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| Moss Wood Cabernet 2008 Has the love gone? |
Falling out of love with.. Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
Moss Wood Cabernet 2008 (Margaret River, WA)
14.5%, Screwcap, $120
Source: Had a glass from someone else’s bottle
www.mosswood.com.au
Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps I’ve become another one of those fashion chasing, natural wine drinking sycophantic fanboys, happy to drink my BD Champagnes and obscure Sicilian reds whilst giving the old favourites (like Moss Wood Cabernet) the middle finger. Not biodynamic/imported/cloudy? No good…
But I’m not though. Or at least I don’t think I am. My cellar is still full of Margaret River Cabernet, topped up only recently with a few bottles of 07 Cape Mentelle Cabernet and 07 Vasse Felix Heytesbury. So I think I’m in the frame.
Yet I didn’t love this 2008 Moss Wood Cabernet. Nor was I particularly convinced by the 07 for that measure. Or the 06. In fact, all of these last three vintages of Moss Wood have been – to my tastes at least – slightly disappointing.
Who cares right? It’s probably just me who has changed, It’s simply not ‘my wine’ anymore surely???
But it’s not as simple as that, especially given my Moss Wood context, a wine that three years ago I thought was the shit. Once upon a time – 3 years ago even – it was the wine I would drool over. Get excited about. But not anymore. Now, I just no longer love the wines like I should (given the vintages, vineyard, my history with the winery, the lot). In other words, the love affair is over.
Why exactly I no longer feel the love is quite apparent too – the wine style has, in my opinion, failed to adapt, change, evolve and improve. Moss Wood Cabernet has stood still stylistically whilst the world has changed. It’s still going to appeal to those who have always loved it – the dyed-in-the-wool followers – yet for those outside the Moss Wood fan club the wine is just not going to win you over like it once did.
This wine? Or more correctly, the Moss Wood Cabernet style that I no longer appreciate it? Well it’s a big and ripe and heavy wine, kicking off with a nose that shows oak and rich gum leaf edged blackberry fruit washing through, everything edged with volatility and latent alcohol warmth. It’s a nose of bulk actually, of winemaking, of power too but no grace.
Unsurprisingly the palate too is rich and concentrated, the fruit sweetened with oak, that sweet vanilla oak then filling every cranny that the four square fruit cannot, before finishing with a bang of alcohol warmth.
It is, in my opinion, an overwrought wine, a wine of maker not terroir, a wine that impresses with so much of it’s potential and power yet shows no life to be seen. In a bigger lineup this may well still impress, and all that oak and fruit are certainly high quality, yet in the scheme of things it’s a hardish, warmish wine that you just can’t love.
My score is still reasonable because I know the DNA in there is bloody great and it may well prove me wrong. But gee the artifice around it doesn’t quite match up… 17.4/90++
Anyone else feel the same?
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5 Comments
Cabernet like Moss Wood needs to be considered in the context of drinking it not as a 3-year old wine, but as a 20+ year old wine, in my opinion.
I must admit that I have not tried '07, nor '08, but I did taste the '06, and I was surprised how much I liked it considering what a poor vintage it was supposed to be for Cabernet in Margaret River.
All reports are that both 2007, and 2008 were great vintages for the region, so maybe check back on them in a number of years to see how they're standing up then ??
Absolutely – these wines are built to be long term prospects and typically don't show all that well when young. Hence the plus signs.
The sentiment here is more about how much less I enjoy the more recent releases. The balance isn't as good, the latent quality obscured by oak and alcohol. Time will help no doubt, but I'm just not feeling as enthusiastic about said recent releases.
I agree with your comment that may be it is just you. Wait 10 years and taste it again and I might take some notice of you. Having had both the 99 Moss Wood and 99 Cullen (neither blind, both with food) in the past week, I can assure you the 99 Moss Wood is a superb wine in the ripe Margaret River cabernet style whereas the 99 Cullen is merely very pleasant without any x-factor. Give them the necessary bottle age before you can claim to fall out of love.
I've had that 99 Moss Wood and it's a cracking wine. Had some in the cellar up until recently too. I've had Moss Woods back to the mid 80s for that matter and loved them. Again the issue is that the late 90's and early noughties wines had better balance on release than the 06,07 and 08s which is what spurred this article.
No doubt said recent trio will improve over 10 years though, but I can't but feel they are lesser wines than those proceeding them. Most worryingly the oak looks overly prominent and the alcohol intrusive, two elements which don't really recede with time. Time will tell.
Ah, that's the beauty of wine blogs: a diversity of views! I actually agree with the earlier comment that the 06 Moss Wood presented very well: I tried it a couple of years ago, and it stood out. I wasn't 100% convinced with the 07, as I tasted it with about 100 other wines and had a bit of palate fatigue, but gave it the benefit of the doubt. The good quality of the 07 Amy's though suggested to me it probably will stack up. I haven't tried the 08 though. Their older vintages have stacked up too, most recently the 2000 performed extremely well after a rough start. I reckon there's life in this label yet, but happily not all views are the same 😉