2018 Mystery Wrattonbully Cabernet Blend Deal No. 55

97 POINTS

Patrick Eckel

A release of elegance and power in the same breadth. An exercise of exacting viticulture and winemaking technique showcases once again an emerging icon of Australian wine. The blend was 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Shiraz and 11% Cabernet Franc with the wine aged in a high proportion of new oak for 9 months before another 9 months in large format, older oak foudre. The aromatics on the nose have floral blackberry and plum in terms of fruit, but there are layers of secondary interest in terms of graphite, understated cedar and unsweetened liquorice. The wine has soaked up the influence of new oak, it provides a glossy, lightly spiced backdrop for black fruits, earth and graphite to show themselves. Tannins are supple and fine yet give texture and polish; the finish has wonderful persistence with drying blackberry and liquorice swept up with lingering dry spice.

96 POINTS

Regan Drew - Vinonotebook

Dusty, dark, brooding, inviting, spiced, ripe, classy, elegant. Cassis, Turkish Bazaar spices, purple flowers, dark raspberry, bramble, cool stone and slight carbonic-type lift. Refined and understated. Cool slate like stoniness with just ripe brambly black fruit. Super fine layers of exquisite texture framing dark fruits. Length and phantom-like echoes of flavour. To give an oxymoron: “simply” a beautiful wine.

96 POINTS

Ken Gargett - WinePilot.com

Near opaque in colour, this cracking wine gives intense and plush aromas of black cherries and plums. Cloves, leather, aniseed, blackberries, spices and chocolate. Seamless and supple, this has impressive length and very fine, silky tannins. Intense but finely balanced, it retains its elegance throughout with more dark chocolate notes emerging on the palate. This is terrific now but will easily give you 15 to 20 years more pleasure, if you can keep your hands off it.

96 POINTS

Andrew Caillard MW - The Vintage Journal

Medium deep crimson. Intense blackcurrant, blackberry, roasted chestnut, shellac aromas with tobacco leaf notes. Well balanced wine with fresh pure blackberry fruits, fine chocolaty / graphite textures, superb inky density and well-integrated roasted chestnut, vanilla oak notes, Finishes claret firm with lovely fruit complexity and tannin plume. A very classical and genuine ‘reserve’ style with 18 months oak maturation and 18 months bottle age before release.

95 POINTS

James Halliday - Halliday's Wine Companion

58/31/11% cabernet sauvignon/shiraz/cabernet franc, planted 2004–2008. Each variety was vinified separately and matured in French oak (74% new) for 9 months, before a further 18 months in bottle prior to release. This wine is routinely firm on release. The tannins are firm, but as ever, superfine; they shape the fruit in the mouth and carry it across the tongue through into the long finish. They will surely fortify the wine for the long future it has ahead of it. Elegant plus

95 POINTS

Angus Hughson - Winepilot.com

Bright deep ruby in colour, here is a wine which immediately announces itself as a special cellaring proposition. It’s surprisingly shy to begin, thanks to 18 months in oak, but not for long showcasing beautifully pure, perfectly ripened Cabernet Sauvignon fruits with leaf and cassis aromas laced with distinctive white pepper and coffee grounds oak. The palate is then a powerhouse with firm, muscular dark fruits and a backbone of rich tannins which sustain a long, strong and earthy finish. It’s actually quite approachable although it is clear this wine’s best days are well ahead of it over the next two decades.

95 POINTS

Andrew Graham - ozwinereview.com

If ever there was a good excuse to crack out one of those silly Riedel decanters that look like a melting trumpet crossed with a soft serve, then surely it would for this... Effectively the best wines from this vineyard in Wrattonbully, and in this vintage, it’s a quintessential big dog flagship red. Something to keep and crack out in eons time, smugly knowing you picked a goodun’. Over the years, (the winemaker) has changed this style to be a vineyard blend with varying component levels according to the season, and it’s clearly the right call – this blend of 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Shiraz & 11% Cabernet Franc is just right. Matured in 74% new oak for nine months and then nine months in old foudre, and oak is a part of the story here, with wood on nose and palate. It’s sexy time, silk-sheets-and-soft-bodies oak though, all high toned cocoa powder that fills in the edges, and floods the background like liquid Spakfilla. Still oak is a part of the recipe rather than the sole ingredient, which is an important distinction. Stylistically, there’s this polish and plushness which had me thinking about mod-Bordeaux, yet with a bit of Wrattonbully mint for comparison. You’d be hard-pressed noting any one variety either.

94 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

This is the best of this line that I’ve tried. It has the weight, the impact, the balance and the brood. It’s also impeccably well structured, with firm-but-perfectly-integrated tannin drawing through the back half of the wine. Blackcurrant, bay leaves, sweet cedar, toffee and smoked meat/toast flavours. It feels traditional in the best of ways. This is a substantial red and an excellent one.