A hallmark of the Utopos Vineyard on Roennfeldt Road is the pitch perfect acid/ tannin balance we can achieve in fully ripened fruit. This provides for delicious, highly approachable wines in their youth, whilst enabling them to develop over a 10-15 year period, and maybe more. The 2023 growing season saw another winter and spring with great rainfalls, setting the vineyards up with high soil moisture to sustain them through the typically warm and dry summer. The ’23 summer was actually quite mild with very few days above 35 degrees celsius. This led to slow and even ripening with harvest occurring in early April. The typical low yields and sparse canopies saw Utopos sail through the late summer rains with no disease pressures to speak of.
The elevation of the Utopos vineyard site along with geology and topography and vine wellbeing all play a mission critical role in capturing true regional and varietal expression of Cabernet Sauvignon in this wine. There are lightly herbaceous lifted fruit characters on the nose, backed in by mocha and cedar. The palate displays great length of fully ripened fruit that is a hallmark of the region and site, but still retains the elegance and structure of great Cabernet Sauvignon wines. A beautiful line of rich cassis like fruit flavour is perfectly framed by long, fine tannins without a hint of astringency.
Harvested on April 11, 2023. A short cold soak followed by a cool 10 day ferment and then into a 2500L foudre and a few new, second and 3rd use very tight grained french barriques for almost 18 months maturation.
The age worthiness of great Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is well proven, and whilst a delicious and enjoyable wine in its youth, you can expect this wine to start to stride out from 10 years old and continue to kick on for at least another decade…or more!
