2022 Stella Bella Wines Suckfizzle Cabernet Sauvignon

Here we have a wine from the brilliantly named Suckfizzle vineyard - the most southern in all of Margaret River. Beautiful deep ruby colour with a purple hue. Vibrant dark cherry melds with moreish saline and umami laden nori first off before some graphite and forest floor earthiness emerge. A swirl of the glass offers up delicate charred capsicum, cacao powder and deeper fruit notes of mulberry and blackcurrant with the fine cedar in support. There's an ethereal sensibilty here thanks to complexity that's both subtle and restrained while still immense. The palate has great intensity coiled within a cool and linear frame. Black cherry pie, espresso, blackberry, cedar, graphite, nori and bitter dark chocolate glide through the mouth within a velvety texture before ribbons of fine grainy tannins frame all it up. There's excellent latent waves of freshening and elongating acidity here that pull the wine incredibly long through the mouth. This is beautiful wine that is at once restrained, plush, complex and poised.

The 2022 Suckfizzle Cabernet Sauvignon is saturated in dense Cabernet flavors of cassis and bramble, arnica/mint, black pepper, raspberry compote and licorice. The tannins are close-knit and chewy, with a succulence to them that speaks eloquently of the warm season that birthed it. This is a very good wine here, from a cool site in the region's far south. 14.2% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Winemaker Luke Jolliffe. Own-rooted, Houghton-clone vines planted 1998, 2,222 vines/ha. The wind at Suckfizzle is significant and comes directly from the south and batters the vineyard. The vines have some salt burn and shoot elongation is not as significant. Alluvial topsoil from the recession of the Blackwood River with Forest Grove loams at depth. La Niña vintage – cool, windy, wet spring. Yields down by about 15–20%. Temperatures well above average January to April. Hand-picked 1 April, fruit destemmed, hand-sorted, inoculated yeast and hot ferment (28–30 °C). MLF in oak. 10 months in 33% new, 33% second- and 34% third-fill barriques and bottled February 2023. NHB. Bright deep crimson. Attractive vegy nose distinguishes this wine. Complete and round and fresh. Hedonistic and less obviously minerally than some. Some complexity. Early maturing? (JR)