Ashmead Cabernet Sauvignon

Elderton Ashmead Cabernet Sauvignon is grown on a single estate block in their Nuriootpa vineyard. Planted in the 1940s it is some of the earliest planted Cabernet in the Barossa Valley.

However the vines have Dead Arm disease. The fungus Eutypa Lata reduces one half, or an 'arm' of the vine, to dead wood. The upshot is the other arm produces low yields of exceptional fruit.

The handpicked fruit is fermented in open top concrete fermenters. The ferments are chilled, pumped over by hand and the cap submerged with oak header boards for eight days.

The wine is transferred to new French oak hogsheads to complete fermentation and undergo malolactic fermentation. After typically 18 months of maturation the wine is bottled.

Deep crimson, Elderton Ashmead Cabernet Sauvignon is velvety with black fruit flavours, tightly wound tannins and fine grained oak. Cellaring potential is 12 years.