Aussie Cab
Shiraz is of course Australia’s signature grape variety, but there’s plenty of Cabernet Sauvignon planted too. In fact, Cabernet production in the country rose from just 620 tonnes in 1966 to 255,000 tonnes in 2016, making it the second most planted grape variety in the country. .
I recently attended a seminar focused on Cabernet from across Australia, featuring four winemakers from Margaret River, Coonawarra, McLaren Vale, and Eden Valley. The seminar may have been centred on Cabernet, but a clear theme was also to challenge conceptions that Australia produces monolithic, full-bodied wines and prove that such a large country has many regional variations—and variations within those regions.
Margaret River
The winemaker representing Margaret River was Virginia Willcock of Vasse Felix, the region’s first ever winery back in 1967. At a time when there wasn’t much Cabernet in Australia and Margaret River wasn’t even a wine region, it was visionary to plant Bordeaux varieties there. That decision was driven by the similarity in temperature and soil types to Bordeaux, and Margaret River has become one of Australia’s most prestigious regions.
The soils are gravel and loam on top of clay, which are ideal for Cabernet as it’s a productive variety—the gravel is free draining, containing Cabernet’s vigour by forcing the vines to dig their roots deep to find water in the clay. Air circulation is also important for Cabernet, and the strong breezes coming in from three different sides of the peninsula keep the vineyards fresh.
Virginia Willcock is a passionate speaker and a great winemaker, as the superb wines of Vasse Felix—at all price points—demonstrate. She spoke, in her broad Australian accent, of the “sublime tannins” of Margaret River Cabernet, and there’s no doubt there’s a smooth elegance to the wines. She argued that comes from the region’s growing conditions “which push the ripeness of Cabernet all the way to the limit.”
She also attributed the style of Margaret River Cabernet to the clone used in the region. Called the Heritage Clone, it’s different from the Cabernet clones used in the rest of Australia. It was first planted in the Houghton Vineyard in Swan Valley—the oldest of Western Australia’s regions and mostly associated with high-volume wines—in 1854, and cuttings were taken from the vineyard when higher-quality regions such as Margaret River were established in the 1960s onwards. The Cabernet Sauvignon in Houghton Vineyard had never been grafted to rootstock or received irrigation, giving it a unique identity and a pure representation of the variety.
Cabernet Sauvignon is mainly planted in the northern part of Margaret River, due to the soils. In contrast, Chardonnay, which isn’t as prolific as Cabernet, is planted in the southern part where the soils have more clay and more water retention.
In relation to the weather, Willcock mentioned that the local climate has remained the same for the last 100 years, in contrast to the rest of Australia and many other regions around the world which are heating up rapidly.
wines tasted
Vasse Felix “Tom Cullity” 2014 ($165) ✪✪✪✪✪✪
Tom Cullity, a doctor from Perth, was the founder of Vasse Felix and the first to plant in Margaret River. He planted not only Cabernet Sauvignon but also Malbec, a variety which at the time had fallen out of favour in Bordeaux, and the use of Malbec is a distinctive feature of Vasse Felix’s wines—the Tom Cullity has 16% Malbec as well as 4% Petit Verdot. This is a superb wine, smooth, concentrated, and perfumed, with dusty tannins and a long finish. It also has distinctive menthol aromas, which Virginia Willcock attributed to the nearby “peppy” trees. The blank looks from the audience prompted her to explain that a peppy tree is in actual fact a peppermint tree.
Howard Park “Scottsdale” Great Southern 2015 ($39) ✪✪✪✪
Great Southern is another region in Western Australia, although one with a more continental climate. The nights are cooler than Margaret River and the days warmer, with strong breezes coming in from the Southern Ocean. Scottsdale is a vineyard planted in 1966 and the wine is fleshy, juicy, and on the big side but balanced with smooth, grainy tannins.
