2012 Woodlands Vineyard Thomas

The vintage

2012 saw near perfect ripening conditions in Margaret River, with warm dry conditions from February onwards ripening the fruit to perfection. In particular, a dry and mild March enabled us to pick each plot at perfect ripeness.

The site

Our Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced from our original plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Cabernet Franc found on our south-facing slope. The soil profile of this slope is generally sandy loam over gravel and clay. The top of the slope, where the Cabernet Franc is planted, has significantly more gravel in its soil. These four small plots receive the greatest number of sunlight hours on our vineyard, but the east-west orientation of the vines ensures a slow fruit maturation. These are the last batches we harvest each year. 

The cellar

This wine was harvested between 26 March and 3 April, yielding 7.78 tonnes per hectare (or 54 hectolites per hectare). After being picked, the fruit was destemmed before passing over our sorting table. Although this wine is hand picked, there are still many vegetal items to be removed – such as the remainders of stems and green berries. The table also guards against over ripe characters, as we also remove any raisoned berries

Once sorted and crushed, this wine was fermented in small closed fermenters. Following fermentation, the must remained on skins for 35 days before being pressed for the secondary malolactic fermentation to occur. Afterwards, the wine was transferred into new French medium toast barrels to mature for 19 months.

 The wine

This wine is a blend of 97% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Malbec and 1% Cabernet Franc. The colour is a deep crimson. The nose is dense and brooding, with red and black fruits, dark chocolate and toasty barrel notes. The palate is supple, balanced and refined, with fine-grained tannins running the length. A very aristocratic wine, it promises to be absolute classic.

Destined for a great future in the cellar, our 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon will be best enjoyed from 2025 to 2042.