Charles Melton Cabernet 2016 South Australia Barossa Valley

Description

Charles Melton Cabernet 2016

Charles Melton Cabernet 2016  bouquet opens with some delicious, fine, cedary new French oak character, combined with some cigar box and leafy classic Cabernet aromas. The palate has real focus and balance not in the blockbuster manner, but more a weighty yet fine boned style with quite apparent but really fine tannin structure to finish off one of the picks of the vintage.

Overview

At Charles Melton Wines, great emphasis is placed on the quality of fruit. All grapes are dry grown and harvested from the winery’s own 50 acres of prime Barossa vineyard land, as well as from a select group of grapegrowers.

Yields are extremely low with often only one tonne to the acre, and the vineyards are truly old with many exceeding 80 years.

A range of techniques are employed during the winemaking process. These include: whole bunch fermentation, open fermentation, pigeage and indigenous yeast fermentation. These techniques allow a range of blending options to give the most complete wine, in terms of balance, between pure fruit flavours and more earthy/gamey characters.

The dry reds are matured in mainly French and a little American Oak, 25% of which are new each year, although, a couple of our wines recieve 100% new oak ( please refer to tasting notes). This gives rise to a cellar style which has a kiss of superb oak character – rather than a thump, and allows the rich fragrance and flavours of old dry grown Barossa vines to move to the fore.

Showing complexity from this range of vineyard sites and vinification techniques, the wines have demonstrated over the last decade an ability to cellar gracefully into mature examples of the finest Barossa styles.