2011 Jeremy Oliver's Wine of the Year; Nick Stock's Best Cabernet Merlot Blend; Ray Jordan's Best Cabernet Merlot - Diana Madeline 2009
2015 James Halliday Best Cabernet Blend - Diana Madeline 2012
"The sweetest and most intensely flavoured of the three Margaret River cabernets to make my Top 15, this is about as smooth and as rewarding as a blend of Australian cabernet and merlot can get. Vanya Cullen is quite brilliant in the way she fashions together the sweetness and ripeness of her vineyard's best fruit with the subtleties and fragrances of new oak." - Jeremy Oliver
"Vanya Cullen has taken her Cabernet Merlot into the top echelon of Australian Cabernet through dogged determination, curiosity and superb technical skills. The exemplary vineyard site is planted on ancient granitic soils in the central Willyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. Cullen has adopted the principles of biodynamic viticulture to “achieve greater individuality of site through working with nature rather than against it”. This estate style is about freshness and complexity, structure and suppleness. The wines have pronounced cassis and cedar aromas with fine beautifully ripe tannins. Earthy, anise, gamy aromas and flavours develop with age. Diane Madeline Cabernet Merlot is named in memory of Di Cullen who established the winery and vineyard with her husband in 1966 and is pure bottled philosophy." - Andrew Caillard MW
