Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s

Wine Facts

Harvested:	Glenmore Cabernet Sauvignon – 24^th April, 2017 Glenmore Merlot – 11^th April, 2017 Glenmore Malbec – 12^th April, 2017 Petit Verdot – 11^th April, 2017
Bottled:	10/07/2018
Released:	08/11/2018
Baume:	Glenmore Cabernet Sauvignon – 13.3° Baume Glenmore Merlot – 14.0° Baume Glenmore Malbec – 13.6° Baume Glenmore Petit Verdot – 14.7° Baume
Alcohol:	13.5%

Read the story of Amy

Tasting Notes

Colour and condition:

Very deep brick red hue, almost blue tints, in bright condition.

Nose:

The theme of the nose is ripe berries, with all the typical features of the 4 varieties in the blend – red current from Cabernet Sauvignon, blackberry from Merlot, plums and spices from Malbec and black jubes and musk from Petit Verdot.

Palate:

In the same mould as the nose, the palate has great fruit concentration and length, courtesy of all the dark berry flavours. This sits over and all but covers a firm structure of acid and tannin, so the result is very drinkable.

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – Tamlyn Currin, Jancis Robinson

Ripe, succulent nose that crackles with green pepper and green-peppercorn spice. Cab Sav dominates in an intensely blackcurranty and blackcurrant-bud way. Juicy and fragrant and very much of the bordeaux mould but with the sensuous sunlit roundness of New World – in a good way! Supple tannins. Generous without sacrificing elegance. Published 16 Apr 2020

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – Christina Pickard, The Wine Enthusiast

This crimson-hued, Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated Bordeaux blend is an excellent and affordable intro to the wines of one of Margaret River’s founding wineries. It’s sappy and mineral, with brambly berries laced with herbs and graphite; charred meat and vanilla make an appearance, too. In the mouth, there’s a lovely juxtaposition between luscious texture and raspy, herbflecked…

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – Joe Czerwinski, The Wine Advocate Robert Parker

Owner Keith Mugford says the 2017 Amy’s “is the closest we come to cheap Cabernet”. It’s 60% to 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, with the balance a blend of Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot. It shows some noticeable herbal shadings and mouthwatering raspberry notes. Medium-bodied and loosely structured, it should be consumed over the next 4-5 years.…

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – James Halliday, The Wine Companion

Cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec and petit verdot grown on the Glenmore Vineyard, fermented, matured and bottled at Moss Wood. The excellent crimson-purple colour introduces a juicy and seductive array of red and black fruits held close by ripe tannins and integrated French oak. A pleasure to drink.

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – John Lewis, Newcastle Herald

What a delightful multi-faceted drop we have in this blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. It has 13.5 per cent alcohol, ruby hues and cassis and caramel aromas. Vibrant blackcurrant flavour zips in on the front palate and elements of ripe black cherries, spice, Turkish delight chocolate and savoury oak home in…

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – Bob Campbell, The Real Review

“A blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. Dense, ripe, fruit-focused red with dark-fleshed plum, blackberry, dried redcurrant, wood-smoke and spicy flavours. A perfectly balanced wine with a backbone of sweet, ripe tannins.” Published 15 January 2019 “Moss Wood’s 2017 Amy’s is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. A little…

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – Ray Jordan, The West Australian

A blend of cabernet merlot malbec and petit verdot. It’s still so young but showing excellent fruit concentration. Lush and sweet with juicy fruitiness as you might expect from such a recent vintage. A wine that you can tuck into over the next few years.

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s – Matthew Jukes, 100 Best Australian Wines 2018/2019

Moss Wood 2017 Amy’s is more precocious than usual and it seems to have realised that it is being released at the same time as the 2015 Estate Cabernet and so it has to distract you from opening any bottles of the Grand Vin by being more come hither than of late. Instead of being…

Vintage Notes

The discussion of Amy’s begins with an apology. This wine has had very little airplay from us since the 2014 vintage and we feel we owe an explanation. It’s role in our portfolio is to introduce Moss Wood to new customers and which means it is sold quite widely across the wine trade in restaurants and liquor stores. Extensive distribution is very important but puts considerable pressure on our supplies, despite Amy’s being the biggest volume of wine we make. It so happens that yields in 2015 and 2016 were very low and therefore our quantities were well below average and both wines worked their way through our system unusually quickly and both without a newsletter to our Members. We simply couldn’t keep up and we trust we haven’t offended too many people.

With the 2017 vintage, yields were back to normal, Amy’s is back in our newsletter and our first red wine release from the 2017 vintage, one that was both exciting and challenging. Regular readers will recall its uncanny similarity with the great 1990 and from a quality perspective, 2017 looms as a significant competitor for its older sibling. If we look at the harvest details, we can see why this was.

The exciting part is in the consistency of the ripeness across all varieties. This is very important because our aim in making the Amy’s is to ensure the wine has good fruit depth, without an assertive structure. Each variety was picked over 13° Baume and the Merlot and Petit Verdot both got to 14°. This means they all have genuine fruit richness, leaving the tannins, even in the young wine, sitting nicely in the background.

So, what was the challenge? The harvest dates, of course! Instead of starting in mid-march with Malbec or Merlot, we didn’t take any fruit until 11^th April. Cabernet Sauvignon has a median harvest date of 24^th April but the last batch didn’t come off until the 29^th! In a region where significant rain is always a risk from the middle of March onwards, this was indeed a challenge. We spent many hours assessing and reassessing the weather forecasts and we got lucky. Mother Nature decided to give us a classic west coast, Indian Summer, with no rain and balmy autumn days. Every day the forecast said fine was another day that we would delay picking and, in the end, the result is quite special.

Production Notes

Across all the varieties in the Amy’s blend, we use a similar technique, with fermentations in closed tanks, with pump-overs for colour and flavour extraction. Time on skins is typically shorter than the Moss Wood and Ribbon Vale reds, varying from 9 days for the Petit Verdot to 16 days for the Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Merlot. After pressing, the wine was blended and then racked to 228 litre French oak barrels, although there was no new oak. Our intention is to ensure the Amy’s always has good fruit depth and so a short time in old barrels gives us sufficient complexity.

In June 2018 all barrels were racked and blended in stainless steel and assessed for tannin balance. Fining trials showed the wine to have excellent balance and so it remained untreated. It was then sterile filtered and bottled on 9^th July, 2018.

The final blend is 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 7% Malbec and 4% Petit Verdot.

Cellaring Notes

We noted above our plan for this wine which is for it to be balanced and drinkable as a youngster and we are very confident we’ve hit the mark with the 2017. However, as everyone now knows, high quality Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon is a fine cellaring wine and for those who like to have some cedary and tarry complexity, we recommend cellaring for 10 years.

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