Awards and Accolades

2012 Vintage: 91 Points - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
"Very attractive perfume set to blue fruits, cassis, violet floral characters, eucalyptus. There’s a richness and a freshness found in bouquet and palate, and it’s a smooth, medium bodied, even ride through the mouth. Fruit is sweet upfront but tickled with herbs and minty charaters, finishing chewy, firm and with a stony pucker. Well formed, smooth red."

2012 Vintage: 91 Points - James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion
"You'd like to see a bit more density to the colour; there's Coonawarra mint and earth first up on the bouquet and palate; the texture and structure are pluses, and you don't have to make excuses for the alcohol. The question is whether this is too civilised."

2011 Vintage: 94 Points - James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion
"Bright, clear crimson-purple; the cool vintage in Coonawarra invested much of the region's cabernet with lively, fresh red fruit aromas and flavours; here those characters are picked up and lengthened by some briar and black olive nuances that add interest and length to a meritorious cabernet."

From the Winery

The grapes for The Cigar are crushed to small static fermenters, and as the fermentation commences, the temperature is allowed to peak early at 30°C, then given more control at around 20°C. This ensures good extraction of colour and tannin. The grapes stay on skins for around seven days, with some tanks given extended skin contact before pressing.

2013 was an excellent vintage; it was preceded by good rains filling the soils over the winter months and mild conditions during spring flowering giving it a good even set of berries. The warm conditions continued through harvest allowing the winemakers to pick ripe grapes at ideal colour, flavour and tannin.

This wine is plum red in colour and medium to full depth in hue. The bouquet shows bright cherry, chocolate and musk fruit aromas supported by savoury cedar oak. The palate is vibrant with blueberries and rhubarb balanced by choc-mint with the tannins having mouth-filling praline texture. The finish is long and lingering.