Josh Cooper’s three Cabernets from different sites across Victoria are some of the most important wines released in Australia this year. Cabernet Sauvignon is so often overlooked, and many Australian iterations are unexciting corporate wines. I feel we have forgotten Cabernet’s tradition of versatility. Hot day or cold, winter or summer, lamb or beef, high company or low, whatever the occasion, claret or cabernet was always the wine drinker’s iron clad guarantee of pleasure. Perhaps in Australia shiraz/syrah has taken up the mantle, offering an incredible plethora of styles, price points and world beating consistency.
The 2021 vintage is a superb one, particularly when one considers the disaster of 2020. Yields were abundant, growing conditions mild and the harvest late. The wines are fresh and intense with cool complex fruits, sappy textures, generous acidity and spicy/savoury notes. Tannins are complex and framing, providing ample shape and precision with all the poise, power and elegance of a lion’s paws.
The overall impression of Josh Cooper’s Cabernets is freshness and that they are defiantly not in the mould of Bordeaux, Coonawarra, or Margaret River. The strength of the variety sings in all three wines; the black fruits, imperious confidence and ease of drinking. The winemaking is roughly the same, so it’s a treat to taste the differences between the individual sites and of course the inimitable style of Josh Cooper. Cabernet and terroir? You better believe it!
Dash Farm Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
The first of the Cabernets to be tasted and the last harvested. From a cool site on the slopes of Mount Alexander, just outside the Macedon Ranges GI. Immensely complex. Cool and high toned aromatics of blackcurrant, cigar, sarsaparilla, blackberry, lavender, violets, crushed herbs, iodine and squid ink. Sappy mouth feel, the whole bunches frame up the fruit and carry the palate. Incredible detail, mouthwatering, mineral and layered flavours. The dark fruit is so sweet yet offset by tangy acidity and savoury elements; tobacco leaf, paprika and mustard seed. Poised and imperious, the tannins firming up towards the close. Gourmand and versatile. A modern classic.
Shay’s Flat Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
An utterly individual expression of cabernet with classical proportions. From a biodynamic vineyard in the Pyrenees, who would’ve known cabernet as beautiful as this. Tobacco leaf, blackcurrants, rhubarb, squid ink, crushed herbs and geranium. Pure and transparent flavours and an incredible tannin profile; gliding and textural. Black olive, oyster shell, chalk, furry in the mouth, mineral and tea leaves. Don’t get the wrong impression – there is heaps of fruit, but the savoury notes to compliment the sweet fruit and the layers of texture are extraordinary. So rare to see such graceful elegance with a frame of such integrated power.
Deep colour, nicely tinted with purple, and smelling of raspberry, boysenberry, violet and garden mint. It’s a very firm-tannined, full-bodied red with classic Cabernet structure, the tannins winning at this juncture and calling out for a hearty dish of protein. A very smart wine and happily quite different in style from this maker’s two other 2021 Cabernets. 95 Points – Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Balgownie Old Vines Cabernet Sauvignon 2021
The most tannic of the trio of cabernets from Josh Cooper. Classic and authoritative, linear in shape and with a precison and charm not seen in Australian cabernet. Blackcurrant, blackberry, aniseed, Turkish coffee, fresh compost, green olive, savoury spice, preserved vine leaf and soy. Incredible palate tension, a deep core of concentrated fruit. Refreshing and effortless, with plush mid-palate stuffing and mineral tannins. Will age effortlessly for decades. Please keep some!
Deep, dark garnet. A wine which immediately makes one sit up and focus. Incredibly refined and complex with iron, sweet cassis, cedar spice, violet and rose, air reveals infinite nuance and detail. The palate is flooded with wave upon wave of Cabernet fruit, braced by a strict but not overbearing tannic structure, finishing with sweet violet and cassis. The most refined of the three Cabernet cuvees, but also the most concentrated and finally balanced. Winemaker’s Notes
96 Points – Mike Bennie, The Winefront
