2022 Joshua Cooper Shays Flat Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Described by wine commentator Mike Bennie as "one of Australia’s brightest young winemakers”, Joshua Cooper is steadily forging a reputation for thoughtful, elegant, and confident wines from grapes grown in Macedon and surrounds. Shay's Flat Vineyard, in the heart of the Pyrenees, sits on a beautiful elevated ridge, surrounded by wheat fields and native bushland. The vineyard has mature vines (over 20 years old) that grow in soil rich in minerals like shale, quartz, and mudstone, producing powerful, yet detailed fruit. After three weeks of fermentation, the wine was pressed to a combination of new Stockinger 300L barrels (30%) and seasoned thin-staved Bordeaux barrels for 12 months of maturation. The wine is then racked to stainless steel tanks for four more months of settling, before bottling without any additives except a small amount of sulfur. While already quite enjoyable, this wine will become even more complex and rewarding with some moderate aging. Decanting well is recommended when drinking in its youth.

The 2024 Halliday Wine Companion Best New Winery of the Year

Other Reviews....
“I have a distinct soft spot for the Cabernet wines produced in the 70s and 80s by the pioneering wineries of Central and Western Victoria, many of which seem ageless even now”, says Josh Cooper, and don’t we know it! The top flight cabernet producers of Australia now have Josh tailgating, and then some. Pyrenees site, organic farmed.
This is athletic and poised, a wine of tannin-driven tension and freshness, corkscrews of fine, puckering chew in a weave. It’s exceptional in its length and persistence but shows impressive depth of fruit character too – blackberries, black olive, beautifully struck eucalyptus, black pepper, cola and charred spice. It’s aromatic and flavoursome, but the wine seems way more about its architecture and precision, with a strong sense of longevity for the wine in tow. It’s a treat to drink now, regardless. Drink 2023 - 2040+
95 Points
Mike Bennie - The Wine Front