Cullen Diana Madeline 2024

98 POINTS

Winsor Dobbin

What style of wizardry is this? Tasted blind you could easily mistake this for one of the stellar left bank cabernet-driven red blends of Bordeaux…This benchmark comes from the earliest, driest, and hottest vintage on record in Margaret River, but the biodynamic, dry-grown vines sailed through the test. I think this is my favourite wine of the year so far.

98 POINTS

Ray Jordan

A wine that simply never disappoints. In fact, that's understating it. This wine was hand-harvested across six pickings following flower days and, of course, with biodynamically grown fruit. It was an early vintage yet these vines are in perfect balance, and they can certainly handle extremes like this. It's a blend of 90 per cent cabernet, five per cent cabernet franc, three per cent malbec, and two per cent merlot. Beautifully exotic red fruits on the nose, perfumed. With a palate that is so exquisitely well-balanced and poised. An intricate linkage of fine tannins, subtle, gentle, unobtrusive oak, and that deliciously opulent fruit that delivers with poise and purpose. Yes, there are tannins there, but they're so perfectly managed and subtly integrated. Another great wine under this label.

98 POINTS

Ken Gargett - Winepilot

2024 was always facing a tough task following on from the truly sensational 2023 vintage. In Margaret River however, wonderful vintages seem the norm rather than the exception. 2024 broke records as the earliest, driest and hottest vintage experienced by the region, but the team found that biodynamic practices enabled the vineyards to come through and offer yet another superb DM Cab. Harvest took place over six pickings, on Fruit and Flower days and concluded on a Moon opposite Saturn astral event. The fruit was placed in a mix of amphorae and stainless steel tanks for wild fermentation and skin contact ranged from 15 to 78 days. Maturation was for an average of fourteen months, 50% of the barrels being new oak. The oak was a combination of puncheons and biodynamic barriques. The final wine is 90% Cabernet Sauvignon 5% Cabernet Franc 3% Malbec and 2% Merlot. Near black/maroon with a dark magenta rim, the nose reveals aromas of black fruits, tobacco leaves, cloves, a touch of axle grease, chocolate, cassis, aniseed and blackberries. Brilliantly structured, the texture is sleek and seductive with succulent fruit throughout. The wine is very, very long and finishes with the silkiest of tannins. A wonderful Margaret River Cabernet which will sail through the next twenty years. Over that period, there is room for further improvement.

97 POINTS

Huon Hooke - The Real Review

Very deep red-purple colour, with a beautifully fragrant nose of cedar, tobacco leaf, crushed mulberry and blackberry, the full-bodied and muscular palate sporting masses of tannins which are ripe and supple without astringency or bitterness. This is very concentrated and power-packed, and begs to be left alone for several years before broaching, and will pay off big time if cellared. Hide it away to get your full money's worth. A glorious cabernet blend of outstanding potential.

96 POINTS

Cyndal Petty - Winepilot

Consistently one of WA’s most enjoyable red wines. Lush and comforting. Ripe black fruit, chocolate-covered liquorice, cassis, and iodine edges. It smells of Wadandi Country, quality fruit, and the sense that everything will be ok. In the mouth, the drinkability at this young age is epic. Plush and integrated. Charcoal, blood plum, raspberry coulis, gum nuts, muddled strawberries and 70% chocolate. Tannins are ripe, squeaky, like raw cacao powder. And like all the biodynamic wines from Cullen, the synergy of fruit, structure and finish works like a lifeforce, in harmony. Makes you want to romanticise sadness and listen to vinyl.

95 POINTS

Mike Bennie - The Wine Front

The 2024 vintage seems to have resulted in an approachable DM, though complexity and tannin quality is not scrimped on. A ripeness of cherry, black plum, even raspberry characters with underlying cassis, liquorice, salt bush, peppery bay leaf and a dash of toasty hazelnut. The tannins sit in ground nut territory, grippy, not dramatically so, but with authority in the deeper, darker and richer feel of the wine. A little palate staining swish of sweet fruit and sweet spice lingers, so too a dash of granite-like minerality. Perhaps not of the finesse and tension of some DM wines, but a very good look at complexity through the lens of concentration, ripeness and more supple tannin profile – and just straight up delicious, I mumbles to myself – a very good wine of the year.

95 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2024 Diana Madeline leads with punctuated cassis, bay leaf, sweet tobacco, nori, blackberry, dark chocolate and licorice. In the mouth, the wine is laden with graphite tannins and phenolic grip, and yet, as with all of the Diana Madelines, the texture has a finely milled, pulverized, fine quality to it. I judge this wine to be relatively open-weave in relation to its vintage peers at their same time on release, perhaps indicating that this will need less time in the cellar in order to come around for earlier drinking. To be clear, this is no indictment on its ability to age. This is very good, plush yet still herbal. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. According to the technical data supplied by Cullens, 2024 vintage was the hottest, driest and earliest harvest on record. Rainfall turned off like a tap at the end of September 2023, with nominally no rain until the season broke in May 2024. Unseasonable warmth all through the growing season combined with heat waves in January meant harvest started early and was over extremely quickly. The ample marri blossom and dry conditions meant both bird and disease pressure were low. Both whites and reds reflect opulence and power that show great promise for the future. Hand-harvested over six picks, starting in mid-February and culminating on a moon-opposite-Saturn astral event a few weeks later. Following this. it matured for 14 months in 50% new French oak. The final blend comprises 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Malbec and 2% Merlot.