$165.00
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The Wine
The 2020 Diana Madeline vintage was hot and dry. For the old block cabernet sauvignon vines these drought like conditions resulted in the vines producing small berries, and hence the vines were low yielding – .i.e. bunch numbers were average but with low berry weight. This produced a wine of elegance, balance and perfume… effortless.
Harvest dates included 2 Moon Opposite Saturn events and two Full Moon’s – one being a fruit day perigee and the other a Moon Opposite Saturn flower day. These took place from 8th February until 10th march.
The blend is 92% cabernet sauvignon, 4% merlot, 3% cabernet franc, and 1% malbec.
Closed tanks, open fermenters, barrels and amphora were all used in the fermentation process, and the period of skin contact time lasted from 10 to 99 days depending on the batch of wine.
This wine spent 13 Months in 50% new oak in a mixture of barriques and puncheons, with some biodynamic oak featuring. No additions of yeast, acid, or malolactic acid were made to this wine.
First impressions have juicy berry fruit, mulberry, plum, cherry, This unctuous fruit is framed by fine grained tannins and Wilyabrup earth, ironstone, and dust which expresses the heat of the vintage and compliments the concentration of the fruit.
The Review
"Great detail in that the wine comes from nine picks across fruit and flower days of the biodynamic calendar, spread across a month-ish lunar cycle. The Cullen way.
Another beautiful, soulful release, this one a bit darker, a bit bolder, a mesh of tannins over train tracks and tension, but a wine of significant pedigree and wow factor nonetheless. Dark chocolate and graphite aromas with salted plum, black olive, bay leaf and oyster shell. Flavours ripple with authority in that weave of tannin, dark choc again, panforte perhaps more apt, dark cherry, saline minerality, more bayleaf and cinnamon spice. Succulent in the finish, mouth-watering and very fresh. Compelling stuff." 96Pts, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
