2020 Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard Trueman Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale

A meld of 3 blocks, strewn with lighter silts, screes of ironstone and clay loams. Hand picked, cold soaked; pumped over in open-top fermenters. A minimum of 21 days on skins before élévage in French wood

(50% new) for just over a year. As always, an immensely classy and richly flavoured wine, shaped as much by a curl of juicy, precise and beautifully alloyed tannins, as it is by the sheath of blueberry, currant, sage, graphite and dried herbs. The frame of cedar oak, all class. The finish is tenacious, ferrous and densely packed with a nascent energy auguring for much more to come. Bury this. NG 14.5% alc.