Abundant on the nose, this is everything one hopes for from Cabernet Sauvignon. An envelopment of violet and red berried florals, crushed slate, black plum skin, tightly woven wild spice, coffee smoke and a brush of charred cedar forest. Swiftly followed by a rush of supple, firm and tongue-coating tannins, lifted with acrobatic acidity, seemingly effortless and nimble at the highest of heights. This is mid-weight, yet there’s a freshness and delicacy here that belies that. A wine of structure, with beautiful fruit cloaked delicately around a long-lived frame. Elegant, classy, and finely structured. This is a brilliant Cabernet. McLaren Cabernet should get more of a look in if this is an example of what can be achieved.
By Cassandra Charlick
96 POINTS
Shanteh Wale - Winepilot
Handpicked, destemmed to open top fermenters. 21 days on skins basket pressed to 60% new French oak barriques for 14 months, blended and matured for a further 4 months in French oak. This wine has always had me, at ‘hello’ it’s partly due to its blue tinges of blueberry and lilac but mostly because the wine draws you in, rather than smacks you over the head with its Cabernet -esqueness. Yet all those markers are here too. Blackberries baking in a pie, sage and mulberry. Oak plays its integral role as you might expect it would with clove, mahogany and cinnamon quill. Lets face it, the wines screams pedigree and expertise, Hickinbotham knows Cabernet and Cabernet knows them. Here is demonstrated beautifully and is drinking like a dream on release and will reward time and time again in 5, 10, 15 years. Drink with a scotch fillet so supreme you can cut it with a butter knife.
96 POINTS
Ned Goodwin - JamesSuckling.com
An exceptional cabernet of flare and precision. Dried sage, bay leaves and a smear of black olives serve as a savory balance to the wave of currants and mint, all riveted to refined tannins and a briny maritime freshness. The more I spend time in the Vale the more I realize just how good cabernet can be. A leader of the pack. Drinkable now, but best from 2030.
96 POINTS
Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion
From the original 1971 contour-planted vines and a 2002 block; crushed to open fermenters; a minimum of 21 days on skins; matured in French barriques (60% new) for a total of 18 months. It’s a cabernet of deep and brooding properties but not girth or heft. Indeed, there is considerable refinement here. Cedar and currant, ripe mulberry, cassis, plum and olive, the pitch of leafiness keenly judged, with proper ripeness achieved at modest alcohol. An equally refined but effective line of tannins draws effortlessly long, with oak a key player but stylish about it. An excellent release.
95 POINTS
Tom Kline - Winepilot
Elegant from the outset, this has notes of pimiento, bay leaf, subtle balsamic, blackcurrant, decaying leaves, plum and cedar. There’s some subtle earth and flickers of graphite with air, glimmers of dried herbs, and an emergent mineral finesse. Very ambrosial as it all clicks into place. The elegance theme plays through to the palate, which is medium-bodied and gorgeously restrained. Blackcurrant, autumn leaves, plum, graphite, bay leaf, fine cedar, a glimmer of mint. It glides through the mouth with poise and finesse before fine-grained tannins and cooling acidity pull it all to long and elegant length. Yes, elegance is the word, though it’s joined by restraint, complexity and all-round class.
95 POINTS
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
This is deliciously firm and impressively concentrated. It tastes of blackcurrant, redcurrant, resin and bay leaves, and boasts a genuine smoothness to the mouthfeel as well as an assertive rumble to the tannin. I tempted to say that this wine places an emphasis on structure, because it has that feel, but the volume of fruit here is impressive as well. It is, you could say, a complete wine.
94 POINTS
Angus Hughson - Vinous
The 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Trueman is a claret style. This is composed of gravel and blackcurrant aromas with a strong, cedary oak tone. A dense backbone follows, with blackberry flavors amped up with marked acidity and tannins providing strong foundations to enjoy after at least another decade in the cellar.
91 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2022 Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon is herbal and minty, with dark chocolate, spicy oak, resinous Black Forest fruit and lashings of aniseed/licorice with bramble galore. The oak is present here today—all cedar and roasted nuts. It's a powerful wine and brooding too. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
