2012 Coat of Arms Cab Merlot

Medium to full bodied with juicy dark berry fruits, yet with plushness and sophisticated elements well above its pricetag.
Styled originally after the great wines of the left bank of Bordeaux on France's southwest coast, the regions of Australia's southwest have also had great success with Cabernet dominant blends such as this. This wine is a classic in that mould, with the typical Australian richness of blackcurrant fruit overlayed with an air of the sophisticated characters these varieties deliver when grown in suitable locations and matured in intelligently chosen oak. The winemaking was straightforward. Each parcel of fruit was fermented on skins for up to 35 days then pressed when the fruit and tannin were in balance. The individual parcels each underwent malolactic fermentation in tank before being matured for thirteen months in Bordeaux coopered French oak barrels - just over 25% of which were new. The final blend was assembled in June 2013, given a light egg-white fining and bottled.