2020 Nocturne Single Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Nocturne

Australia / Margaret River / Nocturne

2020 was – in so many ways - a bit of a prick but in the Yallingup Hills at the lovely Sheoak Vineyard we kept it real , kept it clean, kept our distance from one and other and made it epic.
We commenced picking Sheoak Cabernet on 27th March and from the moment the fruit hit the fermenter it looked destined to be a classic. Instantly perfumed and richly coloured, the wine spent 14 days on skins with a peak fermentation temperature of around 28˚C. The wine was pressed to tank and settled briefly before being transferred to a combination of new (25%), two- and three-year-old barrels to undergo malolactic fermentation. The wine was racked only once in this time and, after 18 months in oak, was emptied from barrel. 100% Cabernet from this 100% this great site.
The Sheoak vineyard makes expressive, medium-bodied, silkily structured wines. Dark-fruit flavours and high notes of cassis and warm spice frame this slightly more brooding release of the Nocturne SV. While it’s amazingly accessible on release, this wine would love three to six years’ further maturation to really make it shine.

January, 2022

Gary Walsh

The Wine Front

91 points.

Distinct cedar/camphor top note, ripe blackberry and dark chocolate, baking spice and seaweed. It’s medium-bodied, dense and dark, a distinctly saline/nori sort of flavour here, dry with thick tannin, slight edginess to acidity, and a beefy/salty finish of good length. Quality is there in a way, but not mad about the flavour profile. Others may love, granted.

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About Nocturne

Nocturne is a husband-and-wife partnership between recently-crowned Jimmy Watson-winner Julian Langworthy and his wife Alana. The two met as young winemakers in South Australia and have been producing their own side-project wines together for 10 years. Nocturne, however, is a serious new venture producing single-vineyard wines from exceptional sites in Margaret River. This is the region where Julian grew up and where he’s transformed Deep Woods Estate since becoming chief winemaker in 2011. In the process he’s won just about every prize imaginable, including the 2016 Jimmy for his Reserve Cabernet on his way to becoming James Halliday’s 2019 Winemaker of the Year.

About

Julian and Alana are smart, ambitious and acutely sensitive to the best fruit sources in the region – including their pride and joy, the newly acquired Sheoak Vineyard and its beautifully mature Cabernet vines. It’s a pleasure to commend to you these dazzlingly vibrant, stylish and engaging wines that are a real joy to drink.