Cullen - Diana Madeline Cabernet Merlot - 2011

Cabernet Sauvignon, Margaret River, the Cullen landscape: all are written in a clear, deliberate, careful script here. Interestingly for a cabernet sauvignon, it’s as much or more of a water-colour style than it is an oil painting. Bay leaves, pencils, mulberries, boysenberry and subdued blackcurrant. There’s enough there, it’s right before your eyes, but it’s not shouting at you, just stop and listen and it’s all there to take in. Herbal notes, fraying, crunch them between your fingers and they disintegrate. Tannin comes with the taut, heavy, foreboding strum of double bass, incalzando. It’s a wine of presence, and yet it’s neither large nor loud; it makes complete sense, even when it doesn’t. Drink 2022-2042. Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front - 96+ Points