Charles Melton Cabernet 2021
Regular price $62.00
Unit price per
100 % Cabernet from Krondorf. Almost traditional practice. Very little or no whole bunch. A mix of crushed and destemmed fruit and fully destemmed but uncrushed berries. A cooler longer ferment on skins (up to 15 days) but no post ferment soak. Run into a mix of new French barriques (60%) and seasoned American (40%). A 30 month sur-lies maturation follows, with regular batonnage.
‘Charlie Melton does Barossa cabernet well … real well. Not much in the way of edgy herbaceous notes here. It's all about purity of fruit – blackberry, blackcurrant and black cherry at the core, with an array of spice, cedar, licorice, crème de cassis and earth. It's 100% new oak for 20 months, and the fruit just sucks it up like a hungry labrador. The tannin has some grunt too, and there is a freshness that is bang on. Drink 2023-2038.’ 94 points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion, May 2024.
Charlie Melton needs no introduction. Since his first vintage in 1984 and on to his first vintage of Nine Popes in 1988 and beyond he has been a leader of the Barossa Valley. Importantly, he was one of the first to recognise the value of the Barossa’s old plantings of Grenache, Shiraz and Mataro, at a time when the S.A. Government launched the infamous Vine-Pull Scheme, paying growers to remove these so unproductive vines!
And thank goodness he did! Since those early days, the range of Charles Melton Wines has expanded, with total plantings today of just over 34 hectares, the majority being old vine plantings in Krondorf, Lyndoch and Rowland Flat. Indeed, the very oldest of these (at Rowland Flat) will be celebrating their centenary in 2027.
As if this pedigree needed any endorsement, the 2014 Nine Popes was awarded the trophy for Best Australian Red at the 2017 International Wine Challenge in London. Today, Charlie has been joined by daughter Sophie as winemaker, further underwriting the future of this much admired and celebrated family business.