2020 Moonambel Cabernet Sauvignon

colour

Dark purple with red-black hues.

aroma

Compelling and elegant aromas of cassis, fresh plum and bay leaf roll from the glass, mingling with other classic varietal Cabernet Sauvignon characters like cedar pencil shavings and freshly cut grass.

palate

Intense cassis, sour cherry and savoury dried herbs, with a powder-fine tannin structure that pulls blackcurrant long through the palate. This wine has finesse and elegance. A sensational wine, and as always the Dalwhinnie Cabernets age beautifully.

cellaring

Enjoy over the next three to eight years.

vintage

The 2020 vintage was led by good winter rain. A heatwave during early summer was then followed by very cool, dry conditions, which led to low yields and superbly concentrated fruit across the board.

winemaking

The fruit for this wine was picked from the original contour and front gate vineyards on the Dalwhinnie estate, where fruit then fermented for 14 days in open top fermenters. Once approaching dryness the wine was pressed directly to French oak barriques for a 20 month maturation. Careful barrel selection was carried out to blend this wine before bottling.

region

Pyrenees

variety

Cabernet Sauvignon

analysis

• Alcohol: 14.0%

Filet mignon with Café de Paris butter sauce and steak frites.

Halliday Wine Companion 2024

It's easy enough to list the flavours: spearmint, boysenberry, dark chocolate and pure blackcurrant, but it's the arrangement and more so the flamboyant flourish of them that really impresses. This is Dalwhinnie in dynamic good form. Integrated tannin ripples through the back half of the wine, as do sweet woodsmoke characters, and the finish is full of running and then some.

96

Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front 2024

The region speaks clearly with its spearmint and boysenberry flavours, the latter edging toward blackcurrant, but it’s the integration of the (fine) tannin and the flare of the finish that really seals the deal. This is an excellent Dalwhinnie cabernet. It’s fresh, firm and beautifully sustained, its smoky oak neatly tucked within, its quality clear.

95

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front 2024

The renaissance of Dalwhinnie continues apace.

Blackcurrant and boysenberry, dark chocolate, dried herbs, peppermint tea and dried flower perfume. It’s medium to full-bodied, black olive and tobacco, a lovely sense of decay to the ripe small berried red and black fruits, a sure grip to grainy tannin, and while it maybe carries just a little too much warmth. the generosity of flavour and length stamps it out as a wine of presence and fine character. It’s a very good wine, kind of overtly regional, yet charismatic all the same.

93