Serpico Cabernet Sauvignon - 2019

96 POINTS
You’d think they were crazy making an Amarone style from cabernet sauvignon. Amarone is one of Italy’s greatest wines made from dried grapes which concentrate the flavours and tannins to create long lived wines. This is a gorgeous wine, and my pick of the current new releases, which packs a serious punch. The colour is deep suggesting a big dense style but the wine is surprisingly light on its feet. Sweet, pure and vibrant blackcurrant fruits are tempered by dried herbs with some sweeter blackberry underneath. Oak is there too but sits in the background. This then leads to a bold and explosive palate full of power and energy – fruit pastille flavours are supported by fine acidity that is all underpinned by significant but well handled tannins. It is soooooo long too with the fruit concentration holding that flavour for minutes. A delicious wine stacked full of personality that is hard to put down.
ANGUS HUGHSON, WINE PILOT. JANUARY 2021

96 POINTS
The wine shows stunning fruit purity as well as seductive complexity with cassis, sweet plum, tobacco and spicy oak characters. It’s impressively concentrated and persistent, displaying awesome power brilliantly structured by loads of fine tannins. Multi-layered and graceful. At its best: 2024 to 2039.
SAM KIM, WINE ORBIT. FEBRUARY 2021

94 POINTS
Air dried fruit (appassimento) alters the tannin structure toward a burlier whole, while changing the nature of the aromas from primary fruits, to more savoury elements. This serves a warm zone like the Vale well. The oak, malty. The density, extract and sheer presence of the wine, forceful. Saturated dark fruits, liquorice, tightly furled coffee grain tannins and mineral. This needs time. Jangly at the moment.
NED GOODWIN, WINE COMPANION. FEBRUARY 2021

94 POINTS
The 2019 Serpico Cabernet Sauvignon is made from partially dried grapes. After being air-dried for approximately nine weeks and losing approximately 30% of their weight, the grapes are pressed. The resulting wine is a potent, cassis and herb-laced offering with hints of dark chocolate and caramel yet never heavy or overdone. Fullbodied, rich and possessing a layered texture and a lingering finish, it’s a terrific example of Serpico, with at least a decade of cellaring potential.
JOE CZERWINSKI, THE WINE ADVOCATE. FEBRUARY 2021

91 POINTS
Medium-depth ruby colour with brick and purple in the rim. The wine is leafy, mossy, herbal and quite complex, the cabernet family characteristics are there but it’s taken to a more interesting level than just simple cassisy fruit. A little forward perhaps, and pushes the ripeness envelope, but makes attractive drinking already.
HUON HOOKE, THE REAL REVIEW. MARCH 2021