I have noticed over many years that, and with the odd vintage exception, the further south you travel on The Granite Belt the better the Cabernet Sauvignon becomes. The fruit for this wine was sourced from the southern end of The Granite Belt at the Preston Peak Vineyard (at Wyberba) now rebadged as Balancing Heart Vineyard.
The wine still looks quite young in the glass, deeply coloured in the well and reddish at the meniscus, still with radiance brashly denying it’s fourteen years.
The bouquet features a little menthol with fragrant cassis, black currants and dark plums floating in wafting drafts of earth and hints of salinity. The palate is long and caressingly smooth, it features the black currants and cassis evident on the bouquet with integrated black plums and a slight presence of red currants, this fruit presentation then performs a gentle twisting swirl into lovely savoury qualities and then there is an excavation of earth and minerals. All these aspects next collaborate to produce a long, lovely succulent finish. The tannins are very fine they glide underneath and sometimes swirl a little upwards among the fruit depositing some of the earth and soft salinity that is another feature of this wine. Although gentle and unobtrusive the wine retains enough acid to convince you it will offer enjoyment over the next 10 years. The overall balance is a sublime experience and the wine is an especially convincing example of why I enjoy aged southern Granite Belt Cabernet Sauvignon so much.
Several years ago at The Spotted Quoll, now sadly gone, we drank a 2006 Robinsons Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon – sheer unmitigated hedonistic joy. This 2008 from Mark Ravenscroft reminds me so much of that wine. Aged Wyberba Cabernet Sauvignon, the epitome of elegant power a wine of rare beauty.
Mark Ravenscroft gifted this bottle to myself and my wife in June this year at Varias. Such a lovely gesture from a wonderful wine maker, we really appreciated this.
Although this wine is described as “Ravenscroft Vineyard” it is actually from before the purchase of the winery so technically it is a product of Ravens Croft Wines. Also as the wine is unlabelled I have no details of it’s alcohol by volume, oak treatment or price.
Tasted: Saturday 22nd October, 2022 without food and then with over several hours.
Alcohol: 13.5% (My Guess)
Closure: Screwcap
Price: ?
Suggested Drinking Window: now – 2032
Winemaker: Mark Ravenscroft
Fruit Source: Preston Peak Vineyard at Wyberba
Oak: French (My Guess)
Visit Website
