Tasting Notes
1998 Cabernets / Merlot Minus Five (ex-Cleveland stock)
The 1998 season was a continuation of the recent warm summers at Cleveland allowing copy- book organic vineyard management practice. Field grafting of this variety over to Pinot Noir had reduced our acreage, so the resulting fruit quality was excellent and harvest of this tiny crop took place during the second week of May after extreme Autumn frost temperatures below -5 degrees C. Extended skin marceration prior to fermentation was undertaken and wild yeast fermentation encouraged, the wine then remained on skins for a further six weeks before pressing into a mixture of new French, Hungarian and older American oak barriques before minimal filtration and bottling in Nov. 2000.
After vintage the remaining vines were grafted to the variety Pinot Gris which is more suited to this coldest of Australian Wine Regions. Our Cabernets / Merlot blend has produced some outstanding fruit over the past 15 years and has earned its place as the “Minus Five” our rarest & most unusual product.
Colour: Dark Garnet red.
Bouquet: Sweet blackberry fruit with hints of French oak (reminiscent of pencil shavings) and some complex cigar box characters beginning to show.
Palate: Mint and sweet blackberry characters with fine drying tannins in the mid-palate which shows ‘spicy’ fruit. The wine has great length and balance and is a stunning finale as our Minus Five’s last release.