Select another wine

Koomilya

2016

“CP Block”

Cabernet Sauvignon   |   McLaren Vale - Australia

About

This comes from a block between the JC and DC blocks on Koomilya’s South East facing slope planted by Jill and Don Cant in 1975. Steve and his team have slowly worked the vines back from poor health since he purchased the vineyard in 2012 and it is now one of the few Cabernet Sauvignon blocks in McLaren Vale to be ‘Cane Pruned’. The block is planted to the old McLaren Vale clone; an extremely low-yileding, small bunched and small berry clone that produces extraordinarily complex grapes for this warm Mediterranean climate.

The bunches were hand-harvested on March 12th and the bunches underwent an overnight cold soak. The fruit was destemmed and fermentation carried out naturally in open top wooden fermenters. The juice spent ten days on the skins and the wine was pressed to 500L French oak puncheons with only free run juice being used. Malolactic fermentation carried out in the spring and the wine aged for 19 months in wood. In November 2017, the wine was racked to tank and hit with sulfur prior to being bottled without fining or filtration.

Stats

  • Grapes: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Vineyard: Koomilya Vineyard - CP Block
  • Vine Age: 45-years-old
  • Soil Type: Ironstone ridden gravel
  • Viticulture: Practicing Organic - Regenerative
  • Fermentation: Native – stainless steel (100% destemmed)
  • Skin Contact: 10 days
  • Aging: 19 months in 20% new French puncheons
  • pH: 3.54
  • Total Acidity: 7.5 g/L
  • Total SO2: 28 ppm
  • Total Production: 387 cases

Tasting Note

Classic Aussie red in many ways, but reference that in a more old school way, perhaps. Blackcurrant, licorice, raspberry liqueur, some exotic spice, a minor amount of truffle and polished wood. It’s juicy and supple, tannin is tucked tight into sheets of intense and subtly sweet small berried fruit, there’s a savory sort of umami/nori thing happening too, and the finish is long and slick with ripe tannin. Quiet authority here, and it’s a wine that’s not trying too hard to be anything other than what it is, which, in short, is very bloody good.