A beautiful dense ruby red colour.

Lovely aromatics of cherry pie, boysenberry, blackcurrant, violets and brand-new leather.

There is a jubeyness with fleshy boysenberry and dark cherries but also a dry finish too.

Layers of flavour wash over the mouth but also words like elegance and finesse and complexity are evoked when tasting this wine.

This vintage is a blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Petit Verdot, 4% Malbec and 4% Cabernet Franc

Vintage Notes:

After good early winter rains the rainfall eased off to become drier in the later half and into spring warmer than average until mid-November.

Then the rains returned in December, which ended up being cooler on average than November.

The weather returned to normal through the Christmas period until the second week of January when Fraser Gallop Estate received a deluge of rain over 3 days getting around 100mL over the period and way over the usual monthly average of 14.5mL

This had an immediate effect of recharging the dry sub-soils and the Cabernet kept the green leaves until late into the season and these leaves working meant for higher sugar levels and higher acidities.

There was a little more rain in late February, but this had little effect on affecting quality and then some more rain 27th March by that time the Cabernet Sauvignon Be ranged 13.5 - 14.3 and tannins surprisingly more prevalent in this year's wines.

The anthocyanin levels a bit lower than 2015 due to the sub soil moistures being higher.

Technical Details:

Alcohol: 14%
pH: 3.50
Total Acidity: 6.2g/L
Residual Sugar: 0.4g/L
Harvest Date: March 2016
Oak: French oak, with one third new from selected Bordeaux cooperages
Bottling Date: November 2017
Cellaring Potential: Eminently drinkable now but will develop further complexity for up to 15 years.