2017 Howard Park 'Leston' Cabernet Sauvignon

95 POINTS

Jeni Port - winepilot.com

Margaret River Cabernet can be a pleasure palace, intrinsically hedonistic and plush. That’s in the warmer years. But 2017 was not a warm year but rather was guided by a long, slow ripening period over a mild summer which, for the most part, delivered Cabernets of elegance and longevity. That’s what’s to be celebrated in the Leston 2017 Cabernet. Winemaker Janice McDonald talks up the influence of the Houghton clone in this wine. Whatever the contributing factors, there’s no denying the wine’s presence. It’s all about the vibrancy of plush black fruits for me, so enticing. It grabs you, sucks you in, and it’s a sweet ride counterbalanced by dark chocolate, typical Margaret River bay leaf and bramble with light, spicy background oak. Tannins are ripe and smooth. A wine to savour, as they say, over the years to come. And there will be many.

94 POINTS

Huon Hooke - The Real Review

Deep red colour with a good tint of purple and a sweetly ripe blackberry aroma, the palate likewise driven by its true-blue cabernet fruit, but it has a solid backbone of tannin, and oak that is happily subtle and complementary. A mass of sweet ripe berry flavour sits in the mid-palate and is surrounded by firm, distinctive cabernet tannins. A very smart cabernet indeed.

93 POINTS

James Suckling

Attractive, ripe red berries, cassis and blueberries, as well as fresh cedar and hints of licorice and violets. The palate has a very succulent delivery of ripe dark-berry and plum flavors with a smooth wrap of tannin and juicy acidity firing from the mid-palate.

92 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Halliday's Wine Companion

Fruit from the Leston vineyard in Wilyabrup. Parcels vinified separately in a dizzying combination of specificity. Matured in French oak for 18 months (40% new) prior to bottling. 2017 was a cool vintage in Margaret River and perhaps because of this, this wine lacks the density and substance of warmer years. Lovely, fine-boned and elegant, but a little lean and savoury when viewed through the lens of this vintage.