2022 Cherubino Ovale Caves Road Chardonnay, Margaret River

2022 was in stark contrast to the 2021 season prior to it. Where 2021 had plenty of rain throughout the growing season, it was also cooler than the 2022 season. The wines from 2022 are powerfully driven and fruited, with the whites (particularly the Chardonnays) showing many of the same unbound fruit drive/soft acid qualities found in the 2014 vintage. Here, the 2022 Caves Road Chardonnay is still utterly inchoate and unevolved: cool ferment/banana-lolly esters and green apples dominate the nose. In the mouth, the wine is powerful, fulsome and plush. It is buxom, almost, with notes of yellow-flesh peach. It is forward, due to the warmth of the growing season, and resplendent in oak and richness. The fruit is sourced rom Wilyabrup, Karridale and Wallcliffe. This is painfully young for release, with crushed nuts and marzipan through the finish. 12% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

To suggest that Larry Cherubino makes a prodigious amount of wine would be both correct and a gentle understatement. However, he and his winemaking team (not to be overlooked or underestimated) are responsible for a huge number of very high quality wines, as are evidenced in this report. The Chardonnays are routinely made in a full-bodied, plush style, which is created by winemaking rather than later picking dates. The wines are enveloping, rich, balanced and opulent, in many cases, yet always classy. The Cabernets are often supported by a profusion of very high quality French oak. They offer cellaring propositions of the highest order, emphasized by Larry's access to very high quality fruit and very high attention to detail in his vineyards. The wines included in this report are his Margaret River wines, but he also makes a collection of wines from the Great Southern. The "plus" signs in the scores here indicate that the wines will be better with time.

93 points EL robertparker.com

The fruit was hand-picked and whole-bunch pressed directly into 30% new French oak, 70% old French oak from a combination of forests – Vosges, Troncais and Allier. Juice naturally fermented in barrel with only10% allowed to go through full malolactic fermentation.

Pale straw colour with aromas of roasted nuts, peach and sweet citrus blossom and complex oak spices. Flavours of citrus, mineral salts and a fine, long acidity.