Fermoy Estate 2008 Yallingup Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot

There are times when you find yourself scratching the noggin and wondering what happened to that stuff you know you've got here somewhere but isn't where it ought to be. I was sure that I'd filed everything from the winery side of the Western Australia trip last year in separate folders in the filing cabinet, but when I went checking a minor detail there was no sign of a folder dedicated to material from Fermoy Estate.

There should, by rights, be a scribbled page of notes that produced the tasting notes and impressions noted here, but I was hoping for a price list or something similar that would verify that the wine I'd assessed as a bit young but had things in place to improve with age had the words Yallingup Vineyard on the label. Assuming it did, ten months or so has seen things fall into place rather nicely.

There are plenty of places to visit when you're wandering around Margaret River, even if you've decided to limit yourself to the places James Halliday has allocated five stars, and the decision to add Fermoy Estate to the list was partly based on Mr Halliday's rating, partly prompted by an assessment that they were happy to keep a relatively low profile, however difficult that may be given the quality of the wines and partly by the establishment's proximity to Cullen Wines on a day where the itinerary was centred around a tasting and lunch at Cullens before hitting the road to head back towards Perth.

Getting orders in to everywhere you want to buy from is rather tricky when you've got an extensive list of places you want to buy from, limited storage space and a diplomatic need to limit the number of cases in front of the wine rack.

There are, however, some offers you can't refuse, and dozens of the Fermoy 2009 Yallingup Vineyards Margaret River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc and 2009 Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc for $180 all-up including $30 freight was too good to miss, given the fact that Hallidayy had rated both at the 93 mark. I hadn't been quite so taken with a 4/5 rating, but then again at $7.50 a bottle you can afford to take a punt and prove yourself wrong.

In any case (actually, in both cases) I thought that the wines would go down well with the Merry frockster's lady friend, so a we'll go halves arrangement was fairly easy to negotiate.

Suffice it to say she liked them enough to save them for special occasions, so that when the end of the financial year offer from Fermoy had what looked like the 2010 equivalents a phone call was enough to ensure we were backing up for a restocking exercise.

You can't start on the whites until you can get 'em into the fridge, so I thought a good starting point this time around would be the...

Fermoy Estate 2008 Yallingup Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot (4.5* $20, sale $10) Dark red with purple notes in the glass, subtly pronounced cabernet character on the nose with some plummy merlot in there as well, berry flavours across the palate with ripe firmly rounded tannins and a lingering finish this 70% cabernet blend hit the spot rather nicely and left me regretting the fact that I only ended up with half a dozen. Somehow I doubt that I'll be able to reorder at the sale price.