Yalumba Signature Cabernet Shiraz 2018

Yalumba The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz, Barossa Valley, Australia, 2018 

The 48th release of this classic Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz blend. Matured for 21 months in 28% new French barriques, Hungarian, French and American hogsheads with the balance in older French, Hungarian and American barriques and hogsheads. Some of the Shiraz vines were planted in 1925. Wild yeast fermentation of each grape variety, separately, parcel by parcel. Bottled unfined.

Producer Tasting Note:

An impressive star of the 2018 vintage. Medium deep, dense, red in colour. Cool, fresh aromas of perfumed mints, blueberry, small red berries and red spicy cedar notes. Some leafy aromatics appear as the wine opens up over time. A refined and complex palate that is delightfully fresh with seamlessly integrated oak. Generous red berry fruit is wrapped in finely honed tannins. A medium to full bodied wine with a long, flowing tannin profile. A very refined Signature.

Critics' Tasting Notes:

"From Barossa vineyards, 53% is Caberent and 47% Shiraz, the oldest plantings dating from 1925. The wine spent 21 months in barrel, 28% new French barriques plus an assortment of different sized older barrels from France, America and Hungary. Creamy and ripe blackcurrant dominates the nose, with an undertow of spices and tobacco, a little graphite firmness suggested too. In the mouth it is sweet-fruited and smoothly-textured, so much blackcurrant flavour but edged with a gravelly intensity, some plum skin grip and bittersweetness of tannin and acidity playing against a touch of espresso from the barrels, into a long and harmonious finish."

94/100 points, Tom Cannavan, January 2022

"The 2018 The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz (the 48th vintage) is named for Nick Waterman (managing director and CEO of Yalumba 2015 - 2022). The 2018 vintage in South Australia (and specifically here, Barossa) was an excellent one: ripe/warm, even and long and produced wines with density, energy and gravitas. This is exactly that: plush and powerful. The fruit forms a perfect dovetail: the enveloping, mouth-filling abundance of the Shiraz, neatly wedged into the folds of the structuring and shapely Cabernet. Very impressive. This is one of the more impressive Signatures in recent times. It will cellar with grace and ease." Drink 2023-2043

96/100 points, Erin Larkin, THE WINE ADVOCATE, April 2023

Pair with beef fillet accompanied by beetroot and horseradish, or pinto beans with mushrooms and caramelised onions.