James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion: 95
A densely coloured 38/55/27% blend matured in French oak (35% new) for an average of 6 months. It is a profound wine, still newborn, but with all the boxes ticked: a cascade of cassis/blackcurrant, plum, firm tannins (in balance) and a long finish.

PAST VINTAGE ACCOLADES:
Ray Jordan says: 94
This is a quirky blend of malbec, petit verdot and merlot. It’s been naturally fermented and basket pressed with seven months in French oak, of which 30 per cent was new oak. It’s retains its beautiful fruit purity with a lovely fine tannin structure and very subtle oak inclusion. It’s spicy and floral with lovely complex flavours. Focussed and effortlessly long in the mouth.

Jeremy Oliver says: 91
Youthful, but likely to build weight, this distinctive young wine has a sweet, spicy and floral bouquet of blueberries, redcurrants and dark cherries with suggestions of briar, cedary oak and underbrush set against a faintly smoky, meaty background. It's supple and medium-bodied, with a sour-edged expression of juicy cherry/plum fruit underpinned by very fine, dusty tannins and wrapped up by an assertive, slightly edgy acidity.

James Halliday says: 92

From the Winery:
This is a new label for Cullen Wines and judging by the quality of the first release, it has a great future. Cullen Wines have been very successful in meeting their aim of producing a wine which, while fruit driven, is of such high quality that it will develop for several years under good cellaring conditions.

This wine was made from a carefully selected blend of Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot grown on the Mangan Vineyard, which has been shown to be ideally suited to nurturing these grape varieties.

As with the fruit used for the Mangan Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blend in 2012, the above three grape varieties all performed very well in this vintage and thus facilitated the production of this particularly flavoursome and complex wine. The wine benefited from ageing for eight months in oak.

Winegrowing began on the Cullen property in Margaret River over 40 years ago. Studies in the early 1960's showed that Margaret River had some very special qualities. The climate was particularly suited to growing Bordelais varieties and in particular Cabernet Sauvignon. Committed to biodynamic viticulture, Cullen Wines has evolved into an iconic winery focused on quality, integrity and sustainability at all levels of the business.