The pinnacle Cabernet for the d’Arenberg Icon series. Now, for one reason or another I’ve not got around to reviewing the Icon range for a couple of years. So here’s the last 4 releases, presented as mini vertical.

d’Arenberg, The Coppermine Road, Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale, 2014

6 years old, still maintaining a purple rim (the benefits of a screw cap closure!). Earthy sweet beetroot, dark grated chocolate, tarry smoke with blackberry concentration, a little leafy bramble, red capsicum with pencil oak and a graphite edge. Medium-full with a  archetypal Cabernet “doughtnut hole” of fruit: primary black, followed by a constriction before a finish of  herbal tartness. Still chock full of sandy, grainy tannins. Medium persistence of flavour and length to close.
Alc: 14.1%
Rating 17.75/20

d’Arenberg, The Coppermine Road, Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale, 2015

Cooler, pure aromas with blackberry, blackcurrant/cassis with vanilla oak softness, pencil shavings, subtle cigar box, fresh earth and dense leafy bramble. Keenly balanced: easy black fruit with fine sandy tannins still holding firm. Good push of flavour through front and middle. Handsome and capable of many more years being cellared.
Alc: 14.3%
Rating 18.5/20

d’Arenberg, The Coppermine Road, Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale, 2016

Youthfulness on show with bright aromas of blackcurrant and violets with savoury support from wet earth, beetroot skin, dark chocolate, cigar box and herbaceous edges of cut capsicum and bay leaf. Medium-full bodied with sandy tannins still rubbing raw against acidity, while the fruit waits patiently in the background.
Alc: 14.5%
Rating 18/20

d‘Arenberg, The Coppermine Road, Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale, 2017

Current release. Melange of fruits: blackberry, mulberry, blackcurrant with purple violet aromas before cigar box, roast red capsicum with leafy, minty edges. Primary and spicy. Silky front, fruit forward with tight mid palate. Plenty of fine, chalky tannin. The wine making seems dialed back and the result is a far better balanced wine.
RRP:  $75 
Alc: 14.5%
Rating 18.5/20

Wine samples courtesy of d’Arenberg