2020 Hickinbotham Clarendon Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon

96 POINTS

Ned Goodwin - Halliday's Wine Companion

A meld of 3 blocks, strewn with lighter silts, screes of ironstone and clay loams. Hand picked, cold soaked; pumped over in open-top fermenters. A minimum of 21 days on skins before élévage in French wood (50% new) for just over a year. As always, an immensely classy and richly flavoured wine, shaped as much by a curl of juicy, precise and beautifully alloyed tannins, as it is by the sheath of blueberry, currant, sage, graphite and dried herbs. The frame of cedar oak, all class. The finish is tenacious, ferrous and densely packed with a nascent energy auguring for much more to come. Bury this.

95 POINTS

Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast

Detailed and “of somewhere” (in this case, the cool hills of Clarendon in McLaren Vale), this beauty opens with heady aromas of raspberry coulis, beef jerky, Chinese five spice, mint chocolate and dried florals. It's a powerful wine but a shapely one, slinking around the tongue, the spiced red berry flavors fresh, silky and persistent, even within a frame of muscular, sinewy tannins. Drink now—2040.

93 POINTS

Angus Hughson - Vinous

Thanks to its classic style, the 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon Trueman, with a touch of Malbec, will appeal to Cabernet tragics. It opens with bright, expressive aromas of well-ripened blackcurrants, graphite and crushed leaves. These flavors are closely aligned with a liberal serving of mocha oak. The palate is defined by its mix of acidity and sinewy tannins, which underpin stylish blackberry and cedary flavors through a long, seamless finish. Beautiful now but also has the integrity to enjoy over the medium term.

92 POINTS

Stuart Knox - The Real Review

Ink black core to a deep purple rim. Cassis, bay and wood oil aromatics. A big and voluminous wine that shows ripe cassis alongside significant oak spices. Goes long and the structure is up to the task of controlling the flow. Time and a serious serve of red meat will bring it into context

92 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

Just looking through the box that arrived, I went to grab a bottle of The Peake (Cab/Shiraz) and pulled out another bottle of The Trueman, which made me double take, and question my sanity. Turns out there’s no Peake, but two Trueman. Lucky me! So I’ll leave that one to CM or MB to review.  It’ll be Peake CM, if he does it. It’s a little wheaty and squishy in profile, feels slightly truffle-edged and baked plum, along with nougat and cedar oak, and some tobacco, and sage. Medium-bodied, tobacco and truffle, fine-grained milk chocolate tannin, though there is some firmness and grip here and ironstone feel, and some sun dried tomato and raspberry on a finish of dry tannin and good length. It’s a good wine, though I feel slightly off the pace this vintage.