Hickinbotham Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
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2017 was a cooler year in McLaren Vale. The carryover from the 2016 rains into a perfect spring and then a cooler ripening season was ideal for Bordeaux varieties that need time on the vine to develop phenolic flavor rather than sugar, while maintaining acidity and structure. The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon shines this year with dusted cocoa, blackberry, anise; a middle body that is velvet to the touch with a tannin backbone that carries this wine for minutes after you have swallowed.
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Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Attractive cassis and ripe purple fruit with a wealth of blueberries and hints of cola nuts. The palate has a juicy feel with exceptional depth, length and a complete tannin texture. Really seamless and long. Excellent cabernet. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon is pretty classically made and styled, with notes of cassis, cedar and vanilla on the nose. Befitting the cooler vintage, it's a bit more medium-bodied and streamlined than some other years, with ample acidity and firm tannins on the crisp, tangy finish. It's a structural wine, rather than a generous, plush one, that's for sure, but it should come good in a few years' time.
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Wine Spectator
Dark fruit flavors are fleshy and dense, juicy and appealing, with a floral note adding aromatic lift to the details of spice, tobacco and toasted herb. Sticky toffee pudding and toasted cedary elements linger on the finish. Drink now through 2030.
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Wine & Spirits
The Jackson family of Sonoma bought the Hickinbotham family’s vineyard in the hills above McLaren Vale in 2012. Chris Carpenter, one of the group’s lead winemakers, now travels to Clarendon to make the wines with Charlie Seppelt. This is a floral cabernet with a tight structure that keeps giving juicy red berry flavors. The fruit darkens with air and the florals deepen to violet scents, all of it saturated with oak richness.
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First planted in 1971 to dry-farmed Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard sits in the hills of Clarendon, at the upper limit of Australia’s revered McLaren Vale winegrowing region. The vineyard historically produced fruit for many of Australia’s iconic producers like Penfolds, Hardy’s, and Clarendon Hills, and was not bottled under its own label until 2012.
The confluence of the hills, ocean and ancient earth – the vineyard sits atop a 75 million-year-old geology – has a strong influence on the style of wines made here. Under the helm of winemakers Christopher Carpenter and Peter Fraser – and viticulturer Michael Lane – Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard employs organic and biodynamic farming practices to produce a range of highly distinctive and powerful red wines. Its flagship wine, The Peake, is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz – a style that embraces a famous part of Australia’s winemaking history. It is complemented by a highly acclaimed lineup that has garnered attention from global critics and drawn eyes to Clarendon as a region producing some of Australia’s most celebrated wines.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Known for opulent red wines with intense power and concentration, McLaren Vale is home to perhaps the most “classic” style of Australian Shiraz. Vinified on its own or in Rhône Blends, these hot-climate wines are deeply colored and high in extract with signature hints of dark chocolate and licorice. Cabernet Sauvignon is also produced in a similar style.
Whites, often made from Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc tend to be opulent and full of tropical, stone and citrus fruit.