2020 Cabernet Sauvignon Art Series
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Tasting notes
A strong year in the region, with Cabernet wines exhibiting fruit concentration and firm structure. Graphite and blackcurrant aromas intermingle to start, before savoury cedar and plum fill things out. A good swirl of the glass reveals further fruit notes in the form of mulberry and boysenberry giving a greater core to the wine, with further coaxing revealing savoury notes of tilled earth, black tea and gravel. There's still a tightness to the aromas, with most of the above only presenting following intense aeration in the glass. The palate has a cool and tensile feel despite its fruit power, with blackcurrant and plum at the fore followed by graphite, cedar, earth and gravel. All of this before a stacked gravelly tannins hold sway, constricting the mouth and funelling the fruit and earth notes long through the back palate. It's all there, but needs time to unfurl and in cellar to truly reveal its greatness.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux
Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The 2020 Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon is the product of a warm, dry, low-yielding year. The wines are tannic and structural on the whole, and this is no exception. In the mouth, the tannins define the fruit characters, and they frame them, providing chew and shape, along with notes of raspberry, nori, iodine, blood, kelp, cassis, bramble and just a hint of forest floor. Here, in the context of Leeuwin Art Series Cabernets, the wine is tannic. But I vividly recall seeing this wine in an international blind tasting of the 2020 Cabernet vintage and observing that in that context, this same wine looked pure as the driven snow. Context, as they say, is everything.
This well structured 2020 Cabernet Art Series is built to last. It boasts punchy black cherry and blackberry aromas lifted by violets, freshly cut cedar and new French oak. Gravelly tannins envelop densely packed graphite flavors with impressive grip quality and length. One of the best releases yet under this label.
About the producer
Leeuwin Estate is one of Australia’s leading wine producers. Based close to Cape Leeuwin, in the southern reaches of Margaret River, Western Australia, this remote estate is best known for its Art Series wines.