2024 Cullen Mangan Vineyard Red Moon

This is Cullen doing what Cullen does best - letting the vineyard do the talking. Red Moon is a blend of Malbec, Petit Verdot and Merlot from the Mangan Vineyard, planted in the mid-90s and farmed biodynamically ever since. It’s named after the lunar eclipse that coincided with harvest, which fits nicely given Vanya Cullen’s long-time commitment to farming with the moon and the seasons.

The fruit was picked by hand on fruit and flower days, fermented naturally, and raised in old oak for a short spell - just enough to let it breathe, not enough to get in the way. No fining, no additions, nothing flashy. What you get is clean, juicy, purple-toned fruit with just the right amount of edge. There’s structure here, but it’s subtle. The wine glides more than it grips.

It’s one of those wines that’s easy to enjoy young, but if you forget a few bottles in the cellar, you’ll be glad you did. Quietly brilliant stuff.

95 points
"The wine is intensely concentrated in fruit flavor and tannin, with pomegranate, mulberry, violets, licorice, fennel, blood plum and cherry. There are pink peppercorns and pressed roses, with ozone and tarmac in profusion. There's a slinkiness to this wine that I appreciate; it is cleansing like summer rain, and it is inky and just a little bit chewy. The purity of expression here is so impressive. Fermented without additions, it matured in older oak for eight months."
- Erin Larkin (The Wine Advocate)