A celebration of Australian Cabernet by Jancis Robinson

 

Julia has already enthused about Amelia Jukes’ showcase of top Australian Shiraz in London last May. Last month I was lucky enough to attend the follow-up, dedicated to top Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

Just about every top-scoring wine in our collection of over 1,200 tasting notes on Australian wines that actually have Cabernet Sauvignon in their name (there will be many more Oz wines dependent on Cabernet that don’t) was represented. The odd omission such as Wendouree of Clare Valley and Domaine A in Tasmania (which was sold fairly recently) were presumably missing because, alas, we don’t see them in the UK.

 

Many of these current releases were presented alongside a more mature vintage, often a much more mature vintage, providing a great basis for monitoring progress.

 

Australian wine production used to be associated with harnessing technology to provide efficiency but it was interesting to see when comparing older with younger vintages, as with the Shirazes, the increasingly gentle hand in the winery and increasing awareness of the need to work in harmony with Nature in the vineyard rather than imposing a heavy human hand. I picked out from the wonderfully detailed notes supplied on individual wines expressions such as ‘regenerating the famous old vines’ (Kaesler of Barossa Valley), ‘grazing stock and composting of grape material post fermentation’ (the 1965 Forest Hill Vineyard in Mount Barker) and ‘biodynamic, carbon neutral and naturally powered’ (Cullen of Margaret River).

 

Comparing my scores for younger and older vintages of the same wine doesn’t reveal a decisive win for the younger wines, but I suspect that’s because Cabernet Sauvignon, notably more than Shiraz I would argue, really does benefit from bottle age. So the older vintages began with a head start.

And, at the risk of being accused of wokery, I’d like to point out that of the 65 instances of named winemakers (sometimes two winemakers cited for the same wine; sometimes a change of personnel between vintages), nine are female, in many instances taking over from men who made the older vintage. This would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

 

There has been a distinct cooling of the love affair between Australian wine and non-Australian wine drinkers, in the UK since about 2009 and the US a few years later. This is a shame since, as anyone who has spent time in Australia’s capital cities can attest, Australian wine is on a roll. The recent book How to Drink Australian makes that point. The authors, Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross, are doing their best to enthuse American wine drinkers with their import company Legend Australia.

I’m delighted that in the UK there is one new importer LC Selections that is determined to show Brits what’s currently going on Down Under. The Wine Society has an extremely enthusiastic Australian buyer in Freddy Bulmer. And Liberty Wines continue to import some of Australia’s finest.

So in theory the future should be bright for fine Australian Cabernet, and the prices in some instances are extremely reasonable. We just have to get over those prejudices and realise how much has changed in Australian wine. 

 

Bright crimson. Pale rim. Transparent and determined not to be thick! But just a little lacking mid-palate weight. Certainly fresh but will it give enough pleasure?

 

Lovely subtly shaded blackish ruby. Gloriously opulent, nuanced and seductive on the nose. Sweet start but not heavy nor over-oaked. A sort of stereotypical Margaux! Really lovely and very persistent.

 

Dark shaded crimson. Rather toasty. Very round and pleasing. Already complete and satisfying.

 

Minerally nose and a very fresh and appealing combo of sweet fruit and a light medicinal note. Just a bit hard and too stony on the end.