Tag Archives: Cabernet Sauvignon

Jack Mattinson's Deluxe Dry Red 2009

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Prickles of green and brown, red and black. The aroma wraps spice and flesh in the skin of a fruit that is equal parts familiar and fictitious, not-quite-plum in its tart angularity, almost-blackberry in its brambly heat. This wine throws the sort of abstract aroma profile I associate more with fine fragrance than wine, something that approaches real life through a lens of artifice and construction. Yet it’s so earthy too, redolent of dirt roads and rough bark and things you feel as much as see. And it’s beautiful to smell.

The palate rushes at you with surprising, and surprisingly relaxed, fruit. This is the fruit of overripe plums, not baked or stressed so much as juicy to the point of bursting. It would be almost Barossa-like if not for the vibrantly purple-fruited Hilltops character that, after some air, emerges powerfully from a background of subtle oak, spice and structure. There’s certainly enough acid and tannin, the latter chunky and textural in character. This is all quite savoury and in its sense of integrity reminds me of home made preserves, baked things and slow cooking. Its finish caresses my tongue and reminds me that wine is for drinking — most days if you’re lucky — and that no critical endeavour will ever cause me to lose my enjoyment of the drink.

All this without even touching on this wine’s maker, its back label, the blend, its name, its price, the intent so clearly on display. I figured it best to just describe the wine, in order to do everything else justice. I’ll be buying a dozen, and I suggest you do too.

Mountain X
Price: $A15
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Gift

Best's Great Western Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

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I’ve tasted this wine twice now and both times have come away impressed with its drinkability. It’s not an especially sophisticated wine; in fact, there’s a rusticity to the flavour profile that suggests generosity and ease rather than intellect. But that’s not a bad thing in my book.

The aroma shows good varietal character, a nice hit of dusty leaf overlaying squashed dark berries and spiced oak. It’s all a bit blurry perhaps, and those looking for a chiselled expression of Cabernet may not find their ideal wine in this. For me, though, its value lies in savouriness and a meaty, chunky vibe.

The palate shows an interesting interplay between clean dark berry fruit and a range of brambly, dusty characters. Entry is savoury and bright, introducing a line of acid that is quite firm and supports the wine along its line. The middle palate is really flavoursome, again showing clean, vibrant dark fruits in an earthy, oak-influenced cage that really grounds the wine and gives it plenty of vitality. Fine, rather astringent tannins on the after palate introduce a long finish that treads into red fruit territory, along with just the right amount of oak.

This is a really genuine, regional wine that places enjoyment above perfection.

Best’s Wines
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Dowie Doole Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

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I really liked the 2007 vintage of this wine, so approached the current release with some anticipation. As an aside, it amuses me sometimes to read winery press releases on wines from hot years – it seems no-one ever picks after a heatwave. And so it is with this wine, picked before the heat, with the intent of producing the lighter and more easygoing Dowie Doole house style. For the most part, I would say this is a success.

But vintage conditions will shine through, and here they translate to a very slightly cheap-smelling confectionary fruit note that, thankfully, seems to blow off fairly quickly. Once settled, the wine expresses as much darker, with black fruit and sexy nougat-marzipan oak the key aromas. It’s chewy (if an aroma can be described thus) and dense, and smells very honest to me. This is the smell of a winemaker getting the best from a difficult vintage, even if that involves applying a liberal dose of oak.

The palate flows freely, and is full of clean fruit and more of that obvious, but tasty, oak. Entry is clean and brisk, leading to a more complex middle palate where a nice earthiness contributes a sense of rusticity. Body is medium, as is intensity. The after palate is a bit lighter and shows caramel flavours plus quite simple berry fruits. The finish lingers well with fruit flavour.

Not a wine for lovers of sharply varietal Cabernet. Definitely a wine for those who want to enjoy their winter evenings. Tonight, I fall in the latter camp.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Leconfield Cabernets 1998

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Curious, curious. First off, the sticker above the label on the back of this bottle appears to be in Chinese for some reason:

98lec.jpg

If memory serves me correctly, I bought this at the winery in the Spring of 2002. At the time, it tasted pretty fantastic to me, so I schlepped a bottle home, moved it a few times, forgot about, and then was reminded of it this week when Julian reviewed the 2008 version of what I assume is essentially the same wine.

So: how’s this one? Well, just for grins, let’s quote Mr Halliday:

The bouquet is fresh, with aromas of mint and leaf, and minimal oak: the palate is elegant, but pretty light for a ’98. Best drinking: 2002-2004.

