Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon 2022 (Margaret River)

After a long, and relatively cold and wet winter, bud-burst was later than usual, and about a week or two later than last season. There was still some wet, windy spring weather which affected fruit set. Despite the late start to the season, the fantastic WA summer allowed the growing season to catch up with warm, fine weather and a few periods of very high temperatures. Marri trees had a bumper year for blossom, which always bodes well, distracting birds away from the fruit (at least for the first half of the season while the blossom lasted). There were no significant weather pressures early in the vintage, in fact the warm weather meant that the whites were harvested at a frenetic pace in order to preserve natural acidity. Yields were relatively low; however, the fruit quality was excellent with great flavour intensity. In summary, 2022 will be remembered as an outstanding vintage in Margaret River. Fruit for this wine was predominantly sourced from mature vineyards in the northern Margaret River subregions of Wilyabrup (40%) and Yallingup (16%) along with fruit from the Wallcliffe subregion (40%), and a small portion from a vineyard in Treeton (4%).

Cabernet Sauvignon (88%), Malbec (8%), Petit Verdot (4%)

Fruit was crushed/de-stemmed before predominantly small batch fermentation in a combination of static and open fermenters. Fermentation takes 7-8 days at 24 – 26˚C, during which the cap is managed using a combination of aerative pumping over as well as regular plunging by hand. After fermentation, 20% of the components experienced a period of extended maceration on skins before very gentle pressing. MLF takes place in a combination of tank and barrel. The wine was matured for 14 months in French oak (40% new barriques) before the blend was assembled, prior to bottling.