Awards and Accolades

94 Points - James Halliday, Wine Companion
"Very good crimson-purple hue; Hilltops is equally at home with its shiraz as its cabernet (or vice versa, as here). The wines have a
gravitas that subtly commands respect, here with pure cassis/blackcurrant and black olive to the fore. Great value."

From The Winery

Colour: Intense Red Purple

Aroma: Distinctly varietal nose of vibrant blackberry and redcurrant fruits, coupled with sophisticated graphite oak.

Palate: Classically structured, medium bodied Cabernet with silky cassis and dark chocolate fruit finishing with fine dry chamois tannins of tremendous length.

An excellent vintage with warm days & cool nights throughout the season allowing fruit to ripen to full flavour maturity with minimal disease pressure. The vines were able to ripen with minimal water stress, due to fuller soil profiles from the previous two seasons, with flowering and bunch set occurring with no issues. A warm February and March without heat spikes allowed for excellent flavour development. Fruit was picked in ideal conditions.

Select blocks were machine harvested in the cool nights prior to being destemmed into open top fermenters. After an average maceration period of 10 days the ferments were air bag pressed, settled and racked to oak for maturation. Oak used was a combination of French hogsheads at 25% new, the balance being 1 to 3 year old barrels. The wine was matured in barrels for 16 months with minimal rackings before being carefully blended, lightly fined and filtered before bottling.

Paired with roasted kangaroo loin and lilly-pilly jam.