Oops… guess I left this one in the cellar too long. Or did I? Well, let’s see: the color is no longer pretty light: instead, it’s a fairly dark, rich, squid ink black with some watering at the rim. The smell is reminiscent of entry-level port: somewhat fruity, a hint of wintergreen, and not terribly much else. In terms of taste there’s a faint hint of unripeness, but that’s just fine; without it, it would be too simple, too fruity. There’s still just enough tannin to keep it from being completely without interest, but only just barely: although this doesn’t taste bad, it really doesn’t taste good, either. If tasted blind, this could almost be mistaken for sweet and sour McNugget sauce: simple, slightly sweet, with a little bit of acidity.

Eventually, however, the wine did in fact display some reasonably interesting notes of wood and dirt, but those were sadly overwhelmed by marked acidity on the palate. I do believe that I let this one slip away from me. Lesson learned: I should have drunk this six years ago.

Leconfield
Price: A$30.95
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Leconfield Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

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I’ve tasted this over a couple of days. At first, the aroma created an entirely positive impression, being both varietal and strongly regional at the same time. I value Coonawarra Cabernet’s signature leafiness and fruit character, both of which this wine has in spades, along with a framework of rather glossy cedar oak. The reason why I let it sit for a while is because, on the palate, the acidity struck me as over the top; not outrageous, but a little peaky and unbalanced.

Interestingly, time and air have changed the flavour profile without significantly calming the acid. Today, two days after opening the bottle, the overtly vegetal side to the aroma profile has subsided, allowing dark chocolate to take its place.  What has remained constant is a decadent edge to the fruit character; it’s limpid and easy, like ice cream melting in Summer, and quite delicious as a result.

The palate remains on edge to an extent, a trait partially offset by the character of the fruit. As with the aroma, red and black berries express a syrupy dimension, in the most positive sense. Quite lush on entry, this is mostly fruit-driven until the middle palate, where very slightly raw oak impresses the palate, and tannins start to settle on the tongue. The tannins create a mouthfeel not unlike high cocoa content dark chocolate — full, perhaps raspy, quite pleasing to me. There’s just enough power in the fruit to ride atop all of this and carry some nice sucrosité through the after palate and into the finish. The finish itself is nice and long, not to mention delicious, though it needs time to fill out.

I really like the fruit in this wine; the question mark for me relates to structure, and whether all the elements are in balance. Still, I do like drinking this.

Leconfield
Price: $A30
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Lake's Folly Folly Red 2008

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2008 was a disastrous year for red wines in the Hunter Valley, and some producers — Tyrrell’s, for example — chose not to release any Shiraz-based wines as a result. According to Lake’s Folly, Cabernet fared somewhat better than its more regionally acceptable cousin, hence this wine. It’s technically not declassified, selling for the same price as the regular Cabernets. However, it has been labelled differently to mark a difference in style. 

There’s also, to be frank, a fairly large gap in quality. Whether this is an issue will depend partly on one’s curiosity for the Lake’s Folly vineyard. Certainly, the 2008 wine is an opportunity to taste a completely different expression of this site, and I value that opportunity quite apart from notions of absolute quality. 
On first sniff, it’s obvious this wine represents a vastly different style from the Cabernets, being both lighter and more fruit forward than usual. Although there are the usual Hunter influences here — damp earth, mostly — the fruit character is light, slightly confected and extraordinarily un-Cabernet like. There are plum skins and cherries and perhaps a raspberry or two; no cassis in sight. The palate confirms the light style of this wine and, overall, this seems much more like Pinot than anything else.  The acid structure is pretty fantastic, firm and fresh, carrying a somewhat dilute wash of fruit flavour through the entry and mid-palates. There’s a lovely sappiness to the after palate that communicates freshness and life. The finish is quite long, all things considered, with a lick of raspy tannins to close.
What an oddity. It lacks the complexity, intensity and just plain awesomeness of a typical Cabernets release, but despite all that it’s curiously drinkable and really quite lovely. 12% abv.

Lake’s Folly
Price: $A55
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Grosset Gaia 2001

