Description
Yarra Yering is one of the oldest and most beautiful vineyards in the Yarra Valley of Victoria, consisting of 28 hectares of vines located at the foot of the Warramate Hills in the Gruyere district of the Yarra Valley. Dr Bailey Carrodus established the winery in 1969 and is credited as one of the driving forces in reviving winemaking in this region. The 1973 vintage saw the production of the first vintage of Dry Red Wines – No’s 1 & 2, two of this country’s greatest wines, both featuring in Langton’s classification of Australian wines. Yarra Yering quickly gained an international reputation for quality and individuality and for the next 35 years Dr Carrodus made his wines to great critical and commercial success. The unirrigated vines produce elegant, complex and powerful wines. Approachable in their youth they have the ability to develop in the bottle for many years.
Langtons Fine Wines Classification of Australian Wine “Outstanding”.
Within only three years of taking the helm at Yarra Yering, winemaker Sarah Crowe received one of the wine industry’s highest honours, named “Winemaker of the Year” for 2017 by Australia’s most respected wine writer and critic, James Halliday – “She has done a fabulous job with what was her first full vintage. Just an amazing, amazing job.” Sarah is the first woman to receive this award with two Yarra Yering vintage red wines receiving 99 points and four vintage red wines received 98 out of a possible 100 points.
About the 2018 vintage: A late start to harvest due to good rainfall and a cool to mild summer without any heat spikes to advance ripeness. Picking lasted 10 weeks, at a leisurely pace, delivering grapes with beautiful flavour development coupled with good acid retention.
“.. It was a warmer year but with good yields and also good vine canopies to protect the fruit from the sun. The vines were well balanced without much manipulation.. “– Sarah Crowe
The first plantings at Yarra Yering into block No.1 were these Cabernet vines and the name was born. The Malbec was also part of the original 1969 plantings. Some Merlot vines are inter-planted with the Cabernet with subsequent plantings made in 1990 on the newly acquired neighbouring land. Petit Verdot is now only grown on the hillside of the new territories.
All hand harvested and processing across a sorting table, only the very best berries go into this wine. The Cabernet fruit is crushed to build structure through fermentation. Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot are whole berry ferments for fragrance and palate flesh. All fermented in half-tonne fermenters and hand plunged twice daily, some of the Cabernet spending extended time on skins for complexity. Components kept separate in French oak barrels, only 40% of them new until being blended just before bottling after 15 months barrel maturation.
Cabernet Sauvignon 55% Merlot 28% Malbec 12% Petit Verdot 5%
Fruit power is the hallmark of this blend, dark berry fruits and some sage adding a background herbal lift. Christmas cake mixed spice and oak is evident but all in balance with the fruit. Beautiful fruit, a bright acid drive and tannins that form a solid foundation for the long future. Brooding but not intimidating, this will be exciting to watch evolve.
98 Points Tyson Stelzer, 2021 Australia’s Wine Business Magazine “This blend of Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot has rightfully gone down in Yarra folklore over the past 51 years, a beacon and inspiration for what is arguably the region’s benchmark style. 2018 is set to go down amongst the greats, a seamless and thrilling union of fragrance, energy, polish and poise, sealed with the ultimate line and length. Breathtaking.”
96+ points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front ” An Australian benchmark wine that I wish I drank more often. Beautiful. Memorable. Wonderful. The texture grabs you. The faintest grip, the sheath of feathery tannins at play. Scents of cassis, bay leaf, faint eucalyptus and mint, sandalwood and sweet earth. Pure flavours, come hither fruitiness, but compact, inward, extraordinarily long in character too. A cool expression, tense and taut, luxurious too, has flow, but all compact and restrained. It tastes delicious, generally, though it’s the feel, the stretch, the sense of pedigree and detail that gets you. Stellar release. And I reckon more better to come.”
96 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front “Essence of blackcurrant with a boysenberried freshness, almost into forest berry territory, with polished cedar wood oak and drifts of fragrant herbs. Pure, complete, svelte; all these words apply. Has a long run ahead of it.”
OUR PRICE $139.99
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