Vintage 2010 in the Adelaide Hills arrived earlier than usual, and delivered lighter-than-usual crops – but at Wicks Estate they welcomed this unusual vintage as an idyllic one.
"We didn't need to rush and we didn't need to stress too much because we knew we were delivering our Winemaker with a steady flow of high quality fruit," says Wicks partner and Facilities Manager, Tim Wicks.
For their 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, Winemaker Leigh Ratzmer divided the Cabernet fruit into small parcels, and then built the complexity of the wine by using various yeasts, fermentation strategies and maturation regimes. And while this increased the workload in the winery, he says it provided a myriad options at the tasting bench when putting these blends together.
The result is the 2010 Wicks Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is a wine with cassis and dark fruit flavours, combined with subtle hints of tobacco and chocolate – and after 12 months in French oak, soft, silky tannins that are nicely balanced by the fruit flavour's subtle oak nuances.
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