Mount Barker Natural Cabernet Merlot 2021

Variety: 65% Cabernet, 35% Merlot. All 100% estate grown in an organically farmed vineyard.

Alcohol Content: 13.5% – 8 Standard Drinks

Serving Suggestion: Spaghetti Bolognaise

About The Wine

This Mount Barker Natural Cabernet Merlot 2021 was hand harvested from an organically farmed, dry-grown vineyard in the Mount Barker sub-region of the Great Southern. All fruit was destemmed to open top fermenters and left on skins for ten days before basket pressing to a combination of old barriques and newer puncheons, where it spent the next 15 months.

The wine has a lifted nose of red fruits and cassis that flows onto a bright, juicy palate with fine silty tannins.

Comments from Wine Buyer Steve

We have some amazing natural red wines from the Great Southern region of WA in our range and this Cabernet Merlot 2021 is a great addition.

The Natural wine movement is really gaining pace and we are stoked to be on board!  This Mount Barker Natural Cabernet Merlot 2021 has beautiful small berry fruit aromas and extremely approaching easy dinking palate of dark forest berries. Minimal filtration and minimal preservative. A medium bodied and easy drinking natural red, great with food and a bargain at $15.00 per bottle

My Score – 92/100 – WACC Silver Medal.

About The Producer

The wine maker who produces this awesome natural Mount Barker Cabernet Merlot 2021 makes wines that are uniquely expressive of their origins. They currently lease and manage four small vineyards in the Mount Barker and Porongurup sub-regions of Western Australia’s Great Southern. They feel that the cool climate and ancient decomposed granite soils of the Great Southern lends itself to low yielding vines producing high quality fruit, which is necessary to make expressive minimal intervention wines.

They farm the vineyards using organic practices eschewing the use of synthetic chemicals. They don’t irrigate the vineyards forcing the vines to send roots deep into the sub-soil. Their fruit is all hand harvested and crushed by foot, commonly employing whole bunches including the stalks. Both primary and malo-lactic fermentation occur spontaneously with native yeast and bacteria. Movement of the wine is kept to a minimum and no fining or filtration is used. They believe that these natural practices as well as being better for the environment, help create delicious wines that express a sense of place.

What are Natural Wines:

Part anarchy, part time-honoured tradition, natural wines have existed for thousands of years prior to industrialisation. In this bygone era wine was. not made using commercial yeasts, vitamins, enzymes, Mega Purple, reverse osmosis, cryoextraction, powdered tannins or sulphur dioxide. These wines of the past were made from crushed grapes that fermented into wine, it was as simple as that, and no definition was needed as it was just ‘ the way it was done’. The techniques were vastly experimental and as varied as the winemakers themselves who worked with whatever opportunities were at their disposal. Today, natural wine is being artfully made, dutifully drank and savoured by those who champion a sustainable livelihood fed by the provisions of nature. Natural winemakers take calculated risks but thoroughly impressed with the results are forging ahead with a lot of faith and a hawk-eye attention to detail, both essential instruments, and to date very little failure has been recorder by sommeliers who are the natural wine movements’ strongest supporters.

Natural Wines overarching philosophy is non-intervention. From vineyard to cellar the wine is made using quality fruit grown by organic and biodynamic practices and experimental and free-form methods of viticulture. They are cultivated in tune with the ‘nature’ evident in both the grapes and the territory in which they grow.

The Techniques  in Natural wine production:

The operative heading is ‘Lo-Fi’. Clay Amphora or terracotta pots are types of vessels used for fermenting, as are ceramic eggs and demijohns. New oak barrels are used only when appropriate for the ageing process and not as a flavouring. Filtration is kept to a minimum as is the use of sulphur-dioxide and other additives.