The High Road Directors Reserve 2008 (Limited stock)

Colour:Deep dark ruby red centre, the edge shows a red – with a slight purple infusion.

Nose:This wine is intense and very tight, showing the barreling is clearly all new French oak wood. Cigar box and vanilla essence are forward at the moment. The wine has huge potential but will need time as the intense cassis fruit is there but will need time to come to the fore. This wine is complex and very serious and will deliver a nose of many layers of fruit.

Palate:The palate is huge and very layered with rich ripe tannins both of the fruit and wood. There is a rich lanolin creaminess which is extracted from the wood and ripe tannins. The palate is still closed but when open for a while the fruit is deep and dark, cassis and blackcurrant almost blueberry in its intense sweetness. This wine is very complex as the Cabernet Franc shows itself in the dark chocolate that remains in the month and fruit that is open from the Merlot sets an attractive ripe sweet fruit tone. The vanilla, cedar–cigar box and ripe fruit make a wonderful finish and this will get better as the wood integrates more with the wine and the fruit becomes more forward. There is no ways that this wine is not big and intense but most of all there is a balanced refined elegance here that has yet to be experienced in any of the vintages.