2012-2014 The 100 Point Wine
Calendar year 2011 remained a warm one but not dry. We received 1039mm of rain for the year, so 4% above average. Flowering was about a week early, but missed most of the spring rain and temperatures were mild, all of which contributed to an excellent crop. Yield was a bountiful 9.2 tonnes per hectare. Warm weather continued throughout the summer, giving us an average temperature of 21.2°C, making this our warmest year since the weather station was introduced.
With the large crop, we were thankful of the hot weather because Cabernet Sauvignon needed all the warmth it could get bring the large crop to full ripeness. In the end, the early flowering also assisted and the final sugar level was 13.8° Baume, which took 118 days, despite the warmth. One curious aspect of the season was the slow maturity of the seeds. Every year we monitor the hardness of the seeds as they progress from soft and green to brown and crunchy. We only pick when they’ve reached the latter stage, the idea being this gives the best tannin balance. In 2012 the passage from soft to hard seemed to take an eternity, certainly longer than usual and hence the higher sugar level that accrued. If we had been relying simply on that, the harvest date would have been at least a week earlier.
The 2012 has always had lots of ripe dark fruit notes, but for Keith at least, the seed maturity issue is evident in the tannin structure. The wine has firmer phenolics than similar years like 1980 and 2000. Needless to say, while always being approachable, it still has at least 30 years ahead of it.
The remainder of the year continued the warmer theme, not dissimilar to 2011, although slightly drier, with rainfall down 5%. Mother Nature decided to have a dry July and August, but then provided us with very good spring rain, without causing serious damage. Soil moisture was excellent and flowering conditions were the same, with warmer temperatures. The only slight complication was some heavy rain in the last week of November it did little harm and Cabernet Sauvignon delivered above average yield of 7.87 tonnes per hectare.
A warm summer followed, giving us a season average temperature of 20.9°C, allowing the Cabernet Sauvignon to reach full ripeness in 111 days. It’s worth noting that a shorter season like this one can certainly deliver good quality, provided the average temperature is high enough. We see this with the 2013, which has an alcohol of 14.3% and displays all the variety’s ripe fruit characters of blueberry, mulberry and red currant, giving the wine exactly what it needs to last for decades. As it stands at the moment, it displays predominantly youthful fruit notes and will need at least another decade to show more bottle age complexity.
After some drier years, things swung back the other way in 2013 and we accrued 1219mm rain, so 20% above average. Things tailed off a little through October but then some good falls came in late November, without any damaging wind or hail and set the vineyard up for what turned out to be a fantastic season. Yield was just below average at 7.07 tonnes per hectare and with an average season temperature of 20°C, Cabernet Sauvignon waltzed through to full ripeness in 116 days, finishing with a generous alcohol of 14.8%. In terms of how we viewed it in the winery, it was one of those years where everything just fell into place, making it similar to 1991, 1994 and 2001 and was the sort of wine where all we had to do was look after it and not spoil it. Upon release, it received widespread critical acclaim, which included the first 100 point score by noted Western Australian wine writer, Ray Jordan. It can be easily summarised as a classic Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon and rivals any of the great vintages of the past.
More wet weather came in 2014 with another above average rainfall of 1245mm. Since this hasn’t been mentioned for a while, it’s worth noting again that Moss Wood is an unirrigated vineyard. We depend completely on whatever Mother Nature delivers. Luckily, the locality of Wilyabrup is quite reliable and even in drier years, yields are rarely compromised. Indeed, our biggest fluctuations occur when our weather is wet, cold and windy, rather than hot and dry.