Balgownie 1970 Plantings Cabernet.
The Bendigo Balgownie site first planted in 1969 and 1970 has made some monumental wines over the last 50+ years, and this 2025 Josh Cooper Balgownie '70 Plantings is one of them. It's a beauty; a piece of Australian Viticultural history. Sadly, the site is soon to be a housing estate.
I have tasted '77. '80 and ;81 cabernets recently and these wines offer class, generosity of flavour and captivating nuances, even now 25ish years later. I can't wait to taste this 2025 Balgownie made by Josh Cooper in 10 and 20 years time!
2023 Claret Blend
Offer: $44
'It's Claret alright. Medium weight, supple, dark cherry, cola, cassis, violet florals, sweet tobacco, light mahogany and choc-mint. A lively wine yet at medium weight, maybe a little more, sweet fruit and that herbal inflection running riot. All of it mellow in a way, seamless in integration. Light on its feet, pretty and then, again, you know you have something of concentration. A touch resinous, in this, but we move past, that's micrometer detail. Wonderful wine here.' 93Pts. - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
2025 Regional (Macedon) Chardonnay
Offer: $55
'Delicious drinking. Lemon curd, lemongrass, lemon verbena with dashes of red apple, peach, vanilla and touches of flint with saline minerality. It’s got a nice haze to texture, a gentle and soft flow, a touch diffuse perhaps but refreshing anyways. Perfume rolls out with green apple, green mango, salted cashew and faint clove and herbal lift. Delightful. Everything just so. Good freshness too. Happy days.'
93Pts. - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
2022 Redbank (1970s Vines) Cabernet Sauvignon
Offer: $99
'Dark chocolate, dark plum, dark cherry, dark plum, you get the gist… It’s a vortex of potent and powerful cabernet flecked with mint, eucalyptus, cedar, clove, rich and smooth, though ribbons of fine, firm tannin, slightly bitter, do a wonderful job of tensing the wine up and guiding the lengthy persistence of these flavours. Fantastic wine, I hound the glass seeking the characters and textures on hand – an orchestral wine of high drinkability and prized age worthiness. Mega attractive.'
95Pts. - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
2022 Greytown Old Vines Heathcote Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon
Offer: $99
'This is a ripping drink and feels fine and fancy to boot. It has this really beautiful sweet fruit core, red and black berries, a touch of pastille and choc-mint in the mix, mahogany whiffs, liquorice, white pepper, green olive also playing cards. The wine is broad-shouldered but tempered with spice and graphite-laced and lengthy tannins. It’s got density and yet freshness on hand. It draws long and to a fine, succulent point with audible chews on that tannin following. Impressive.'
95Pts. - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
2024 Redbank (1970s Vines) Cabernet Sauvignon
Offer: $99
'This feels old school-good school, proper vin de garde in style, earthy, dusty, powdery, brittle and acid driven, a touch of mint, brambles and dried flowers, black tea and sooty spice – a lifetime with this wine. Salted plums, liquorice, pickled red cherries, hazelnut. So many descriptors to pack in. Tannins somewhere between refreshing and very grippy, firm and bitter, it works, for the most part, but time should also help. It’s charming and curious and an experience as it stands now. I was compelled to keep going and checking in, a good sign for this.'
95+Pts. - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
2025 Balgownie - 1970 Old Vines - Maiden Gully Cabernet Sauvignon Offer: $99 - The last vintage of this great old vineyard!
This is the last harvest from this great site before the vines are up-rooted to make way for housing. A sad story for a distinguished site that has produced so many great balgownie cabernets over the decades, and a few Josh Cooper wines too.
"It’s a substantial and quietly powerful wine. Massive inward concentration, inky texture, grippy, silty tannin in a web shaping things, huge perfume of wild berries and mint and chocolate and sooty spice. The palate, a delight, a flowing, sleek thing of darkness, woody spice and savoury things. Dustiness here in a good way. There’s a distinct kind of old school, good school feel here, perhaps pushed through a modern lens, but leaning into more laid back, wine-for-cellaring vibes. And yet, the finesse seeps into things and convinces you to drink now. Compelling."
95+ Points - Mike Bennie The Winefront.
