2018 Yalumba The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon - Shiraz Barossa 750 ml

Yalumba is one of Australia’s most historic family-owned wineries, crowned with a 5-star rating from Australia’s most eminent wine critic, James Halliday. The Signature is a testimony to their incredible terroir—and this fabulous 2018 does the bottling proud, with an impressive 95 points from Decanter. 

That’s right in line with the heaps of critical praise this bottling has received year after year. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate has plied The Signature with 15 outstanding scores of 90-96 points. Halliday, who’s spent going on three decades getting to know this wine, has rated it 94-96 points 11 times. 

Australia's most legendary wines have been made blending Cab and Shiraz—think Penfolds’ Grange, which retails for over $800 these days—but Yalumba has been the ambassador of this style. Each year, The Signature pays tribute to someone connected to Yalumba. The first vintage debuted in 1962, making this one of the most historic bottles in Oz. 

The Cabernet Sauvignon (54% of the blend) comes primarily from Barossa, including vineyards near Gomersal, Greenock, and the Krondorf foothills. Most of the Shiraz comes from the Schiller Family Vineyard, plantings dating from 1925, 1935, and 1945. Every parcel of grapes is harvested and fermented separately by wild yeasts, while open-top fermenters allow a cap of grape skins to form, which is then hand-plunged to gently extract color and tannin, leading to a wine of rich textural complexity and a beautiful, inky color.  

The wine is matured for 21 months in a combination of French and American barriques and Hungarian hogsheads, lending layers of baking spice, herbs, and cocoa to the final wine. It’s a stunner, it’s historic, and we’re thrilled to share it with you.