"Joshua Cooper has a love of wine history and this new addition, a blend of four distinct vineyards of old-vine cabernet and shiraz, is a tribute to those cuvées from the 1950s and ’60s he so admires. He has also made four single-site wines, but this brings together all the parcels. So, this is the sum of its parts. Deep and intense with an array of complex flavours: satsuma plums, mulberries, Aussie bush/eucalyptus, terracotta, dried herbs and cured meats. It hovers around medium bodied and while it has a core of bright fruit, this is savoury with shapely yet plentiful tannins. It’s stately, it has a presence. The Australian wine scene is all the richer thanks to this young man and his slew of compelling wines."
95 Points
Jane Faulkner, The Halliday Wine Companion
"This is a blend of four vineyards 45% Greytown, 37.5% Balgownie, 15% Redbank and 2.5% Williams Vineyard. The detail from Josh explains that Greytown is a 1950s co-planted site of shiraz and cabernet from the northeastern side of Heathcote, Balgownie is the prized 1970s block from there which features in another Josh Cooper wine with stunning results. Redbank is the 1970s planted cabernet as nurtured by legendary Stuart Anderson (ex-Balgownie) and Neill Robb, while the dash of Williams Vineyard makes for an interesting inclusion off a site also planted in the 1970s, that ended up in notable wines under the Flynn and Williams brand. The wine spends time in one year old oak of two sizes and styles.
It’s a very elegant, old school-good school feeling wine. I think the first comment, and first reaction, was that toasty, spicy oak is a strong influence in the wine, but not untoward per se, just a bigger player than expected in comparison to other Josh Cooper cabernet releases. It feels a little gritty in a way, good, and the extension of flavour is superb, dark cherry, cassis, violet floral notes with liquorice, dried herbs and faint eucalyptus are in the mix. Fruit tannins are lithe, drawing the wine into a composed, medium weight, flow and pucker. It’s a wine that feels like it perhaps would be best in a year or two, or released as such, to find that immersion of woody spice in a better place, but you can readily appreciate a wine of elegance, grand scent and flavour, and of course promise. It’s pretty darn great."
94+ Points
Mike Bennie, The Wine Front