| The Cigar Vines from Yalumba’s Coonawarra Estate were planted in 1975 and 1994, with the younger plantings tending to be sourced for Yalumba The Cigar.
Like its elder sibling Yalumba The Menzies, Yalumba The Cigar is made through small lot winemaking techniques. The grapes are crushed to small static fermenters and, once the fermentation commences, the temperature is allowed to peak early at 30°C, then given more control around 20°C. This ensures good extraction of colour and tannin. The grapes stay on skins for around seven days, though some tanks are given extended skin contact before pressing. The wine is matured for 16 months in mainly French oak hogsheads.
Deep magenta in colour with a nose of full intensity, the Cigar 2008 is a brooding wine showing leather, dark chocolate and high tones of cassis and jujube fruit pastilles. The palate surprises as it is not the brute the nose suggests. It is a medium bodied wine with fruit flavours of dark cherries and blackberries. The tannins are silky smooth and act in harmony with the fruit for a lingering finish.
Food: Roast Duck with all of the trimmings
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 2008
 Coonawarra
 Peter Gambetta
 15th to 29th March 2008
 Matured for 16 Months in new French Oak Hogheads (14%), one year old French & Hungarian Oak Hogheads (8%), balance in older French oak Hogsheads & Barriques and American oak Hogsheads
 14%
 6.6g/L
 3.5 |
