Winemaker Notes
Deep, dark and black core of fruit centered upon currants, blueberries, dark cherries and cassis.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon is a fierce wine with layers of tannins, yet the fruit manages to be supple and fresh on the mid-palate. It's leafy and brooding and dark, with cassis, resin, tar and star anise, hints of blackberry and tobacco and a mineral skeleton of fine tannins; it feels of the earth and place. There's nice clarity too. It is fresh, in its way, and certainly has a very long road ahead of it.
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James Suckling
Impressively curated cabernet with cedar and tobacco aromas framing bright red berries, as well as bergamot, black tea, red plums and violets. The palate has a smooth, succulent and elegantly juicy shape and such fine, taut and layered tannins that carry so long and pure. Superb cab with power and elegance. Best from 2024.
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Wine & Spirits
Take cabernet’s austere demeanor to the surf town of Margaret River and it transforms over time, producing a wine like this 2016 Art Series—a fruity red with cold ocean currents running underneath. The wine’s deep plum richness carries peppercorn spice and fresh tobacco leaf as the details of the tannins unfold. Youthfully blunt, needing days to reveal itself, this wine’s savory concentration holds depths that will show with bottle age, and the freshness to sustain the wine for years in the cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
This vintage feels a little riper than the previous year, and the vanilla-cola oak is currently more prominent, too. There's also oodles of bright red berries, flowers, mint, earthy herbs and spices, with a regionally expressive briny, sea spray note. On the palate, there's a little warmth from the alcohol and not quite as much textural complexity as the 2015, but this is still highly varietal and expressive. The fruit is tangy, supported by firm, chalky tannins. Drink now–2035.
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Wine Spectator
There's an appealing density and savory quality here, with rosemary, green tea, sage, cedar and tobacco overtones to the currant and raspberry flavors, set against a frame of firm, gripping tannins, fresh acidity and a forest floor note that lingers. Drink now through 2030.
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.
Home to some of Australia’s most elegant and long-lived red and white wines, Margaret River is situated in the farthest reaches of Western Australia. Relatively warm and dry, the region is cooled by breezes from the Indian Ocean. Margaret River takes some inspiration from Bordeaux, producing top-quality Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux Blends with firm structure, mouthwatering acidity, balanced alcohol and notes of herbs and spice. For white wines, refreshing blends of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon as well as complex, age-worthy Chardonnays are regional specialties.