Coonawarra
A region in the middle of nowhere, like Margaret River plantings in Coonawarra only began in the 1960s. It’s a small, cigar-shaped region, just 15km long and 4km wide. A 100 million years ago it was covered by the ocean before the ice age and a subsequent big melt resulted in soils with a limestone bed and an iron-rich, 30cm deep topsoil which—importantly for Cabernet—is free-draining, while the limestone retains the water. The iron in the topsoil gives Coonawarra its distinctive red colour. The climate is influenced by the Southern Ocean, winds coming in during the summer afternoons which cool the nights down. I visited Coonawarra at the height of summer and it was noticeable how quickly it became quite cold.
Coonawarra Cabernet—which is pretty much all the region makes—is very distinctive, with pronounced menthol aromas. Penley Estate winemaker Kate Goodman described the wines as “blood, earth, and iron” and I also have a note “powdery death”—I have to confess I have no idea what that means.
wines tasted
Penley Estate “Helois” 2016 ($100) ✪✪✪✪✪
Aged in 50% new French oak for 18 months, this is a great example of Cabernet from Coonawarra, dense but vibrant with aromas of menthol, olives, and black pepper, dry, dusty tannins, and quite meaty—“blood, earth, and iron” are apt descriptors.
Yalumba “The Menzies” 2014 ($58) ✪✪✪✪
There aren’t many wineries actually based in Coonawarra and quite a few of the big producers from elsewhere in South Australia own land there. Yalumba are the oldest family-owned producer in Australia and make a whole range of wines. This Cabernet Sauvignon has an unusual ageing regimen: 34% new French and 2% new Hungarian oak, the rest of the wine matured in one-year-old French, American, and Hungarian oak. The wine is fruity and ripe, with a really nice crunchiness to it.
McLaren Vale
McLaren Vale is better known for its old-vine Grenache, but Cabernet is grown there too. As it prefers a cooler climate than Grenache, Cabernet is planted on the northern slopes overlooking the valley floor where Grenache—and other Mediterranean grapes—are grown. Winemaker Chris Carpenter commented that Cabernet “needs its downtime,” which is why the cooling influence is so important—for all the regions the balance between warmth and coolness was consistently mentioned. Carpenter also said that “Cabernet is about tannin management” and the nature of the tannins is an integral part of the varied styles, structure, and taste of the different regions. He also claimed that the tannins in McLaren Vale aren’t as overt as in the other regions, but I found the wines the most tannic of the lot.
wines tasted
d’Arenberg “Coppermine Road” 2016 ($65) ✪✪✪✪✪
Maybe it was the youth of the two McLaren Vale wines that made their tannins stand out—this Cabernet from leading producer d’Arenberg had an incredibly dry, tannic mouthfeel as well as pronounced minty aromas. This is a wine for the long haul, with the acidity as well as tannic structure to last another ten years at least.
Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard “Trueman” 2016 ($75) ✪✪✪✪
The Clarendon Vineyard, located on the northern slopes of McLaren Vale, is an acclaimed source for Cabernet in the region. It’s owned by the Hickinbotham winery, where Chris Carpenter is the winemaker. The wine is big, fruity, and spice, with a round tannic structure. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Carpenter also makes wine in the Napa Valley.
Eden Valley
Demonstrating that Australia is not all about warm climates, we finished with Eden Valley where Cabernet may not always successfully ripen. Eden Valley is next door to Barossa Valley, but due to higher elevation—500m compared to 200-300m in Barossa—ripening takes place two weeks earlier. This means that even more than with the other regions, site selection is key. Historic producer Henschke first made Cabernet in 1978 and then began to take it seriously in the 1980s. They planted it on a north-facing slope—the equivalent of a south-facing slope in the northern hemisphere—which acts, in Stephen Henschke’s words, like a solar panel. The slope is part of the Mount Lofty Ranges which run north-south and act as a barrier from weather coming in from the ocean. Despite all these localised conditions, it’s still a challenge getting Cabernet ripe and Henschke don’t make it every year.
wine tasted
Henschke “Cyril Henschke” 2015 ($180) ✪✪✪✪✪✪
The soils are sandy loam, gravel, and clay, with the Cabernet Sauvignon planted at the top of the slope and a little Cabernet Franc and Merlot beneath. There’s a really nice ripeness to the wine, which gives the wine a juicy mouthfeel that’s balanced by fresh acidity and fine tannins followed by a long spicy finish. A very classic and classy Cabernet.
