unnoticed. Good concentration, great depth of flavour. The colour is very advanced. This is a very left-field cabernet but utterly delicious to drink.
96 points, The Real Review (February 2020)
Medium to full ruby colour with a tinge of brick-red and little purple. The bouquet is all about fresh-tilled earth, undergrowth, sousbois nuances, the vegetal spectrum of aroma more evident than dark or red fruits. The wine is medium to full-bodied and mellow in its flavours, smooth and fleshy and loaded with abundant tannins. It tastes like a whole-bunch style, unusual in cabernet. And very good.
92 points, The Real Review (March 2020)
Old school Yarra Cabernet in many respects in that it flaunts greenery with classic Cabernet fruit flavour. It has a sweet intensity of blueberry and blackcurrant, spice, cedar and pencil, lemon zest, rosehip, and a fair amount of red capsicum and leaf. It’s quite tangy and nervy, feels a little angular, but has light grip, shape and freshness, and a redcurrant jelly finish of fair length. I wasn’t quite sure at first, but came around to its way of thinking.
93+ points, The Wine Front (February 2020)
Yarra Valley
The Yarra Valley was first planted by the Ryrie brothers who explored a way through the Snowy Mountains to the Yarra Valley, planting grapes in 1838 just three years after the foundation of Melbourne. A wine industry (developed by Swiss Settlers particularly Hubert de Castella and Baron Guillaume de Pury in the 1850s) thrived during the gold rush era and heyday of the 19th century. However, the end of the gold rush brought the wine industry into decline and it was not until the 1970’s that the modern wine industry started up again. The region is probably Australia’s best-known cool-climate area, yet it is really a patchwork of meso-climates. This varied topography creates an incredible set of variables. Vineyards are planted on elevations of 50 to 400m on varying aspects and management programmes. The more exposed sites are subject to severe spring frosts and winds. Overall, the area experiences a relatively high rainfall pattern and is known for its temperature extremes during ripening. Site selection is crucial, with the best vineyards often located where the original vines were once planted, generally on sandy clay loams and gravels. The Yarra Valley is well known for high quality Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Blends with Shiraz increasingly garnering attention. Sparkling wine production is also extremely important, with many of Australia’s finest examples produced in the region.
