Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet 2022

The Wine

98 Pts Philip Rich, Halliday Wine Companion ‘Cabernet and Blends of the Year. A blend of 47/28/15/6/4% cabernet sauvignon/merlot/ cabernet franc/petit verdot/malbec. Fermented with whole berries and at different temperatures, depending on the variety. All varieties are matured in both barriques and 1600L foudres for 12 months then racked into barriques (35% new) for another 10 months before blending and bottling. A deep, bright, crimson ruby. Brooding with classic dark cherries, blackcurrant, iodine, violets and fresh lead pencil shavings. Saturates the palate without being remotely heavy. The tannins are muscular, very persistent and in perfect harmony with the fruit. A magnificent wine that will provide enormous enjoyment over the next two decades.’

97 Pts Wine Front ‘Cherry and chocolate, blueberries, violets, tobacco, pencils, baking spice, a light mint perfume. It’s medium-bodied, so fine and ‘minerally’, with succulent graphite tannin, cool fresh acidity to balance, quite some mouth-perfume, and kind of ferrous too, and the length is superb, finishing bright and steely, redcurrant and cranberry carries in the aftertaste. Superb. Such energy and class. There’s something about (Mount) Mary’.

Two things are well known about the Mount Mary Quintet: it ages prodigiously (gracefully, slowly), and it comes wrapped in a light-weight frame. It speaks eloquently of the Yarra Valley and of the varieties from which it is constructed. It is one of the few wines that I collect each year without consideration of vintage conditions. Like every other aspect of this iconic estate, the focus in the vineyards is on the long term, and the sites are being worked with the future very much in mind. The eventual phase-out of herbicides and shift toward organics is being viewed (quite rightly) as a complex, all-encompassing holistic shift. As we all know, it does not happen overnight, but all good things are worth waiting for. Tradition is often responsible for a sense of stoicism, a “slow and steady” approach. This is very much the pace at Mount Mary, and this reviewer could not have been more comforted and thrilled by that. Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate

‘…Quintet, which has always been made with all five Bordeaux varieties. Its finer, perfumed, moderate-alcohol style ages superbly well, especially in top vintages–the 1990 is still in its prime. The other wines are similarly styled and are some of the most age-worthy wines in the Yarra. Tasting a run of Quintet vintages showed that, despite some warmer years, this classically styled blend remains in world-beating form.
Angus Hughson, Vinous