Vasse Felix Unveils New Icon Red Project

With an enviable reputation as one of Australia’s greatest modern chardonnay makers, founding Margaret River winery, Vasse Felix, has formally announced their planned release of a new top-level cabernet-based wine. Due for release in May 2017, the new wine named after Vasse Felix founder Dr. Tom Cullity will replace Heytesbury as their pinnacle red wine – the Heytesbury name now given exclusively to the best chardonnay bottling at Vasse Felix.

A blend of cabernet sauvignon and malbec sourced from the estate’s best old vine plantings, the first Tom Cullity release comes from the excellent 2013 vintage and marks the culmination of a decade of planning. “I first raised the idea of this wine with Dr. Cullity 10 years ago,” Vasse Felix owner Paul Holmes à Court said, “and we’ve been working towards it ever since.”

Much more than a mere name change, this fundamentally reshapes the game for Vasse Felix in that their most esteemed red moves from a varietally labeled cabernet sauvignon (that inevitably included a tickle of other varieties) to a blend of cabernet sauvignon and malbec – a move that echoes a rising interest among the region’s best winemakers in pursuing malbec’s potential as partner to cabernet sauvignon.

Further to this, the top Vasse Felix red now becomes a single vineyard bottling of wine underpinned by the region’s oldest plantings of cabernet and malbec, vines planted by Dr. Cullity himself. It is a landmark moment for Vasse Felix, for the Margaret River region and for all followers and collectors of great Australian wine in that an elite section of vineyard is being singled out, linking quality to terroir rather than simply banking on brand name. Kudos to Holmes à Court and all involved for taking that step. 

It also, rather poetically, means that the wine bearing the late Dr. Cullity’s name is of similar composition to the first red he released from Vasse Felix nearly 50 years ago – a 1972 vintage cabernet malbec blend. Fittingly too, the May 2017 timing of the inaugural Vasse Felix Tom Cullity release will mark the 50th anniversary of Cullity’s establishment of the vineyard and winery in 1967. 

Pricing and packaging are in the late stages of being finalized; stay tuned for my review later this year ahead of the public release in May 2017. Given the pedigree of every wine in the Vasse Felix stable and the 10-year gestation to bring this new wine to fruition, this is sure to be an outstanding new addition to the elite tier of Margaret River reds.

Photo: Vasse Felix Margaret River 1972, the 1st Vasse Felix red released by Dr. Tom Cullity

Contributing Editor Nick Stock is a renowned Australian wine writer, author, presenter and filmmaker who reports on his worldwide wine tasting experiences for JamesSuckling.com.