SHIPPING COMMENCING MID-JULY 2026
 
It's with tremendous sadness that this will be our final vintage of wine made from Balgownie, a site rich with significance to the industry as a whole, and to us on a personal level. We trust this final release will be a fitting celebration of this special vineyard and everything it has represented over the last six decades.
 
Balgownie Vineyard is a name that should need no introduction to lovers of Victorian wine. An icon of the 70s and 80s, it has produced some of the most remarkable mature Australian wines I have had the pleasure of drinking. Indeed, my cellar is well stocked with them thanks to 10+ years of collecting. 
 
Established in 1969 at 200m ASL near the banks of Myers Creek in Maiden Gully on Ordovician shale, quartz and ironstone rubble, thanks to winemaker Tony Winspear it has supplied us a small amount of old vine Cabernet Sauvignon from some of the earliest plantings from 1970.  These old vines and special place deliver fruit of extreme concentration and complexity. 
 
Once hand-harvested, the fruit was entirely de-stemmed, then partially foot crushed before transfer to open fermenters where it remained for three weeks. The must was allowed to soak until natural fermentation commenced and was then extracted with a combination pumping over, delestage and pigage before basket pressing. 
 
Elevage took place in a combination of new Stockinger 300L (30%) and seasoned thin staved Bordeaux coopered barriques for 12 months, before four months in stainless steal after assemblage.
 
Deep, inky garnet. A wine which immediately makes one sit up and focus. An extra layer of depth and structure this year, yet still refined and complex with graphite, sweet cassis, cedar spice, violet and rose, air reveals infinite nuance and detail and a briny, nori like complexity. The palate is flooded with fine emery tannnins and wave upon wave of dark Cabernet fruit, finishing with coal, sweet violet and cassis, and a wave of perfume. 
 
The most age-worthy vintage yet for us from this wonderful site and a wine that displays my most prized characteristics - effortless complexity and power without weight. Please decant well prior to drinking, or cellar for as long as you like. 

A high note to go out on.
 
13.5% Alcohol - 375 Dozen Produced