2021 Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon *

The 2021 Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon hails from the Hickinbotham vineyard in Clarendon, in McLaren Vale. It is truly one of the lovely vineyard areas in Australia, with rolling hills, dramatic valleys and a proximity to the ocean. From memory, this vineyard was planted to Houghton clone, or includes some of the Houghton clone selection in it (from Western Australia), and the wine feels structural and velvety at once. You get cassis, raspberry compote, dark chocolate, tobacco, licorice (salted black cats!), cardamom and mulberry off the bush in summer. It's a wonderful wine, pleasurable, complex, poised and rounding out with a delicious delivery of ductile Cabernet tannin. Ripper. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

Deep, dark, brooding colour with a bouquet of pencil shavings and herby notes including tomato-bush, while the palate is very powerful, massive and solid with tannins that coat the mouth and a long carry. Generous oak. Very full bodied and serious wine, although there is a certain tomato/leaf character, which dissipates with time in the glass. A wine that certainly deserves cellaring.

100% Cabernet Sauvignon from three different blocks, a combination of 2002 and 1971 plantings. Destemmed and 60% new oak for 15 months. Tightly woven, savoury and an intriguing ferrous quality on the nose. Not what one would initially expect from Cabernet, but the glass immediately draws you in for more. Yes, there are the classic notes of red plum, blackcurrant, bay leaf, black olive and a hint of Dutch liquorish, an ever so slight medicinal menthol note and toasty oak woven throughout. This works so well – cabernet that walks the stylistic tightrope of modern and old school. There’s a lifted minerality to this wine, and it’s both refreshing and heady at the same time. Sinewy long limbed tannins and an acid line that provides finesse and verve on a muscular frame. This is a tightly knitted, yet supple wine. It’s still a baby, decant if you must drink now or watch it blossom with time. A joy.

A large-framed wine defined by a serendipitous ripening season and skilled craftsmanship. The tannins, impeccably managed and refined. The oak, all sex appeal. The sheer density of currant, sage, black olive, rosemary and thyme, an immaculate forcefield. This is built for the cellar. An Australian wine that tastes, as it always has, as if it was made by an American with a deep comprehension of tannin management.

100% Cabernet Sauvignon from three different blocks, a combination of 2002 and 1971 plantings. Destemmed and 60% new oak for 15 months. Tightly woven, savoury and an intriguing ferrous quality on the nose. Not what one would initially expect from Cabernet, but the glass immediately draws you in for more. Yes, there are the classic notes of red plum, blackcurrant, bay leaf, black olive and a hint of Dutch liquorish, an ever so slight medicinal menthol note and toasty oak woven throughout. This works so well – cabernet that walks the stylistic tightrope of modern and old school. There’s a lifted minerality to this wine, and it’s both refreshing and heady at the same time. Sinewy long limbed tannins and an acid line that provides finesse and verve on a muscular frame. This is a tightly knitted, yet supple wine. It’s still a baby, decant if you must drink now or watch it blossom with time. A joy.

Blueberry, iodine and oyster shell, liquorice, cedar and nougat, some floral notes and dried mint. It’s ripe and sweet fruited, all blackcurrant, boysenberry and blueberry, kind of like a pie with a spicy crust, but also a little ferrous and earthy, with firm ironstone and silty tannin, and a huge volume of flavour, all black olive tapenade and sage and sweet dark fruit on a finish of excellent length. It’s a bold wine, and kind of overt as a youngster, but should turn out well with considerable bottle age.