Nocturne, `Sheoak Vineyard` Yallingup Cabernet Sauvignon

Julian Langworthy is one of Margaret River's most decorated winemakers, picking up the Jimmy Watson Trophy in 2014 and Halliday's Best Winemaker in 2019 before launching Nocturne as his solo venture. The Sheoak Vineyard is his four-hectare home site in Yallingup, the warmest of Margaret River's sub-regions, where deep gravel soils and Indian Ocean breezes produce Cabernet of real complexity and precision. The 2023 vintage was low-yielding, with cool winter temperatures and a dry, warm start to the year delivering perfect ripening conditions.

The wine is made with minimal intervention: destemmed, fermented with indigenous yeasts, 14 days on skins, then 16 months in a mix of new and older French oak. Highly complex and perfumed on the nose, with cassis, dark fruit and warm spice, the palate shows crunchy cranberry, bay leaf and cedar on a long, silky finish. Small production, and it sells out every year.