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Exotic and yet strangely familiar, this wine smells of California mission figs, damp soil in a shady redwood forest, freshly-baked German plum torte, the singing acidity of just-cleaved fruit, freshly baked brownies cooling in a suburban kitchen window, and cassis. It’s so wonderfully complex that honestly? I could probably sit here smelling it for half an hour; it’s as elaborate and fluid as a Guerlain perfume.Texturally, it’s fascinating, simultaneously hard and porous, with an initial impression of hard, ripe tannin quickly changing to a soft, slippery, sensual decay of just-melted chocolate. Beyond the texture, though, is still-present, still-youthful black cherry fruit, cheerfully slipping into warmer cigar box and cedar notes, finishing softly into a long, slow dissolve into dried herbs and dark bread baked in a wood-fired oven.Ironically, it’s the sweetness here that marks this wine as distinctly what it is. If that weren’t here, it would remind me of a Loire red, given its firm tannin and wonderfully complex notes of cherry, mineral, and herbs. However, it’s that beautiful, pure Australian fruit that elevates it beyond the merely really f***ing good and into the phenomenal. There aren’t many wines that can convincingly walk the line between Old World and New; just as Ridge Monte Bello does, this wine is simultaneously everything good about the Old and the New.I would imagine there’s another five or ten years’ life left here; simultaneously, I can’t imagine this being any better than it is right now.Grosset
Price: $27
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Dindima Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2005

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Interesting wine on paper, this. It’s a new release wine yet, at five years of age, relatively old to be so. Not that this is a bad thing; one could argue a lot of red wines are released way too young. Still, it does raise interesting questions even before tasting around style and intent. To the wine, then.

Decidedly herbaceous. Not breathtakingly so, and whether you will find its piercing cut grass and mulch notes objectionable will likely depend on your tolerance for Bordeaux blends on the leaner, greener side of things. There are also aromas of (slightly too much) vanilla and and dark, concentrated fruits, sort of cherry-like but deeper than this descriptor suggests. 
The palate shows considerable tannin and I suspect this is one reason why the wine has been held back for release. Entry is lean and slippery, and the middle palate does not build much in terms of volume. There’s an intense, focused streak of fruit right down the middle of the line; this feels pretty austere. Chalky tannins build through the middle and after palates, I question whether they are fully ripe; like the nose, it’s all a bit edgy without being completely over the top. Quite a long finish, all told.
A marginal wine that I suspect will divide drinkers. I like its brightness and focus, but acknowledge it will be a bit too lean for some.

Dindima
Price: $A35
Closure: Diam
Source: Sample

Yelland & Papps Devote Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

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Two things to note up front regarding this wine: it doesn’t smell or taste much like Cabernet, and I’ve personally struggled with it over two days of tasting. From which some readers may conclude it’s a bad wine, or that I don’t like it, neither of which is necessarily the case. It is atypical and difficult. It’s also oddly compelling and quite drinkable. 

Starting with the nose: nougat-heavy, somewhat malty oak flavours cushion red, plum-like fruits and an odd tarry note. It’s very expressive in its way, though the aroma profile is angular and overwhelming in equal measure. It reminds me of a woolen blanket you’ve just taken out of storage; promising comfort but giving off strange smells that are both familiar and difficult to love.
In the mouth – plenty of flavour for sure. A rush of confectionary red fruit alongside a slightly raw, twiggy note, plus the aforementioned coal tar. In form, it’s quite uncontrolled, lurching this way and that, swelling on the middle palate and turning suddenly towards a thinner expression through the after palate. It’s also charismatic and a bit of a wag. Some heat on the finish seems oddly appropriate.
What to make of this? Bad vintage? Perhaps, though in terms of wine appreciation, that strikes me as a cop-out. Still, its aesthetics defeat me; you may have better luck.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A32
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Second Nature Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2008

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It’s probably counter productive to go to the gym then pick up McDonalds on the way home. And yet, here I am, pleased to report my Mighty Angus went down superbly, well accompanied by this reasonably priced McLaren Vale blend. I’m a firm believer even the humblest meal can be a bit special, and that the right wine is often the key. But then, I’ve been known to match wine with Chicko rolls, so trust me at your peril.

What one really needs in this situation is a wine that stands up to the, at times, coarse flavours of fast food – those salty, greasy, perhaps sweet components that make the experience so enjoyable. This wine responds to those challenges with a firm, robust flavour profile and sufficient structure to combat the excesses of a burger, without sacrificing the soft luxury of an easy drinking red wine. On the nose, rather non-specific but expressive red and black berry fruits, a hint of brambly vegetation and some supportive bubble gum oak. It’s far from complex; what makes it work is its sense of harmony and composure. It’s “just right.” 
The palate is refreshingly acidic while retaining good body and presence in the mouth. Entry is textural and quite lively, leading to a middle palate that shows a fruit-driven flavour profile. Mixed berries mostly, with a lick of latte and some crushed leaves, all moderate in intensity. Again, quite straightforward, easy, and drinkable. There’s no shred of the confectionary flavours that can plague lower priced red wines. Oak lifts the after palate to a dry finish that shows some dried fruit characters alongside the structural elements. 
Not a wine of sophistication or complexity, but really fun and drinkable nonetheless. Sort of like my Mighty Angus. A good match.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A18
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample