WOLF BLASS BLACK LABEL 2012

Wolf Blass Black Label
Cabernet Shiraz Malbec 2012

Wolf Blass proudly commemorate the 40th vintage release of Black Label and celebrate its iconic standing as a benchmark of Australian winemaking excellence.

With the release of the 2012 vintage of Black Label, this is their 40th consecutive vintage and one of the real icons of Australian wine. Those 40 years go back to the first vintage in 1973 when Wolf won the Jimmy Watson Trophy at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. Since that vintage, so for 40 vintages, they have won more than 64 trophies and nearly 300 gold medals. Black Label, over a very long time, has shown not only its incredible quality, but consistently, year in year out.

VARIETIES: 54% Cabernet Sauvignon – 41% Shiraz – 5% Malbec
REGION: Langhorne Creek – McLaren Vale, Multi-Region Blend
AGEING: Matured as individual vineyard batches in a combination of 40% new and 38% seasoned French oak, 12% new and 10% seasoned American oak for 20 months.
GUARDING POTENTIAL: Enjoy now or will cellar well up to 20 years, under ideal cellar conditions: on its side in a consistent and cool place (15°C) and away from vibrations
SERVE: Serve at 16 – 18ºC
CRITICS SCORES: 94/Huon Hooke, The Real Review
VIVINO: Average 4.2 ★★★★✰

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Black Label | Range | Wolf Blass

Since 1973, the chase to make the perfect wine has been fundamental to creating 42 remarkable vintages of Black Label. Built on complex, multilayered flavour and magnificent structure, Black Label is a powerful expression of the Wolf Blass philosophy of synergistic blending.

The philosophy behind Black Label is simple: to take the year’s very best wines and weave them together into a synergistic whole, the resultant wine being greater than the sum of its parts. It’s about creating a wine with many layers of flavour in a complex composition of intense fruit characters, magnificent structure, a rich lustrous texture, long velvety tannins and a lingering palate.

Harvested at optimum maturity and flavour, fruit from each vineyard was crushed, destemmed and fermented separately for seven to twelve days on skins. The ferments were allowed to warm naturally, with plunging and gentle pumping over used to maximise colour and flavour extraction. Mid-ferment cooling extended fermentation, exploiting time on skins and accentuating line and length. Some batches stayed on skins to dryness, while others completed fermentation in barrel, allowing a balanced integration of oak characters and enhancing texture and complexity.