2022 Joshua Cooper Balgownie Vineyard 1970 Block 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. Established in 1969, at an elevation of 200 meters near the banks of Myers Creek in Maiden Gully, the vineyard thrives on Ordovician shale, quartz, and ironstone rubble soils. This Cabernet Sauvignon originates from vines planted in 1970, making it one of the first plantings at the historic Balgownie Vineyard. 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....
This beautiful wine transports me back to the days when my (late) Dad and I would share a bottle of cabernet. It smells of nostalgia yet of a promise of things to come, as it’s a modern rendition and in the hands of young Josh Cooper ... well this is something else. While there’s a waft of florals and dark fruit, this is savoury in outlook. It has some cooling menthol and Aussie bush fragrance, ironstone and warm earth, but key is the fuller-bodied palate with such poised, detailed tannins, fine acidity and superb length. It’s complete. Josh says it ‘displays my most prized characteristics – effortless complexity and power without weight’. Sums up the wine perfectly. Drink 2024 - 2040.
97 Points
Jane Faulkner - Halliday's Australian Wine Companion

Very cool that Balgownie, already excellent, gets a go from Josh Cooper here. And go he does.
A significant cabernet for Australian wine, again. Elegant, refined, silky as with an authority of silty tannin that stretches long into the distance. Blue fruits here, violets and lavender, green olive, tobacco, faint eucalyptus, rosemary and sweet spices. It sits at medium weight, poised, everything seamless and in its place and delivers a rush from the perfume, evocative, serious all over. The wine is delicious and refreshing while being backed with fruit, tannin, cool acid profile, mineral charm, herbal elements, savoury qualities. Fine, fine wine. Watch it go. Drink 2023 - 2045+
96+ Points
Mike Bennie - The Wine Front

The 2022 Balgownie Vineyard 1970 Block Cabernet Sauvignon is all about black pepper, blackberry and bramble on the nose. It is brooding without being heavy or sticky and shows a capacity for black tea minerality though the finish. A super wine as usual, this release is a little more loose weave than the ultra tight 2021, but it's true to the austerity presented last year. Hurrah. For the uninitiated to Bendigo in Victoria, it's a beautifully preserved relic of the profligate Gold Rush era of the 1850s and is an incredibly picturesque town to visit. 13% alcohol, sealed under Diam and wax. Drink 2024 - 2035.
92 Points
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate