The History and Evolution of Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon: 2019-2021
Having been blessed with such wonderful conditions for the ’18 vintage, Mother Nature, as is her way, decided we needed a challenge. The rain tap stayed on and we had yet another above average year, this time receiving 1076mm, which is 7% above average. Having said that, spring was initially dry, but towards the end of October, rain came again and topped up the soil. With the rain came mild temperatures and flowering was about a week late. There were 8 chilly nights, including 30th November when the mercury dropped to 2.9°C, very close to a frost. This impacted the yield, which was down 13% to 6.36 tonnes per hectare.
What followed was a complicated summer, with mild temperatures and regular rain. The season average temperature was 18.7°C and it took Cabernet Sauvignon 130 days to reach full ripeness on 12th April, with a very creditable final alcohol of 14.1%. This is a vintage we compare to years like 2006, 2009, 1989 and 1982. The key here is that we have now had many years of experience and can make better and more informed judgements about how to manage the vineyard in complicated seasons. To that end, we are really pleased with how 2019 turned out, better than the years noted above and with genuine, ripe Cabernet Sauvignon fruit aromas and balanced tannins. We pushed the limit but got there in the end.
Having battled through damp, cool conditions during the vintage, the needle swung the other way for the rest of the year and we had a relatively dry 779mm, down 22%. Temperatures were warm and Cabernet Sauvignon flowered about a week early but there were bigger matters afoot. Readers will note there’s been no mention of difficult spring conditions for quite some time. Well, that all changed on 24th October, when we had a cold, thundery day, culminating in a nasty hailstorm just after midnight. Damage was extensive, and the Cabernet Sauvignon crop was down by nearly 50%.
The summer was warm and the season temperature was 20.4°C, plenty warm enough to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon, although some rain in March slowed things a little. In the end, it took 123 days to reach full ripeness on 22nd March and had a final alcohol of 14.0%. In style terms, the ’20 shares some of the features of the low crop years like 1981 and 2015, but has delicious ripe fruit and a generosity that balances the firmer tannins. Using the former as a guide, the 2020 will be a very long-lived Moss Wood indeed.
Drier conditions remained the order of the year and 2020 was a little below average at 929mm. Spring conditions returned to benign and we had no storm damage, temperatures were warm to mild and Cabernet Sauvignon flowered a few days ahead of average.
We entered the summer feeling confident, although temperatures were mild and ripening was slow. By the end of January, we remained confident that things were looking good, and of course, this is never a wise move. Mother Nature decided it was time for another challenge and, in the mould of 1989, brought a series of tropical systems down the west coast, giving us significant rain during February, March and April.
This led to an exciting game of dodge the rain, while we waited for each block to ripen and gradually Cabernet Sauvignon came through, taking a mammoth 135 days to get to harvest and finishing will another very creditable alcohol of 13.7%. The scale of this achievement is quite something, considering the season average temperature of 18.8°C and a crop level spot on the average of 7.29 tonnes per hectare. Rather than produce a wine in the style of 1989, we were able to achieve the sort of fruit depth and complexity we saw in a cooler year like 1975.