Swinney Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah 2020

The 2020 vintage was a knockout for this grower’s wines, producing wine full of flavour and with excellent structure and density. The Cabernet brings structure and texture—a refined chassis of mouth-coating tannins, bursting with vibrant mineral-soaked red and black fruits and tonnes of energy—subsidized by the Syrah’s suppleness and generosity. Exhibiting Farvie-level quality, it is a wine of exhilarating tension and velvety texture, finishing with fantastic length and great purity. It will live, and continue to improve, for decades to come.

All the components for this release were dry-grown, with vertically trellised Syrah drawn from Swinney’s Powderbark block B2, and Cabernet Sauvignon drawn from the Wilson’s Pool block 401. Only a subsection of soil in both blocks was farmed and selected for this rare bottling (we have only 30 dozen). While Frankland River is cool-climate continental, Swinney also uses shade cloth for these grapes on the western side, creating a soft, mottled light to protect the skins and lower the temperature in the bunch zone.

Sorted berry-by-berry, Rob Mann incorporated eight per cent whole bunches in the Syrah, and both varietals were wild-fermented. The wines spent 11 days on skins before being pressed directly to three seasoned French oak barriques to complete fermentation. The two components were blended post-MLF and filled to a single, four-year-old, 600-litre demi muid for maturation. The wine spent a total of 16 months in oak before bottling.