‘King Billy’ Cabernet Sauvignon

This is just our sixth release of King Billy, a wine many years in the making.
Our best parcels of Cabernet from the most mature vines from the Windy Hill and Karri Oak vineyards were selected as being suitable for our reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Once it went to barrel, there was a further assessment with just five of the very best barriques being designated as ‘King Billy’ material.  It matured for 18 months in French oak (3 x new barriques; 2 x once used) before bottling in May 2020. It was then allowed to mature in bottle for just over 3 years before being labelled for release. Extended maturation in bottle rather than in oak has ensured that this wine has retained its vibrant fruit while developing its secondary characters and still has further capacity for cellaring.

COLOUR

Very youthful looking with a deep, dark crimsony red colour.

AROMA

As a 5-year-old wine our King Billy is amazingly fresh and vibrant on the nose. It has rich aromas of ripe dark berries with some smoky dark plum, complexed by a hint of black olive character. 

PALATE

This is a very well balanced and well integrated wine. The dark berry and ripe blackcurrant fruit flavours are deep and concentrated and still very vibrant. It has a great richness through the mid palate while still displaying a fineness and superb length of flavour that is an intrinsic character of Mt Barker grown Cabernet Sauvignon. The complex berry fruit flavours are beautifully complemented by the hints of cedar from the French oak and, together with its delicate acidity and beautifully fine, slightly chalky tannins, they combine seamlessly in this wine.

CELLARING POTENTIAL

Our 2018 King Billy is superb now while still quite young and will surely reward further cellaring.