Access this Howard Park Scotsdale Cabernet Cellar Release Collection and you’ll get two bottles each of the 2016, 2014 and 2011 vintages. All highly rated, all drinking beautifully now, and all with a saving of 33%
2 x 2016 Howard Park Scotsdale Cabernet, Great Southern 2 x 2014 Howard Park Scotsdale Cabernet, Great Southern 2 x 2011 Howard Park Scotsdale Cabernet, Great Southern
The Cabernet Sauvignon fruit is sourced from Howard Park’s Abercrombie vineyard, located in the Mount Barker sub-region of the Great Southern. Planted to the Houghton clones of Cabernet in 1976, in this cooler continental climate, the vineyard sits on a north-facing, elevated slope where it gets enough sun to fully ripen Cabernet Sauvignon.
Small parcels are hand-picked then fermented in closed stainless steel fermenters. Select parcels remain on skins after fermentation to further enhance the tannin profile while others were pressed to capture the purity of the fruit. Each batch is matured separately in French oak (40 % new) for 18 months.
Cabernet and the Great Southern join hands to produce a wine with precision and a strong tactile message. Blackcurrant, bay leaf and bramble fruits elegantly nudge oak into line. A wine with a very large drinking window already open.
95 Points, Wine Companion
Clean, fresh, delicate aromatics. Beautifully composed and restrained. The palate has lovely elegance with refined fruit and an intricate frame of acidity. It speaks of its source area and its maker. One would gain immense pleasure from drinking it now, though it will develop more complexity with age.
95 Points, The Real Review
This is in superb form, its curranty flavour and combination of earthen/tobacco-like notes pulled inexorably through to a taut-but-lengthy finish. It's a champion for medium weight cabernet; quality without stress, length without overreach, flavour without borders.
96 Points, Wine Companion
A wine to be admired and applauded. This is neat as a pin, long as a song, flavoured not laboured. It’s medium weight, taut, and sensationally persistent. It’s the kind of wine that makes you wonder why you’d ever spend more than $50 on a bottle of wine. It’s curranty and earthen and fleshed with tobacco, but picking out the flavour isn’t of consequence here. It’s the soar, the flow, the finish.
96 Points, The Wine Front
The bouquet is arresting in its complexity, with fresh and dried herbs, earth, blackcurrant and cedary oak all present, the medium to full-bodied palate providing a liquid replay, balance and harmony first up, length on the high quality finish.
95 Points, Wine Companion
Margaret River
Located three hours south of Perth, Margaret River is Western Australia’s most prestigious wine-growing region. Serious vineyard development began only in the late 1960’s following the publication of a report by John Gladstones in 1965 stating that the area had a similar climate to Pomerol or St Emilion, with low frost risk, plenty of sunshine and equable temperatures within the growing season promoting even ripening. Margaret River’s climate is warm and maritime, with some cooling influence provided by southeast trade winds. The soils derive from granitic and a gneissic rock over which laterite has formed. The region can be divided in three sub-regions: the cooler south between Yallingup and Karridale with predominantly lateritic gravelly loamy sands and sandy loams; the warm and sunnier Willyabrup in the centre with predominantly gravelly loams, but some gritty sandy loams and granitic gravels; and Margaret River in the north with similar soils, but slightly cooler temperatures. This is entirely consistent with style; the wines from Willyabrup being more generous than the highly structured wines of the north and the elegant styles of the south. Margaret River is best known for high quality Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blends and top notch Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux blends. Over the years, the region has established an astonishing reputation illustrating a consistency in quality and a strongly focused winemaking culture.
