Howard Park Abercrombie Cabernet Sauvignon 2012

Brent Gushowaty rated this wine as 89/100 with the following review:

Eye:
Dense, almost opaque with ruby rim.

Nose:
Blackcurrant, tobacco,some savoury herbs,red berry fruit.

Palate:
Mid0weight, Bordaux like intensity with some suppleness,lean savoury fruit flavours, some tannic grip with fruit beginning to emerge. Fairly closed at this point but well structured, good acidity.

Value Rating: 88

Date Tasted: May 28, 2015



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Deborah Podurgiel WSET IV Candidate rated this wine as 90/100 with the following review:

A lot of love went into this hand-picked, hand-plunged wine and it shows in its pedigree. Howard Park Abercrombie Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 is full on ripe but fresh blackberry, black currant fruit with some mint, mocha and savoury black olive on the nose and palate. It is well structured and reveals its complexity one layer at a time with well balanced fruit to acidity, soft, powdery, velvet tannins and leaves the wine elegant and long. To match its elegance, I would pair it with a venison tenderloin.

Mymi Thesingingsommelier rated this wine as 89/100 with the following review:

The Burch Family Wines is Western Australia’s leading boutique, family-owned winery responsible for brands such as Howard Park Wines, MadFish, Marchand & Burch and Jeté.
Established in 1986, it is one of the original pioneers of the cool climate Great Southern region known for its rich, ancient soils and elevated vineyard sites, and of course, the Margaret River wine region!
Of note: The Burch family are the first Australians to gain ownership in the production of a Burgundian Grand Cru under the Marchand & Burch label.
Howard Park Wines has a very simple mantra when it comes to the production of its wines - premium wine can only come from excellent fruit. Since its foundation Howard Park has held the belief that each variety is best suited to particular climates and soil types within the two premium wine regions of Margaret River and the Great Southern.
This 2012 Abercrombie is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon but is a blend from the Abercrombie vineyard in Mount Barker and Leston vineyard in Margaret River. Named after Jeff Burch’s Great-Grandfather Walter Abercrombie, it is Howard Park’s flagship Cabernet Sauvignon.
In the glass, it is a deep deep crimson red, almost opaque in the centre with great inky legs!
The nose is explosive, hot, meaty, smoky and full of fresh herb, ripe cherries and blackberries!
Taste buds are welcomed by healthy tannins and a refreshing core of acidity. Ripe cherries, currants, plum and a little fresh herb are present, long finish leaves a dusty chocolaty tobacco taste in the mouth.
Yummy!
Enjoy with lamb burgers on the bbq or a nice rib-eye dinner with all the trimmings!!!

Steve Kubota rated this wine as 95/100 with the following review:

BURCH FAMILY WINES of Western Australia
Howard Park Wines 2011 Abercrombie Cabernet Sauvignon

Howard Park Wines is one of Western Australia’s leading boutique family owned wineries, responsible for brands Howard Park, MadFish and Marchand & Burch. They are also Western Australia’s largest boutique family-owned winery producing a range of handcrafted fine Australian wines from the state’s premier grape growing regions of Margaret River and the Great Southern.

I tasted three wines from Howard Park at an industry tasting promotion showcasing Australia’s First Families of Wine. I was not familiar with Howard Park prior to this event and I did not know what to expect before trying their wine. Needless to say I was very impressed and am now a huge fan. There is more information on Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW) available at the end of this review.

From the Winery:
‘Abercrombie’ is the definitive Cabernet Sauvignon of Howard Park Wines. Since the first release in 1986, a multi-region five-vineyard Western Australian blend, this wine has been a true reflection of the best fruit chosen from a selection of the oldest vineyards in Western Australia’s Margaret River region and cool climate Mount Barker and Porongurup sub-regions of the Great Southern. Produced from the top 1% of available Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and then only in the years when grapes of extraordinarily high quality are available.

Named after Jeff Burch’s Great-Grandfather Walter Abercrombie, this Howard Park flagship Cabernet Sauvignon is noted for its outstanding structural complexity and exceptional elegance. It combines the austere dusty earth and blackcurrant aromas from Mount Barker, with the classic rich fruit and chocolaty palette of Margaret River. Together they produce an elegantly balanced cabernet sauvignon with mature ripe tannins backed up by quality French oak. Careful long term cellaring will realize this wine’s full potential.

In Langton’s Classification of Australian Wine, the Abercrombie has an ‘Excellent’ rating, spanning back since Classification III in 2000.

Winemaking:
All grapes selected for Abercrombie are handpicked, destemmed and sorted before fermentation in a mix of small static fermenters and open stainless steel vats. The grapes are hand-plunged and pumped over as required to balance the extraction of colour, tannin and flavour. Each fermenter is basket-pressed to French oak barriques for 18 months of maturation to achieve thorough integration of oak and grape tannins. The wine is minimally fined then filtered prior to bottling.

My Tasting Notes:
The Abercrombie Cabernet Sauvignon was one of the top five wines tasted at the AFFW event. This Cabernet is old-world, Bordeaux-esque in its display of dark berry aromas with integrated ripe blackberry and currant fruit flavours with an herbaceous element in the finish. There is also a feeling of refinement, tannin structure and balance that also remind me of pricey left bank Bordeaux alternatives. This wine will reveal more layers of flavours and minerality, the benefits from additional time aging in the bottle. The winery suggests drinking the Abercrombie from 2017 and can be cellared for more than ten years.

Varietal Composition: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellations: Margaret River (30%) – Leston Block 8, Block 29
Mount Baker, Great Southern (70%) – Abercrombie Vineyard
Vintage: 2012
Alcohol: 14%
Total Acid: 6.5 g/L
pH: 3.53
Maturation: 18-months in 70% New French Oak
Sweetness Level: Dry


Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW):
AFFW together represent seventeen wine-growing regions across Australia and forty-eight generations of winemakers. The inaugural twelve-member alliance includes Brown Brothers, Campbells, Taylors, DeBortoli, McWilliam's, Tahbilk, Tyrell's, Yalumba, D'Arenberg, Jim Barry, Howard Park, and Henschke. Howard Park Wines is the only representative from Western Australia to be included in AFFW.

The aim of Australia's First Families of Wine is to showcase a representative and diverse range of the best of Australian wine with a focus on regional and iconic drops. The collective is working to engage and educate consumers, retailers, restaurants and the wine industry across the globe about the real character and personality of Australian wine, and about the unique characters and personalities behind it.

The Abercrombie Cabernet Sauvignon was tasted on May 28, 2015 in Vancouver, BC.

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