There’s absolutely no stopping Cullen, the signature vineyard and winery in Margaret River. Last weekend the Cullen family played host to a number of media, trade and friends and over two mornings staged vertical tastings of their premier wines, the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon blend, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot. An exceptional and world-class event that few wineries could match in quality terms, it became an appropriate tribute to the life and work of Diana Cullen. While I will be covering this event in more detail on the website, two new wines are worthy of your immediate attention. Firstly is the 2002 Chardonnay, which was harvested batch by batch as the cool season only gradually and slowly ripened a rather uneven crop. The result is a wine that captures remarkable fruit intensity, which it seamlessly delivers along a superbly long and elegant palate. Even more remarkably, more than half the fruit for this wine was harvested from the relatively youthful Ellens Ridge vineyard located around 8 km south of the main Cullen plantings at Cowaramup. Rated 19.1, drinking best between 2004-2007+, I’d make a note of this young wine. The other astonishing new wine, and one I rated at least the equal of any other at this tasting, was the 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, of which a small portion of around 180 cases was sealed under a screwtop cap. It was winemaker Vanya Cullen’s intent to seal more of this wine this way, but a technical packaging hitch prevented her from doing so. I believe the screwcapped bottles have largely been sold out, and they were only available from the cellar door. The interesting thing was just how different the two bottlings actually tasted. The wine sealed under cork (19.4, drink 2013-2021+) was everything a Cullen red should be: a superbly polished, presented and harmonious wine of perfume and strength, but the power it exuded was restrained and measured. Saturated in deep fruit and revelling in its cedar/mocha oak influences, it’s the complete package, even a little more assertive than the excellent 2000 vintage. As if to contrast and simply make a point, the screwcapped bottling is precisely, according to the current vernacular, a fruit bomb. So much so, in fact, that you can hardly see the oak, which gives you an idea of what real fruit intensity is about. It’s heady and opulent, succulent and meaty, and offers a simply unreal length and persistence of exaggerated fruit. Given time, in my experience of red wines sealed this way, the wine will change from the freakish to the simply wonderful. But it will take time, I think, about a decade longer than the cork-sealed alternatives. Food for thought, eh?
