Plantagenet Great Southern Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
I’ve had a long history with Plantagenet Cabernet – the first vintage I bought would have been the ’93, but it was the ’94 that cemented the friendship. A classic wine.
Slightly worrying level of reduction and stink on opening, but given a damn good airing it came up trumps. Black fruit, liquorice, olives, mint and twigs with fine oak in support. Full bodied and of ample proportions with equally generous levels of flavour – a bit of cassis richness coming through with time. Like the tannins – fine grained, shapely and grippy giving the wine a good framework on which to hang its fruit. Sustained savoury olive tinged finish. Took a while, but won me over convincingly by full time. Drink : 2013 - 2018+ 93 points Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
Densely structured and closed at present, but shows promise. “Blackcurrant and redcurrant aromas, herb garden and cedar”, wrote Caillard. “Chalky, al dente tannins, but good underlying cedary nuances.” I found the wine classically cabernet in structure. The flavours are very ripe and there’s a hint of chocolate. The wine needs at least a couple of years in bottle and should continue to develop well. Australian Gourmet Traveller Wine, 1/7/2011, p. 68
If you choose to drink this wine now, make sure you give it a couple of hours breathing. It’s a tightly wound wine which needs time to open up and reveal its varietal aromas and flavours. There’s a very fine tannin backbone which carries the fruit and cedary oak to a long, satisfying finish. Keep at least five years. Writer: Winewise, Vol. 27, No. 2, June 2011
The nose of this wine simply screams cabernet sauvignon. It's fragrant, hinting also at leaf and capsicum, but not excessively so. The tannins are gloriously fine, and the flavours runs long. Highly recommended. Writer: WineWise Magazine, Volume 26, February 2011
VINEYARDS
Fruit is sourced from our Wyjup and Bouverie vineyards planted from 1968-70 around Mount Barker in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The vines grow in ancient, free draining, gravel loams upon sun drenched north facing slopes. Our ever improving Rocky Horror vineyard, planted in the mid 90’s is also now a major contributor to the blend and grows on an even more gravelly soil and similar northerly aspect.
VINTAGE COMMENTS
A promising start to the season with useful rains and mild conditions from spring to early summer allowed for vigorous vine growth. With dry, mild conditions prevailing January to end of February, flavours intensified nicely in a relatively disease and pestilence free environment. Apart from a handful of very hot days around Christmas, mild to warm days were the norm during veraison with the odd chilly day scattered throughout the growing season. Fruit ripened steadily but surely under the ideal conditions, resulting in flavoursome, lively wines with well defined varietal flavours.
The Wyjup Cabernet blocks were harvested on the 30th March between 24.1 and 25.5 brix of sugar and acidity between 5.5 and 6.0 g/L. Bouverie was harvested the day before at 23.3 brix and 6.2 g/L acid and Rocky Horror was harvested on the 25th March at 25.3 brix and 5.3 g/L acid. Respective yields were a very miserly 2.5, 2.7and 4.4 tonne / hectare.
WINEMAKING
We endeavour through meticulous viticulture and wine production, sympathetic to the prevailing vintage conditions, to produce a Cabernet that will express the characters of the grape in harmony with the qualities of the place. Winemaking is geared toward producing a wine that is harmonious, complex and most importantly drinkable by fermenting with gentle maceration and some long skin contact time, but by and by a largely hands off approach, and of course a moderate use of quality, fine grained French oak. Small amounts of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Malbec were also used this year to provide roundness and complexity.
